South Beach Diet, A Scam Or Does It Work?

Overview. Dr Agatston, a leading American cardiologist, initially created the SouthBeach diet for his heart patients.  While his diet was to improve his patients heart wellbeing, he discovered that a side effect of the diet was that they lost considerable amounts of weight.  He claims this isn’t a low-carb or low-fat diet – instead it focuses on eating the ‘right’ carbs and the ‘right’ fats.  In fact, the South Beach Diet is based on the Glycemic index.  It begins by severely restricting carbohydrates in the first two weeks, before gradually re-introducing those with a lower on the glycemic index. In addition, it recommends swapping saturated fats for unsaturated fats.

The South Beach Diet follows the same principles of other diets based on the Glycemic Index.  SouthBeach is divided into three phases.  In Phase One, most carbohydrates are banned to give your body a complete rest from fluctuating blood sugar and insulin levels.  The theory is this will help to resolve insulin resistance.  During Phase One, the banned foods list includes bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, fruit, milk, sweets, cake, biscuits, ice cream, sugar and alcohol.  A few low GI vegetable such as broccoli and cabbage are allowed, but the focus is on eating lean meat, chicken, fish, eggs, low-fat cheese, some nuts and olive oil.  You follow this phase for 14 days.

In Phase Two, low GI carbs including most fruits, Granary bread, wholegrain cereals and pasta and low-fat milk are reintroduced. The idea is to stay with this phase until you’ve reached your target weight.  Finally, in Phase Three, you introduce an even wider variety of foods.  This phase is aimed at keeping your weight steady and the diet recommends you stay on this for life.

What we like about this plan. The South Beach Diet differs from its low-carb competitors, like Atkins, in that it restricts saturated fats, which are associated with health problems like heart disease and high cholesterol.  The plan reduces the cravings for sugars, sweets and other carbohydrates because the diet is supposed to keep blood sugar levels sustained.  Its importance on fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and heart-healthy fats is an eating plan that is full of vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids. 

Dr Agatston has great support from the medical science community.  There is a new updated book released in 2008, “South Beach Diet: Supercharged”.  The book does an excellent job getting a dieter started and includes great recipes.  There is also a complete line of South Beach Diet foods that can be purchased in your grocery store from cereals to frozen meals.

What we dislike about this plan. The plan is tough for a vegetarian and a non-fish eater.  The science behind Dr. Agatston’s assertions about certain foods and their ability to raise blood sugar levels or put on weight is inaccurate.  Alcohol is forbidden in the induction phase and limited in the long-term diet.  The book contains no exercise guidelines.  Recipes rely on a lot of NutraSweet and sugar alcohols, which many find difficult to digest.  To become a member of the website you must join for 6.00 a week.

How Healthy Is This Plan? It is a overall healthy plan after the first phase. Its encouragement of eating vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats is marvelous.  Its elimination of white sugar and refined carbohydrates is equally creditable, but not so easy to follow.  Many people have been successful losing weigh following the South Beach Diet and have been able to keep it off.  The South Beach Diet has some scientific flaws and many nutritionists would argue that its promise of losing 8-12 pounds in 14 days is a bit aggressive and is certainly water weight and some muscle, especially since exercising is not addressed.

Here Is the Bottom Line. The South Beach Diet only requires serious willpower for the first two weeks during Phase One.  Nevertheless, this phase is extremely restrictive. If you can get past the initial phase, then it will get easier.  No major food groups are eliminated, plenty of fruit and vegetables are recommended and generally the diet follows the use of the glycemic index and taking heart health into consideration.  If you can handle the restriction of carbs, this plan will be a plan for you.

© 2008 – 2009 Which Weight Loss

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South Beach Smile- New Innovations in Teeth Whitening

A person with a set of pearly white teeth never fails to get attention. This is not only because it is pleasing to look at but also because it tells a lot about the person. If you have extra white teeth, it shows that you value cleanliness. It shows that you never miss on brushing your teeth to keep them clean and your mouth smelling fresh. But what if you happen to have yellowish teeth? Does this mean that you are lazy in taking care of your teeth and you do not value cleanliness?

When someone has yellowish teeth, it doesn’t always mean that he fails in his responsibility to clean them well. Yellowing can be caused by different reasons. Here are some of them.

Drinking too much coffee and tea. These two leave stain marks on the teeth. Drinking too much red wine. Like the other two drinks, red wine also leaves stain. Smoking cigarettes. Nicotine in cigarettes leaves brown marks on the enamel of the teeth. Trauma and aging Treatment with antibiotic especially during tooth formation.

To address people’s concern about having extra white teeth, dentists and scientists have done researches and clinical studies to develop products that are easy to use. Some of those things that they have discovered are whitening toothpastes, whitening strips and whitening floss. There are also home whitening kits like Southbeach Smile’s Professional Whitening Systems that uses Carbamide Peroxide applied to the teeth with custom fitting impression trays. Southbeach Smile is enhanced with a desensitizing agent to address teeth sensitivity problems. Because of these innovations, gone were the days when the only thing you can do to get rid of heavily stained teeth is to have them capped or crowned.

http://www.whiteningnowreview.com

This is footage I shot and edited from Memorial Day Weekend 2008 in South Beach! Enjoy and please leave good comments!

The Truth about Diet and Weight Loss I want to talk tonight about weight loss. It’s a subject everyone is worried about. And the problem is that diets don’t work. Everybody has tried a diet. I haven’t met a person yet that’s hasn’t tried something, from kids to people in their eighties; everybody has tried some kind of diet and they just don’t work. In recent studies when they looked at a lot of their major diets (some good one’s, Atkins, The Zone), they put them all together statistically and found a ten pound weight loss on average. Now, these people lost a hundred pounds and gained it back of course. But, all that work, all that money, all those videos, for ten pounds of weight loss? So the truth is, we have to find a life style that will allow you to stay at a weight that is healthy for you. That’s a much different way of thinking than all this crash dieting that goes on. What you have to learn is how to take care of yourself; you have to learn the appropriate foods; you have to make better choices. That’s the only way it’s going to work. Dr. Vincent Bellonzi BS,DC,CCN, CSCS, ACSM H/FI Dr.Vincent Bellonzi is a chiropractor and a Certified Clinical Nutritionist. He has been in practice for over 12 years. He received his Doctorate from Los Angeles College of Chiropractic in 1991. Since 1998, Dr. Bellonzi has practiced in the Austin area. He works with athletes at every level to provide sports conditioning and rehabilitation. He also treats multiple conditions including …

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Five years ago, with the publication of The South Beach Diet, renowned Miami cardiologist Dr. Arthur Agatston set out to change the way America eats. Now he has an even more ambitious goal: to change the way America lives by helping Americans become fitter as well as thinner and healthier . . . for life.  In the all-new The South Beach Diet Supercharged, Dr. Agatston shows you how to rev up your metabolism and lose weight faster while following the proven healthy eating principles of the origin

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