Making sense of slimming

If your idea of a diet is an eating plan which will allow you to make healthy choices about the food you eat, you no doubt will have been disappointed on more than one occasion in the past. There are numerous diets where you are so restricted, you just end up craving for those things on the “forbidden” list, and your chance of succeeding at losing those surplus pounds is practically non-existent.
Fortunately, that is not the case with the South Beach Diet. Contrary to other diet plans, the list of foods you can eat on the South Beach Diet is much longer than the list of foods you must avoid.
The South Beach Diet does not forbid the foods you really enjoy; it just teaches you to eat them in a different manner. This is why it is so successful. For example, if you are a meat eater, you will not be expected to totally cut out red meats in particular - you just have to learn to eat the leaner cuts and in smaller portions.

When you are first considering the South Beach Diet, have a long look at Phase 1. This is the most restricted part of the diet, yet you will find it is surprisingly varied and quite a few of the things you would expect you are not allowed are there on the menu.

For example, you can eat sweets during Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet. Yes, you read that right. You are allowed to eat up to 75 “sweet” calories per day during Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet. You can also eat beef, eggs, low-fat lunch meat, pork, poultry and cheese, as long as it is low-fat or fat-free. And if you’re a seafood lover, the South Beach Diet won’t feel like a diet to you at all, because seafood is allowed - and promoted - on all phases of the diet plan.

Many people who do their own cooking are often unsure about appropriate ingredients when adapting their usual recipes. At the start of the South Beach Diet, you are restricted to canola and olive oils and non or low fat milk and yogurt but these bans are lifted as soon as you have made your way past phase 1 and home-cooking becomes far easier and much more straightforward.
During Phase 1, you eliminate fruits, full-fat dairy foods and grains from your diet. After two weeks of this, your cravings for these foods are drastically reduced, and once your body is cleansed of these negative nutrients, your digestive system works better and you will lose weight more easily and consistently.

So when you are deciding which diet to go on and find yourself asking the question “What can I eat on the South Beach diet?” take a minute to look at the basic foods list and you will find all the information you need to get you started and sail through to a healthier way of life, losing excess weight along the way.