“How safe is the South Beach Diet?” is a question regularly asked amongst those who want to shed some of those surplus pounds. People are naturally skeptical due to the fact that in the past so many crash diets have resulted in a rapid weight loss and just as rapid a weight gain as soon as the food intake reverts back to normal. Various health issues of a serious nature are often associated with these faddy diets too. However, when you follow the South Beach Diet you will be losing weight in as healthy a way as possible, even though it may seem that the changes you are making in your eating habits are somewhat unnatural to begin with.

No matter what diet program you are considering, it is important for you to determine which plan suits you best. The South Beach Diet is not just a weight-loss program. It is an education program that teaches you about good and bad foods, and shows you how to eat the proper way both for losing weight and for maintaining the weight loss once you reach your goal.

Expert nutritionists will tell you that you should only have in limited doses those products which your body has a problem breaking down. We all know that foodstuffs such as chips and candy, both high in sugar content and saturated fats are not good for us. When you are following the South Beach Diet, Phase 1 will show you that you need to limit your sweet eating to just 75 calories each day.

Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet is very restrictive, because you eliminate fruits and grain from your diet. But Phase 1 is over in 14 days, and during that time your body has the chance to completely recover from the negative effects of eating too many carbs on a regular basis.

Phase 1 is generally thought of as the most difficult part of the South Beach Diet, but it only lasts two weeks. This time is used to break your body’s addiction to sugars and carbs, and you emerge with a nice start on your weight loss. Best of all, you no longer crave those foods. As you enter Phase 2, you begin eating them again on different terms.

Some have also wondered how the South Beach Diet affects pregnant women. It is not recommended that pregnant women enter into Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet. If you are pregnant and still want to follow the South Beach Diet program, skip over Phase 1 and start the diet in Phase 2.

Teenagers using the South Beach Diet have also come into question. Young people need balanced nutrition, so they are usually discouraged from practicing the South Beach Diet.

If you are in any doubt as to whether the South Beach Diet will be good for you, it only takes a quick consultation with your doctor or nutritionist who will be more than happy to give you advice. Each and every one of us is different and it may be that the original South Beach Diet needs tweaking just a little to be appropriate for you.