The purpose of the South Beach diet is to promote the weight loss by eating good carbs and good fats over a series of 6 meals and snacks a day. The purpose of dividing your meals and snacks into 6 times a day is to help balance your blood levels of glucose, insulin, cholesterol, and other markers for heart disease. The weight loss is achieved because you are completely avoiding refined carbs. This is important because refined carbs are quickly absorbed by the body, which makes it easier to gain weight. You also need to make sure that you avoid foods that contain trans-fat and saturated animal fats. To achieve the weight loss no exercise program is needed, but to help speed up the weight loss you should also begin an exercise program.

The South Beach Diet is made up of three phases. The first phase takes part during the first two weeks of the diet, it is also where you will need to return to if you end up cheating at any point throughout the diet. During this phase, you can expect to lose between eight and thirteen pounds. You lose the weight rapidly during these two weeks because all you are allowed to eat during the two weeks is fish, eggs, lean meats, limited low fat diary, and leafy vegetables. During these two weeks, you are to totally avoid any fruits, alcohol, and whole grain carbs.

During the second phase of the diet you can expect to lose anywhere from one to two pounds a week. It is suggested that you continue with the second phase of the diet until you have lost all of the weight that you want to lose. The reason for this is that you might see some fluctuations in your weight loss because of adding new foods. In this phase you can eat the same foods as you could the first phase, but you can also begin to add some foods. You can start adding nuts, fruits, whole grain products, and red wine if you wish. When adding the foods you should do it one at a time so that you can see if they have any effect on your weight loss or gain. For example, add nuts and wait about two weeks to see what happens with your weight loss. If things continue as planned keeping eating nuts, if not get rid of the nuts.

The third phase of this program is considered the maintenance phase. During this phase, you are not going to be trying to lose weight, but you are going to be trying to make sure that you do not gain any more weight. This phase is going to allow you to remain at your current weight for as long as you follow the diet plan. Once you have reached this phase you are not going to be faced with any forbidden foods, but you should still follow the principles that you learned earlier in the diet plan. If you follow what you have learned, you have a better chance of keeping the weight off.