The South Beach Diet

[Jenise]

Anyone here have luck with the diet?

Anyone here have luck with the diet?

I have trouble digesting sand and shallow pop culture.

[Jenise]

Aw come on. I know you have a pile of Mariah Carey CD's in your car.

Anyone here have luck with the diet?

Yes, but then I started drinking wine!

A lot of these diets are fads. A lot have sound basis in body and blood chemistry. But ultimately, no matter what diet you're on, no matter what you eat, it comes down to a simple fact. If you ingest more calories than you burn up, you will gain weight. If you burn up more calories than you ingest, you will lose weight.

Aw come on. I know you have a pile of Mariah Carey CD's in your car.

Van Morrison is about as close as I get to Mariah. I do have Tannhauser with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, though.

Your reply made me remember that when my son was very much younger he always asked to hear Fischer-Dishtowel. Yes, we had many of those CD's in our car for long trips.

About South Beach, pretty overblown. The diet, don't know.

Anyone here have luck with the diet?

Jenise, after my initial smart-ass answer, I will tell you this.....I lost about 8% of my body weight during the 2 week Phase 1 period. Unfortunately that was in early December and the holidays were their usual diet-buster.

We did have some success with it... I don't know for sure, but the body/blood chemistry part of it really seems to make sense. But we got to missing bread, pasta, potatoes so much we just fell away from it. Something that I was surprised by was the daily intake of food. You can really eat all day, if you're eating the "right" kind of stuff.

Oh, and the wine thing.... yeah, that didn't work so much either.

Oh, and the wine thing.... yeah, that didn't work so much either.

IIRC, white wine is described as one of the worst liquids to ingest. Red wine has some heart-beneficial aspects whereas white wine has no redeeming medical virtues.

IIRC, white wine is described as one of the worst liquids to ingest. Red wine has some heart-beneficial aspects whereas white wine has no redeeming medical virtues.

Not if you believe one major medical study that shows it is the alcohol itself that is beneficial -- it raises HDL cholesterol.

Other studies show red wine have antioxidants that help prevent LDL cholesterol from becoming oxidized, thus active.

I haven't tried it my self but I remember JBL lost about 25 pounds on it and was very happy how it worked. He's in Europe now, will be back in a couple of weeks or so. If you remind me I'll ask him to drop you an email when he gets back.

I was born in Miami and went to South Beach a lot - long before it was known as South Beach.

I'm on the thin side, and when I was a kid I was skinny. So I guess you could say that the South Beach diet worked for me - long before it even had a name.

Actually, the best diet is eat what you like in small portions, don't eat junk between meals, and drink water or plain unsweetened tea throughout the day - not soda, not sweet drinks.

[And I mean no sweet drinks!. I am not suggesting you avoid sugar. I suggest you avoid either sugared or artificially sweetened drinks. People who feel they need a sweetener in their beverage are setting themselves up psychologically for all kinds of bad eating habits. You need to get your perspective that drinks do not have to be sweet to be satisfying. Once you do that, you can dispense with other bad eating habits. Get rid of all the artificial sweeteners in your diet and eat real food in small portions.]

I was born in Miami and went to South Beach a lot - long before it was known as South Beach.

I'm on the thin side, and when I was a kid I was skinny. So I guess you could say that the South Beach diet worked for me - long before it even had a name.

Actually, the best diet is eat what you like in small portions, don't eat junk between meals, and drink water or plain unsweetened tea throughout the day - not soda, not sweet drinks.

[And I mean no sweet drinks!. I am not suggesting you avoid sugar. I suggest you avoid either sugared or artificially sweetened drinks. People who feel they need a sweetener in their beverage are setting themselves up psychologically for all kinds of bad eating habits. You need to get your perspective that drinks do not have to be sweet to be satisfying. Once you do that, you can dispense with other bad eating habits. Get rid of all the artificial sweeteners in your diet and eat real food in small portions.]

My agent once asked me if I could write a diet book. I said no, because everything I believe on that topic can be summed up in four words - eat less, move more.