Rating: 
Summary: Lost 10 pounds in two weeks
Review: I'm not one to normally write a review but I've been real pleased with the results of this diet. I had been carrying around 50 extra pounds for years and could never get rid of it. I lost 10 pounds in the first two weeks on phase 1 and couldn't be happier. My wife has had problems with high cholesterol and triglycerides levels in her blood for several years and was willing to try anything to avoid having to take medication. She was only on the diet for 3 weeks and had a medical exam which included blood work. Her triglyceride levels were well within the acceptable range and her cholesterol was also was noticeably lower compared to previous year's results.We enjoy the variety in this diet although I guess it may be difficult for some people to follow the recipes if they don't know how to cook very well. Generally we haven't found any of the recipes all that difficult to prepare. Probably the most daunting task is the first couple trips to the grocery store to obtain all of the ingredients to allow us to prepare the food. We initially found ourselves forgetting something and so we were running to the store quite often the first week of the diet. We did try to plan the week's menu and try to get everything in one take at the store but we sometimes missed an item or two. As I write this review after being on the diet for 2 1/2 months now I'm 25 pounds lighter and the wife has lost 15 pounds and is disovering an new wardrobe of clothes which she hadn't been able to fit into for a few years. Our cravings for bad carbs like potato chips, bread, and chocolate are gone. We're still on phase two and are now enjoying good carbs. We do allow ourselves a little bit of chocolate but now it's only a few small squares of dark chocolate. We also know what we should and shouldn't eat when we travel and can't have our own food around to prepare our meals.
Rating:
Summary: Lost 6lbs in 1st week
Review: I bought this to help me take off a few pounds and to help lower my cholesterol. My father has had heart problems since he was 52, which I'm fast approaching. This appears to be the diet for me. I found most all of the information on eating healthy fats and avoiding refined carbohydrates very good advice from everything I've been reading lately. Good read. Could use a little more "meat" about the diet details, more information would be helpful about actually being on the diet. If your mid 40ish, slightly overweight and have a family history which warrants you keep a healthy lifestyle and eating habits, then this should be the plan for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy to follow
Review: Simple, easy, fast. I have lost 6 pounds. I feel great! It works for me and I hope for you too.
Rating: 
Summary: Sensible, but hardly enough material for an entire book
Review: I bought this to help take off a few pounds and to give to a friend who has high cholesterol, and I do think that the information on eating healthy fats, and avoiding sugar and refined carbohydrates is worthwhile reading. But there sure as heck isn't anough information in this "book" to justify calling it that. Only pages 3-107 cover information related to the author's theories of nutrition and weight loss, and those pages are VERY repetitive, plus they are liberally sprinkled with testimonials and half-blank pages. (Hey, when I was guilty of that kind of padding in some of my college papers, the professors called me on it.) The vast majority of the book, pages 108-294, consists of menu plans and recipes, which are pretty superfluous once you understand the book's underlying principles. The net useful information in this book could be summarized in a short article. That being said, the book did motivate me to eat more healthfully (and I'm hoping it will have that effect on my friend), so don't regret the purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: Shedding pounds the easy way, YEAH RIGHT!!!!
Review: Look people, To lose weight is simple. The only effective and inexpensive way to lose weight is to eat less and work out more. Diets are apart of our societies "I want it NOW not later and heaven forbid it, if hard work is required!!" mentality. I dont care if your obese or just plain overweight you can lose weight if you work out at least 4 days a week(at least 45 min of cardio), watch your fat intake and drink more water. Keep this up for 12 weeks and you will have lost more weight then you could have imagined. The one flaw with the above is that it requires will power and diets feed on your lack of will power to survive. good luck!
Rating:
Summary: Dr. Agatston is not an author, but the diet works!
