How Does South Beach Diet Work?

What is the South Beach Diet?

The South Beach Diet is a three-phase plan that separates itself from the Atkins diet by promoting "good carbs" vs. "bad carbs" and "good fats" vs. "bad fats." According to the diet, the good carbohydrates such as beans, vegetables and whole grains are better at regulating blood sugar than the grains and refined sugars that typically make up the Western diet. Also, it says that trans fats and saturated fats must be eliminated in favor of unsaturated fats that contribute to health cholesterol and a healthy heart. These good fats can be found in oily fish, nuts and lean meats.

The three phases consist of a 2-week strict phase that eliminates most sugar and encourages lean meats, vegetables, nuts and 100 percent olive oil salad dressing, a more liberal second phase that allows dairy, fruits and whole grains, and a third phase that is guided by the lessons learned in the first two phases. The diet states that after you have learned how sugar and hunger can affect your life, you will eat much differently. This is why the time after the diet is called phase three.

Why Do You Lose Weight?

The weight you drop at the beginning of the South Beach Diet is mostly water weight. When the body is deprived of sugar, as it is in the first phase of the diet, and to a lesser extent the second phase, it will begin breaking down the sugar stored in the body. The carbohydrates in the body are locked in stores of glycogen. Since glycogen exists in a sugar and water solution, the body burns off the sugar and only the water is left. This water will be secreted out in the urine. Unless you had been eating quite unhealthily before the diet in such a way that you retained extra water, this is weight that you will lose and almost immediately put back on when you take in enough water and sugar in phase three.

Does That Make the Diet a Scam?

The South Beach Diet is not a scam, but it is a little bit misleading. Cutting out the processed carbohydrates and extra sugar in a diet has been known to improve levels of energy, mood hormone regulation, and has helped to lessen the chases of diabetes. The "good fats" that the diet talks about are well known in the field of cardiology as being heart healthy and they can also lead to improved brain function (see References). If you go into the South Beach Diet with the water weight knowledge, you have a much better chance of getting value out of it. The diet works as a healthy plan because it teaches you the value of changing your food intake to improve the way your body functions.