HI, I JUST REGISTERED TO THIS FORUM AND STILL DON`T KNOW HOW IT WORKS EXACTLY, BUT I`M PLANNING ON STARTING THE SOUTH BEACH DIET TOMORROW AND ALTHOUGH I BOUGHT AND READ THE BOOK, I STILL HAVE A LOT OF DOUBTS REGARDING WHAT YOU CAN EAT AND WHAT IS NOT PERMITTED: LIKE SKIM MILK, NON FAT YOGHURT, DIET COKE? I JUST READ THE LABEL ON THE NONFAT PLAIN YOGHURT AND I WAS AMAZED TO NOTICE TAHT IT HAS MORE SLIGHTLY MORE CARBS THAN THE FRUIT FLAVORED ONE.... I WOULD LIKE TO BE IN TOUCH WITH THOSE WHO HAVE MORE EXPERIENCE IN THIS, AS I`M VERY ADDICTED TO MY CARBS, BUT I`M TIRED OF ALL THE YO-YO DIETS AND THIS ONE MAKES A LOT MORE SENSE TO ME... GOOD LUCK TO ALL OF US TRYING TO ACHIEVE HEALTHIER HABITS....
MAGGIE

Hi Maggielina and to The Beach. I moved your post as I'm about to close yesterday's Daily Chat.

It's great that you have the book and have read it BUT the food list in the book is out of date. Check out the updated list in the FAQ section http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/show...php?t=49548and you'll see that dairy IS allowed. This is definitely NOT a low carb plan - some carbs are restricted in Phase I but you can certainly have dairy and legumes, in fact we encourage that. The carbs in the plain yoghurt are milk carbs or lactose and are definitely allowed. Diet drinks are too in limited quantity. This plan focuses on less processed foods - water is best.

Once again,

Please take some time to read the stickies in the different sections of The Beach Forum. Join us in the daily chat threads and feel free to post asking questions.

to the Beach, Maggielina!

Welcome Maggielina!

Welcome to the beach! The food lists here are very good. There is also a paperback book that you can buy called Good Fats/Good Carbs which will help you figure out what is allowed in each phase. This is truly an emphasis on good carbs (from dairy and vegetables as well as whole grains) and good fats (from things like olive oil and canola oil). South Beach was created to help cardiac patients. It's just a nice side benefit that people lose weight on it too!

Maggielina! Glad to have you join us!

As I often say, you can have 1,000,000g of carbs on SBD, as long as they're GOOD carbs. Check out the updated lists and stop paying attention to grams of carbs on packaging, okay? Here's what you need to look for:

• Serving size:though SBD doesn't specifically emphasize portion control, we do need to watch what we eat, especially with things that we need more of (like veggies) or smaller amounts of (like cheese).
• Fat:you want to limit the amount of fat you eat daily, try to make it primarly from good fats like canola oil, soybean oil, olive oil, etc. and limit your saturated fat intake. You want to totally stay away from any trans fats.
• Sugar grams: only important to determine how much sugar might be in the item if sugar is one of the ingredients and when selecting a dressing (where the sugar needs to be 3, 2, 1, or 0 grams)
• Ingredients: Here, you are primarily looking for three things. The word 'enriched' when associated with a grain. If it's there, don't eat the product (sometimes, if it's very low on the list, meaning that only a small amount of it is included, I will have a small portion of this...but you need to see how your body reacts and cut it out if you start craving). The word 'hydrogenated' next to any kind of oil. Hydrogenating an oil turns it into a trans fat, which you want to run away from, very quickly! Even if it's a good oil to start with, the hydrogenating process makes it a bad one. The trans fat part of the nutrition label is sometimes helpful here...but the companies wised up and made sure to change portion size so that a portion contains 0.9g of trans fat or less, which means they can call it '0' in the nutrition label. So, read the ingredients! The last thing you are looking for here is sugar. It comes in a million different forms. The big ones are any words that end in -ose (i.e. dextrose, sucrose, maltose) with the only exception being lactose, high-fructose corn syrup, brown rice syrup, or, of course, sugar.

That's it! Of course, you may have a health condition that requires you to watch your sodium intake, or you may want to know what nutritional value an item has (i.e. vitamins, etc.) or how much fiber (helpful stuff!), but those are optional.

Check out the FAQ and the recipe forum (the Taco Bake and Peanut Butter Cup will make P1 so much more fun!!!) for tons of info. And join us on the daily so we can get to know you better!

By the way, when you write in all caps, it can be interpreted as shouting. Plus, it's harder to read. It helps a lot if you don't use all caps.

Looking forward to getting to know you, Maggielina, and seeing you gain health and lose weight! :

to the beach and 3FC Maggielina! Good luck to you!

Thank you all for a wonderful welcoming experience!! I`m positive that joining this group was a very good desicion to make, as I already feel better knowing I can count on you gals.... I`m from Mexico, and english is not my first language, so if I make mistakes in my adressing, please forgive me.... I'll start going through the tons of information that is available in this very helpful site and will fill out my goals and charts. I started the diet today and so far, so good!! I`'s true that when you have more protein for breakfast, you don`t feel so hungry in the middle of the day... The main reason I wanted to start this diet is that I was feeling so tired all the time, sometimes, I felt like I did not have the energy to last through the day.... I`m also doing the Yoga Booty Ballet workouts that are a lot of fun, so hopefully Ì'll have very good results to share with you. Thanks again for such a warm wellcome: it just feels so nice to belong.... Have a great weekend!!

Maggie

Bienvenidos, Maggie!

This is a great site with lots of information and the greatest support!!

Good luck!