Review: I certainly didn't pick this book up for a good read, I picked it up for the diet advice...and it delivers. I basically skimmed through the paragraphs and found the charts, tables, menus, and recipes very helpful. I needed to limit the amount of carbs I was consuming, but didn't want all of the high-fat meats (I'm a vegetarian) replacing them. This book offers great fish recipes inside. I don't understand the people complaining because the recipes are too difficult...that only those in South Beach with a chef can prepare them!? If you've lived your life getting meals from a drive-thru window, you might find the meal preparation difficult, otherwise the recipes are simple and easy to follow. I live in a metropolitan area so the ingredients are easy to find (any higher-end grocery store will carry all of them). I have, however, lived temporarily in other parts of the country, and I found that shopping for certain foods was more difficult. I'm sure you can easily substitute some of the herbs or fish that the recipes call for. Basically, I love carbs and this diet has helped me limit them. I was looking to get rid of a few extra pounds that I gained this summer, and this diet was a miracle!
Rating:
Summary: Not too good to be true
Review: I tried Atkins, WeightWatchers and everything in between on and off for 7 years...lose some,gain more.It all started with menopause. Most of my life my weight stayed between 104 and 114. Suddenly (it seems) I weighed 167 lbs. This makes for a very unhappy 56 year old!
This diet is different. Yes, probably the first several pounds is water loss but it does the ego good. Stick with it and by the third and fourth week you really don't feel hungry and more often than not don't finish what is on your plate or what your allowed for the day. It gets very slow so it's imperative to keep looking at everything you put in your mouth and ask the question? Will this turn into sugar as soon as it gets in my mouth? This visual is very helpful! The book teaches you a lot about nutrition and should be read - don't just pick out the diet itself. The receipes are VERY tasty and families will enjoy them too. Good job Doc!
A Maryland Reader!
Rating:
Summary: Hungry no more
Review: I highly recommend this book! As a researcher, I am usually very critical of the claims made by popular diet books. I've read most of the current contenders - Atkins, Zone, Carbohydrate Addicts. Each of these only gave selected aspects of the current research, and even made claims that are contradicted by well-conducted studies. South Beach Diet is the only one I've read that draws from all the most up-to-date findings in an unbiased way. (I've read the research in the scientific journals myself.) And - the diet works! My husband and I have both lost considerable weight without being hungry. (In only a week, people who didn't know we were on a diet were asking us if we had lost weight.) That's especially impressive given that it is extremely hard for me to lose weight. I've spent the last 10 years of my life being hungry most of the time and learned to ignore it just to keep from gaining weight. I went on this diet and stopped being hungry!!! My energy level has improved. The diet is well-balanced, healthy, and do-able. Contrary to what some have said, it is not low-carbohydrate. Rather, it promotes eating the right carbohydrates (sorely lacking in the typical American diet), the right proteins, and the right fats. We've been eating beans every day (including the first 2 weeks), and are now eating barley, oats, and other whole grains, whole-wheat pasta, fruit, etc. We're also enjoying nuts, avocados, and olives (foods I used to think were fattening). This is a way of eating you can truly live with.
Rating:
Summary: Informative, but incomplete
Review: I've been on the South Beach Diet for 5 days now, and have actualy lost 7 pounds. I'm not kidding myself into believing that the loss is all fat (probably mostly water weight). However, it is encouraging just to see the scale a little lower. Anyone who has tried to lose weight will agree: quick results, even if they are only for the initial phase, really improve your atitude about sticking to a healthy eating plan.
The South Beach Diet (very gimmicky name) is a great inroduction to nutritious eating for people who want to lose weight. It teaches you about good carbs/bad carbs and the GI approach to weight loss (which has been well known for many years). Anyone who has the intelligence of an eggplant (or greater) should be able to follow this eating plan if they actually stop and think about how the diet is helping them to lose weight, and adjust their food options/intake accordingly.
My primary beefs with the book is: 1. Its extremely gimmicky/infomercial writing style and 2. Its incomplete approach to nutrition. The book never really goes very deep into how unsaturated fats are healthier than saturated, why certain vitamins are good and where we can find them in foods we eat, good vs bad cholesterol, etc...
However, there are plenty of books out there on that subject, and I would recommend anyone who has decided to follow the info in this book to go out and purchase a nutrition book as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Diets dont work!
Review: People don't seem to get it. Diets don't work. Eat less and exercise and you won't be fat. But people want to ear Happy Meals sitting down. It won't work. Of course, people will always buy diet book and never exercise.
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