The South Beach Diet And Heart Disease Prevention


by Richard Gibb - Date: 2010-09-30 - Word Count: 516 Share This!

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in America. According to the Center for Disease Control, each year just under eight hundred thousand Americans have their first heart attack, and another half a million individuals who have already had one or more heart attacks have another heart attack. In 2010, heart disease cost the United States over three hundred billion dollars, including health care services, medications and lost work productivity. However, the good news about heart disease is that it's largely preventable. With a healthy diet and regular physical activity, you can dramatically reduce (and even eliminate) your risk of heart disease.

An often overlooked fact about the South Beach Diet is that, not only is it an incredibly effective way to lose weight and slim down, it was originally designed to help the patients of cardiologist Arthur Agatston reduce their risk of heart disease. In the 1980s, a low-fat diet that reduced cholesterol was the suggested method of taking high risk heart disease patients and reducing their risk of heart disease. However, Dr. Agatston realized that most of his patients had a hard time sticking to a low-fat diet. So Dr. Agatston did some research, and realized that because most of his patients had experienced high sugar levels from eating a standard American diet, a low-fat diet caused them to drop to low blood sugar levels that made them feel hungry and caused them to eat more sugars to curb the hunger.

Sound like any experiences you've had with other diets? We bet it does!

Dr. Agatston's solution was to develop the South Beach Diet, which included enough carbohydrates and fats that a user never felt hungry. The trick was to teach the dieter how to eat the good kinds of carbohydrates and fats so that he or she didn't continue to gain weight. The South Beach Diet Phase One removes the bad carbohydrates and fats from the diet, and then in the South Beach Diet Phase Two the good carbohydrates and fats are reintroduced to the diet. Once you've mastered the South Beach Diet, you'll not only see yourself losing weight, you'll see your cholesterol shifting in a positive direction. This is because you're no longer eating the types of food that lead to high cholesterol and, subsequently, heart disease. You will have learned how to satisfy your food cravings with fats and carbohydrates that don't actively contribute to the risk of heart disease.

The South Beach Diet is also a life-long diet. Phase Three of the diet doesn't have the dieter following a set diet, but instead simply gives a set of guidelines about healthy eating that the dieter has learned throughout the first two phases so that he or she can eat healthily moving forward. So you're not just "fad dieting" to lose weight and not ultimately make yourself healthier. You're making a healthy, whole-life change. The South Beach Diet, in combination with a moderate exercise program, can significantly reduce your risk of heart disease in the future. And that's an important thing for your and your family's happiness!

Related Tags: weight loss, south beach diet, south beach diet phase 1

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