South Beach Diet - Understanding What it is

Without going into too much detail about the diet the South Beach Diet is basically one that restricts the types of fat and also the types of carbohydrates that you take in. It should not be confused with other low fat or low carbohydrate slimming diets as this certainly isn’t one of them.

It was first developed by cardiologist Dr. Arthur Agatston and dietician Marie Almon. The initial purpose was to develop a diet that was friendly to the heart. It was meant to be an alternative to the strict diets that were prescribed by the American Heart Foundation in the 80’s. It was a diet that was to prevent heart disease as the stats at the time indicated that Americans were being exposed to ever higher levels of risk to heart disease through the food they ate.

The start of the south beach diet wasn’t so much the understanding that certain fats would lead to heart problems. This was already established many years ago and is a well know fact. Rather, the diet was the result of further understanding of the normal practices of people who were put on these diets and their subsequent actions in trying to keep to this low-fat diet. People adhering to this diet would eat foods that were generally low in fat and thus were not satisfying their hunger prompting them to eat more than was actually required. Most patience would substitute their fat with carbohydrates which although isn’t considered as bad as fats for your heart, will still provide caloric increases and thus make people fat in the long run.

In addition to the extra caloric intake from carbohydrates the human body also has a reaction to carbohydrates that is unfavorable when it comes to dieting or slimming. When carbohydrates enter the body it is converted to sugar in the bloodstream, the body will signal the pancreas to excrete insulin which will in-turn trigger cells from all over the body to absorb the sugars. This process in itself isn’t a problem and is the normal functioning way that the body gets sugars to the cells. The problem is that our eating habits are as such that we aren’t exposed to sugars constantly throughout the day, rather the dieters will have 3 carbohydrate rich meals a day which will send sugar levels in your body spiking 3 times a day. A spike in the blood sugar levels will cause a spike in insulin levels too which will cause hypoglycemia. The body’s adaptation to this is to make your cells less resistant to insulin which is actually a condition we normally call type 2 diabetes.

Consideration was taken regarding the replacement of fat with carbohydrates and the long-term affect of extra carbohydrates in the system. It is thus that Dr. Agatston modified the diet by modifying the diet into what is commonly recognized as the South Beach Diet today. The main characteristics of the South Beach Diet are its careful selection of carbohydrates and fats that are good for you and thus included in this diet and also which carbohydrates and fats that are bad and thus eliminated from this diet. Although there are other types of low-carb or low-fat diets, this diet is a bit more refined in that it defines the carbohydrates and fats which can be eaten and which ones that should be avoided.

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