South Beach Diet

gallimaufry

Hi everyone, I'm a long time reader, first time poster on these boards. I'm hoping to lose a stone and a half or so, I'm 5'7 and roughly 11 and a half stone. I'd like to get down to about 10 stone and while I was in America recently I bought a copy of the South Beach Diet.
Now I've NEVER gone in for fad diets before, or ever even considered buying a diet book. Every time I've tried to lose weight I've just eaten sensibly and exercised, but find I can never stick with it. However, a friend of a friend tried this diet and said it really does work, long-term.
From what I can gather, the first two weeks seem the hardest, kind of like Atkins with vegetables. After that it just seems to gradually revert back into normal healthy eating, re-introducing healthy carbs and continuing to eat lots of meat and vegetables. I'm just hoping that the initial strictness of this diet will give me the kickstart I need. Also, like I said, planning on doing lots of exercise- cycling to college, classes in the gym and stuff like that.
I was just wondering if anyone has tried this diet, like really given it a good go, and what did they think of it? Is it better suited to some people rather than others?

Cheers! :-)

EileenG

It's a good diet.

By the way, Atkins does have vegetables, lots and lots of them. Anyway, there's a lot of similarity between SB and Atkins. The only thing I have reservations about with SB is that he encourages you to eat margarine rather than butter and is very keen on statins.

However, if you do SB and made a point of eating fresh whole foods, you should have good results.

corkcomp

its a great eating plan overall .. it advocates the good carbs, healthy fats and lots of lean meat, fruit and vegetables ...

gallimaufry

Thanks guys, that's pretty much what I thought. Looking forward to getting stuck in! One more thing... I've seen Eileen mention "refeeding" days- what exactly are these?

corkcomp

gallimaufry wrote: »

Thanks guys, that's pretty much what I thought. Looking forward to getting stuck in! One more thing... I've seen Eileen mention "refeeding" days- what exactly are these?

i wouldnt bother with refeeding days unless your on a serious calorie deficet .. the south beach plan is designed to be a lifelong change once you get to the third phase (maintenance) ... defo have the odd cheat meal but maybe not for the first few weeks ...

EileenG

A refeed day is where you deliberately eat a higher level of calories to stop your body getting too used to low calories. Done right, it can reset leptin levels, boost your thyroid, and provide a mental break from the diet. There's no point unless you are dieting very strictly and ideally, it should be good clean food, not a pile of junk.

If you are doing something like South Beach, where you don't count calories, you don't need to worry about refeed days. You may find you have the odd day when you are hungrier than usual, but on that sort of diet, you can just eat more as long as you stay low carb.

aare

I really like the South Beach myself, and suspect it still is the basis of my restructured, healthier ideas of eating.

Of course I only did it in terms of "what information I could download for free", but I suspect that is all you need...

However, this idea of "refeeding days" interests me...

Someone I know arrived at a similar conclusion all by herself. She is in fabulous shape (though she really has to work for that...no "12 doughnuts for lunch" size 8 I am afraid) but used to be fat. She went to weightwatchers to lose the weight, but somehow fell into a pattern of "binging out" (mostly on biscuits, which she never usually even liked) the night after her weight in.

It kept her going psychologically (she found she didn't need to binge any more often), and the weight kept coming off.

I tried something similar on my last bout of Lipotrim (only, for me, it was chocolate and/or wine - and don't shout till you read all accounts of my "metabolism from hell"), with the same effect...it seemed to "reset" my metabolism in some way, without hugely affecting my ability to tolerate the diet.

My gut feeling is that refeeding days (ok, maybe in a healthier, more structured way ) may be a good addition to ANY diet.

...and they do satisfy the "human factor" beautifully...

EileenG

Yeah, most good low carb diets can be condensed into a few paragraphs, or a couple of pages at most. After that, you are padding out with meal plans and recipes and general medical stuff.

I think the trick with a refeed day is to plan it. Decide in advance that every 10th or 14th day, you will deliberately eat 30-50% more calories than usual, and plan what you are going to eat. This makes it easier to stick to your diet on the other days, and avoids the Post-weigh-in binge.

SMK

I just bought the South Beach Diet book (seems to be a new edition, it's called The South Beach Diet Super Charged). I have only had an opportunity to have a quick glance at it appears breakfast most days is two eggs. I have high cholesterol and I am on medication for it. What is the current thinking on eggs and high cholesterol. I know I can still eat eggs but would 7-10 eggs a week be too much? Thanks

EileenG

The latest research suggests that eating eggs is a great way to deal with cholesterol problems. For most people, eggs tend to increase HDL without increasing LDL. Since the ratio of HDL to LDL is more important than total cholesterol numbers, this is a very good thing.

I've been doing low carb of one sort or another for over seven years now, and eat a LOT of eggs. My last cholesterol test showed HDL the same level as LDL, which really surprised the doctor, but it was excellent.

Of course, if you don't want to eat so many eggs, you can eat fish or thin cut steak or cottage cheese etc for breakfast. You can also make a sort of porridge from flaxmeal but I think I'd rather have the eggs.