South Beach Diet Pros and Cons - Decide Your Diet Carefully

South Beach Diet is originally created to prevent heart disease by cardiologist Arthur Agatston and dietitian Marie Almon. The original purpose of the program is replacing low fat diet suggested by American Heat Association in 1980s which is turned out to increase the risk of heart disease instead of decrease it. It is gain popularity quickly in the early 2000s as a powerful weight loss program.

The diet basics are actually really simple: replacing “bad carbohydrates” and “bad fats” with “good carbohydrates” and “good fats”:

1. Put relatively unprocessed foods such as vegetables and whole grains in daily meal instead of foods that contain heavily refined sugar.

2. Focus more on unsaturated fats and omega 3 fatty acids which contribute to HDL cholesterol and use it as replacement for trans fat and saturated fats which contribute to LDL cholesterol.

The diet is not consist of one golden session to solve all your problem. Instead, it will divide the process into 3 phases where the first two phases are aim to make you familiar with the concept and lose weight at the same time. The 3rd phase is a maintenance phase which will be last for life where you are expected to understand the basic principles and apply it in your every day’s life.

Pros

1. Prevent heart disease; remember that weight loss is only the nice “side effect”.

2. Low saturated and trans fats; most diet author, nutritionist, or physician will suggest you to minimize consumption of these kind of fats. South Beach Diet food list will help you do that.

3. Known for fast weight loss; up to 13 pounds after you finish the first phase.

4. The diet choose its foods based on low Glycemic Index (GI) which automatically restrict junk food consumption.

5. The food list after 1st phase consist of various foods and doesn’t remove any food groups.

6. Do not require any complicated methods such as calories counting or portion control. You simply pick from the food list provided.

7. The program suggest you to eat at regular portion and having 2 snacks time per day, so there are no reasons to worry about hunger.

Cons

1. The first phase, which is result in most weight loss, has very strict rules about carbohydrates consumption. There are claims that all the weight loss gained during this phase is water loss and not fat loss. As a result, you will regain it after finish the 1st phase.

2. Due to the strict limit of carbohydrates intake in the first phase, there are reports of various side effects such as fatigue, dehydration, lack of vitamins and minerals, and weakness.

3. Using GI to determine good and bad foods is not approved by all the experts in medical community. This method is still controversial because it will remove any food with high GI even when the food is nutritionally beneficial.

4. Lack of proper exercise; although there are some tips on exercising, some people still wondering if it is important while following this plan since the creator doesn’t put exercise in the program priority.

5. The food list contain high protein which will force your kidneys to work harder.

6. The high protein intake will result in extra cost since foods with more protein is more expensive than foods with carbohydrates.

7. Does not support vegetarian dieter or people who can’t eat dairy products; soy, which is considered as meat substitute by most of the vegetarian is prohibited for the first two weeks and most of the snacks are dairy products.

8. It require the cook to be creative; this especially during the first and second phase since the food choice is limited and it could lead to boredom very quickly.

9. Many of the recipes suggested contain difficult preparation and very time consuming.

South Beach Diet is only one of many alternatives when you decide to pick a weight loss program. Put the pros and cons into consideration, you should have known whether it is good for you or not. The main issues I want to focus here is the diet offer lifetime maintenance, which is great; but it is not put consideration into the importance of exercise in a healthy diet, which is bad.