South Beach Diet Pros and Cons - Make Your Choice Wisely
South Beach Diet created by cardiologist Arthur Agatston and dietitian Marie Almon is originally a diet to prevent heart disease. Dr. Agatston see the danger of low fat diet suggested by American Heart Association in 1980 which increase the risk of heart disease, not reduce it; so he create this diet as its substitute.
The diet basics are actually really simple: replacing “bad carbohydrates” and “bad fats” with “good carbohydrates” and “good fats”:
1. Replaced foods that contain heavily refined sugar with relatively unprocessed foods such as vegetables, beans, and whole grains.
2. Eliminate trans fat and saturated fats which contribute to LDL cholesterol and replace it with unsaturated fats and omega 3 fatty acids which will contribute to HDL cholesterol.
There are 3 phase in this diet. The 1st is aim to make you familiar with the basic concept and apply strict diet which will make you lose weight significantly, the 2nd is prolonged session of the 1st phase but with less strict rules. When you enter 3rd phase, you are considered to have mastered all the basic principle and can carry it for the rest of your life.
Pros
1. The diet is originally created to prevent heart disease; weight loss in only one of its side effect.
2. Reduce or eliminating saturated and trans fats; this alone will avoid you from many potentially chronic disease.
3. Fast weight loss feature; up to 13 pounds in the 1st phase.
4. All the foods in this diet is selected based on low Glycemic Index (GI), thus restrict junk food consumption.
5. Various food choice; it consists of various foods and doesn’t eliminate certain food groups.
6. Simple; no calories counting or portion control, just choose your foods from the food list provided.
7. No hunger involved; it suggests eating in regular portion size with 2 snacks time, so hunger is not part of this diet.
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. The diet doesn’t include proper instruction on exercising; this make some dieter wondering about the importance of exercise in South Beach Diet.
5. The diet will make your kidney work harder since it contain high protein intake.
6. Require extra cost; especially on the first phase since the high protein foods are more expensive than the carbohydrates foods.
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.