I just got done reading the book and seriously considering the switching from my current diet (very high carb....not good at all) to this one, but in reading the book it seems this way of eating is not low carb at all in the way one traditionally thinks of low carb. I mean the book had stories of people eating bread (on occcasion) and everything. so I am wondering what makes this diet "low carb?" or is it low carb at all? do diets that try to reduce bread is what makes it low carb?

I am sorry this is so long, and will give a proper introduction where appropreiate. Thanks for any info and thoughts on this.

Please read also the forum founders "sticky" at the beginning of the South Beach forum - they argue why they consider South Beach a low carb diet, in spite of the fact that the author says it isn't. I would agree. It is low carb compared to the standard American diet, and low carb compared to the American Heart association, and compared to Weight Watchers.

South Beach is clearly not as low carb as Atkins. Not only that, Atkins seems to really rely on ketosis, and many on the Atkins forum state that by eating more oils and fat, they increase weight gain. I think that will not work on the South Beach diet because you might be in ketosis at times during induction, but certainly not after that. So, South Beach may be closer to traditional diets in that I think it relies more on calorie reduction through not being hungry by eating a lot of fiber and protein.

Many of the low carb books explain at length how glucose in sweets and processed white flour spikes blood glucose, trigger insulin, which results in a hunger response that then craves for more sweets. It is not just the bread - I have bread, the whole grain type that is allowed on South Beach! - it is the concept that weight gain comes from a vicious cycle of glucose - insulin - hunger - more glucose, and that it is that cycle that needs to be broken that in my mind is in common to all the low carb diets.

Long answer! Sorry! Hope it helps. You have relatively little to loose compared to most of us here. If you are willing to go slowly, you could probably just drop all sweets, processed flour (white bread, white rice and pasta), and softdrinks from your diet, make sure that you are never hungry and thus always have breakfast and snacks, and loose what you need to loose.

The funny thing is, if you read maintenance at the end, Atkins, South Beach and even the current official medical establishment aren't so different - they all advocate dropping the same things above - it is really with fat where there are large differences in opinion (AHA/WW etc. official: all fat is bad; South Beach: saturated animal and artificial trans fats are bad; Atkins: natural fats are ok, trans aren't)

SBD is all about eating 'good carbs and good fats' as opposed to eating 'bad carbs and bad fats'...the allowed good carb items are all low on the glysemic index...you cut back on saturated fats and ofcourse eat no trans fats. One of the key things to remember is just because a particular carb item is on the allowed list doesn't mean you get to eat all you want. This has been discussed in many threads on this SBD forum...this forum is fairly new and doesn't have all that many threads...if I were starting SBD today I would read all the threads...lots of info here...

Good Luck on your Journey!