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Busting Myths about the South Beach Diet

A lot of diet fads today are winning over vast numbers of people because they claim to be effective in making you lose weight. The South Beach Diet is one of these diet fads.

It already has endorsers (celebrities and average people alike) who swear by its effectiveness. However, you have to be careful in approaching these diets because their claims might not be true at all. Some claims are not grounded scientifically; thus, a lot of people are frustrated to find out that it works for some selected people but not on themselves. This article addresses some myths and misconceptions about weight loss and dieting.

One of the South Beach Diet’s principles is that bad carbohydrates are called “bad” because they make you fat by making you crave more, and thus, eat more. In all reality, there is no scientific evidence that there are good carbs and bad carbs. Carbohydrates in general are important because the body uses these as sources of energy. You can even use something as simple as a piece of candy to give you enough energy to last through the day, or until your next meal.

In addition, carbohydrates don’t make you gain weight because you only put on pounds if you have numerous quantities of energy left in your body. Protein, which is one of the central food groups in the South Beach Diet, can also be used by the body as energy, thus these can make you gain weight as well if you don’t utilize the energy it provides. Physical activity is the only sure way to make use of excess energy.

The notion that carbohydrates induce cravings or are addicting is not entirely true as well. Many people crave for sweets because these can increase the levels of serotonin in their brain. This neurotransmitter is a mood elevator; thus the term “sugar high.” Cravings can also stem from extreme restriction on foods consumed by the body. The more restrained the body is, the more it is tempted to indulge.

The South Beach Diet also says that eating foods with low glycemic indexes can make you lose unwanted pounds. In actuality, the glycemic index (GI) is determined by getting the mean or average of the GIs of all variations of the food. Thus, each variant has a different GI, which may be higher or lower than the mean. Some foods didn’t have their GI measured as well. There is also no way of knowing how much GI is present in a meal because it can be influenced by a variety of factors such as how it was cooked or what foods accompanied it in the meal. Weight loss is still dependent on calories consumed, and not the glycemic index.

(First published on Quassia.com)
 
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