Monday, February 6, 2012

South Beach Phase 1 Diet Benefits

February 8, 2010 by  
Filed under Popular Diets

You have probably heard about the South Beach diet phase 1 by now. Especially if you tend to visit health and weight loss forums or hold a membership with a dieting or health organization. The main concept of the South Beach diet phase 1 is to retrain your body to crave healthy foods rather than those foods that are high in sugar and fats. It achieves this through a series of phases in which it phases out certain foods while phasing others in. The diet has proved effective in meeting weight loss goals and helping people maintain a healthy weight once they have achieved it.

This post will reveal some of the benefits of the South Beach diet and more specifically, the first phase of that diet.

The South Beach diet phase 1 benefits are fantastic. The excellent thing with this phase is that it retrains your body without you even knowing. In effect, it tricks your body into craving healthy foods rather than the foods that are traditionally associated with an unhealthy diet. Of course, a permanent change in eating and exercise habits is crucial to long term health and maintaining a healthy weight. The South Beach diet phase one has been shown to be extremely effective in doing this.

The main aspect of this phase is the food. For most people, the transition to this diet is much easier than it is to other diets because the recommended foods are ones which they are probably already eating. These foods include:

  • Chicken
  • Beef
  • Fish
  • Turkey
  • Nuts
  • Eggs
  • Cheese and
  • Vegetables

Garden salad may also be eaten but any dressings should be made with 100% olive oil (preferably extra virgin olive oil). At this phase of the diet it is important to eliminate sugary foods particularly, but also any other foods outside the recommendations of the South Beach diet phase 1.

The most important aspect of this diet is undoubtedly the fact that it slowly trains your body to crave healthy foods as opposed to the unhealthy foods that are usually craved. You don’t need to deprive your body of food with the South Beach diet phase 1.. in fact, quite the opposite is true. During this phase of the diet you will be eating three main meals PLUS a snack between meals. This is crucial to the success of the diet as it ensures that your metabolism operates at a high rate to burn extra calories. It should be noted that unlike many diets, consumption of tea and coffee is acceptable with the South Beach diet.

One of the reasons the South beach diet phase 1 is so successful is because it modifies your long term eating habits which helps to keep the weight off.

Foods to be avoided during this phase include;

  • Potatoes
  • Pasta
  • Rice
  • Bread
  • Fruit
  • Cakes & pastries
  • Snack bars
  • Candy
  • Cookies
  • Ice cream

As you can see, most of these come from the first food group. Foods like potato, rice, pasta and bread and sugar supply carbohydrates which provide the body’s primary source of energy for daily activity. Reducing these carbohydrates forces the body to burn fat for everyday energy requirements. So as long as you follow the South Beach diet phase 1 to the letter you will be successful in your attempts to lose weight

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