The South Beach Diet is a very popular diet amongst people in this day in time and has been around for several years now. Originally created by cardiologist, Dr. Arthur Agatston, to help resolve his cardiac patients from their ongoing symptoms as well as helping them lose weight at the same time. Little did he know that the diet would become such a success to many people all over the world in their quest to shed their unwanted weight and give them the figure that they have always dreamed of.

The South Beach Diet is compose of three different phases with the first two phases only lasting a short amount of time and the third phase set as a long term diet plan to help maintain and keep your unwanted weight off. Many people find the South Beach Diet to be one of the most popular diet programs to follow because of its lenience versus other similar but more complex diet programs. The South Beach Diet allows a person to forget about calorie counting and focus on eating 3 consecutive meals a day with some pretty tasty meals on the menu at all times.

Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet lasts for 2 weeks and bands you from consuming foods high in carbohydrates. This means not consuming any type of carbohydrate rich foods such as potatoes, bread, rice, or pasta for the entire 2 weeks of the phase. This phase also bands any sugary type foods such as candy, ice cream, or sodas. However you will get to feast on various meats such as beef, chicken, turkey, shrimp and shellfish as well as salads dressed with olive oil, various vegetables, nuts, eggs and cheese.

Phase 2 of the South Beach diet lasts for up to weeks or until you reach your goal weight. In this phase you will be introduced back to the foods that were eliminated before in phase 1. However, you will add them slowly through the weeks and determine what are the good carbs as well as the bad carbs. During this phase you will be allowed to eat fruit, potatoes, rice, pasta, cookies, and cake. You will only be restricted from al fat rich food items such as the food items in phase 1. Once you have balanced your diet throughout the 6 weeks and have reached your goal weight you will then move on to phase 3, which will be a long term diet to maintain your goal weight.

In phase 3 you are permanently changing your eating patterns so that you are able to manage your goal weight. Many people have found this to be an easy transfer after the diet is completely over because they now know the healthy way to eat as well as how to balance their diet. It is very important that you do not sway back to your old eating habits; this will only lead into weight gain and your goal weight a thing of the past.
The South Beach Diet has tons of success stories and is a very popular diet program that dieters all over the world love. The diet not only teaches a person how to eat healthy but teaches them how to portion their foods as well as living with their new and improved eating patterns.