South Beach Diet overview and principles

South Beach Diet: Help or Hype?

The South Beach Diet is a weight loss plan that severely restricts carbohydrate intake. According to Kellow (2010) there are two primary claims that the South Beach Diet makes. The first is that the dieter will lose up to 13 pounds in the first two weeks. The second is that the majority of the fat lost will come from the dieter's waistline. These claims were made by the diet's originator, Arthur Agatston, in his bestselling book the South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss. But does this diet deliver on its promises? And even if it does, is it safe? Because of the popularity of this diet plan, along with its potential health risks, it is critically important to analyze it. In order to do this, one must first examine how the diet works.

How it Works

The basic principles of the South Beach diet revolve around what is known as the Glycemic Index (GI). As Mendosa (2008) explains, "The glycemic index ranks foods on how they affect our blood glucose levels. This index measures how much your blood glucose increases in the two or three hours after eating" (par. 1). Essentially what this means is that carbohydrates break down into sugars after they are ingested. They are then absorbed into the blood, raising the individual's blood sugar levels which, in turn, triggers a release of insulin. When the foods ingested have a high GI and are loaded with carbohydrates, this causes the individual's blood sugar level to drop, causing the body to crave more carbohydrates. This creates a vicious cycle of hunger that causes people to eat more and gain weight. Making weight gain even more likely is the fact that the body begins to build up a tolerance to the insulin response, which results in the storage of more fat around the belly (Kellow, 2010). Therefore the theory behind the South Beach Diet is that if dieters severely restrict the amount of carbohydrates they eat, they will break this cycle and start losing weight, particularly in the stomach area.

The types of foods with the highest GI include (those scoring 70 or more) include bagels, white rice, white bread and potatoes. In contrast, the types of foods with the lowest GI (those scoring 70 or more) include artificially sweetened yogurt, peanuts and tomatoes ("High" n.d.). While some diet plans focus almost solely on fat intake or calorie intake, the South Beach Diets puts carbohydrate intake above all else. This does not mean that it allows dieters to eat as much fat and calories as they like, however. The originator of the diet, Agatston (2005), suggests that saturated fats and trans fats be replaced by more heart-healthy substitutes such as legumes and olive oil because "ounce for ounce, fats have more calories than carbs" (p. 18).

In terms of execution, the South Beach Diet is divided in three phases. Phase one lasts two weeks (14 days) and is designed to shock the body into breaking the carbohydrate cycle described above. In these first 2 weeks, during which the diet's designer makes the claim that up to 13 pounds can be lost, almost all carbohydrates are completely forbidden. Phase two, which lasts until the dieter's target weight is reached, allows only low GI carbs. Phase three is the maintenance stage, and more carbs with higher GIs are allowed from then on, but they are still quite restricted (Kellow, 2010). It all sounds perfectly logical. But is it really "foolproof" as the book's subtitle claims? And how healthy is it to shock one's system so dramatically, or even to lose almost a pound a day? The experts have 'weighed in' on this debate quite extensively.

What the Experts Say

According to Medicine.net, nutritionist Cindy Moore stated in a 2003 interview with WebMD that "the diet truly does meet several of the criteria for a healthy diet. it's rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and lean protein…Most importantly, it doesn't leave out any major food groups" (par. 2). However Moore also has some doubts about how 'foolproof' the South Beach Diet is, and warns that the phase one claim of rapid weight loss is actually mostly a loss of water weight, not fat. This would seem to dispute the claim that most of the weight loss is fat from the waist area, however Moore is only speaking about the first two weeks, not the long-term.

Not all experts are so ambivalent, however. For example, Dr. Fuhrman, author of Secrets to Healthy Cooking, had some rather harsh words for the South Beach Diet: "The unscientific and false claims of the popular and ill-advised fad diet offer potentially dangerous advice for the general public and heart patients. This is especially remarkable and worrisome, because the South Beach Diet was written and is promoted by a cardiologist" (par. 2). Fuhrman has three primary objections to the diet. The first is that it promotes yo-yo dieting (gaining and losing weight repeatedly) which has been proven to more damaging to a person's health than simply maintaining their weight, even if it is high. The second objection Fuhrman has is that Dr. Agatston provides no scientific evidence to back up his claim that dieters will "lose belly fat first." The third problem Fuhrman has with the South Beach Diet is that it permits the dieters to eat foods that are high in animal fat, which Fuhrman claims is far more dangerous to the body than carbohydrates could ever be. For these three reasons, Fuhrman believes that "Agatston's South Beach diet does a disservice to America" (par. 16).

As with just about any health or diet aide, or health or diet program, there are strong opinions about the validity of the claims being made on both sides of the fence. The South Beach Diet is no exception. Some experts praise it as the greatest thing since sliced bread, some consider it to be grossly ill-advised and deceitful, and others (the majority) reside somewhere in the middle.