The South Beach Diet Supercharged: Faster Weight Loss and Better Health for Life Read Free

and produce food almost exclusively to please our tastebuds, other social and technological trends have affected our food supply for the worse. A few generations ago, our great grandparents walked to local markets on a daily basis to buy whatever produce they didn’t grow themselves as well as fresh bread and other food for their families’ next meals. They could only travel to local markets and take home what they were able to carry. With the advent of the automobile and the home refrigerator, however, it became possible to travel farther to shop, and people could take home enough food to feed their families for a week or two. But for that to be possible, foods had to have longer shelf lives. This led to supermarkets and to food processing, which, unfortunately, removed important nutrients while adding substances like sodium and trans fats to prevent spoilage. In a sense, we began digesting our food in factories instead of in our intestines.
    It’s only now that we are appreciating the deleterious effects these technological “advances” have had on our weight and on our health. In Chapter 3 , “A Diet You Can Live With…For Life,” I discuss the health and character of a Mediterranean society that thrived without many of our modern advances, and I show you how we can learn from this remarkable example.
    We Must Act Now

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    5 YEARS of SUCCESS

    Deborah M., age 43: We Are Healthier People because of the Way We Live

    It was 2003, and my husband had very high blood pressure that wasn’t being controlled, even with medication. I was very overweight and knew that we both needed to make a change. The South Beach Diet had just come out, and I went to the bookstore to look over a copy. The first thing I turned to was the recipe section. It was great. I love to cook and was thrilled that I didn’t have to give it up.
    After reading the book, I realized that I ate way too many bad carbs all day, like crackers and cookies. Once I stopped eating enriched white flour, I noticed a complete change in everything about me, including my mood and energy level, and I started losing weight. Within a year, I lost 45 pounds, and my husband lost 20. Although he still takes medication for high blood pressure, it’s now under control.
    Now I’m the go-to girl at work for healthy-food questions. When we have luncheons, everyone knows they can count on me to bring in something healthy. I have learned how to take bad carbs out of a recipe and replace them with good carbs. I am passionate about telling people to read food labels! Don’t be fooled; buy only whole-grain products. If it says “enriched white flour,” find something else.
    In 2005, we had an 11-year-old foster youth come to live with us. He was overweight and already taking medication for high blood pressure. He lived on junk food. We took him to a doctor, who told us that he shouldn’t go on a diet—he should start living a healthy lifestyle. I decided to give him the same healthy food my husband and I were eating, but I told him he could eat as much as he wanted. He also started exercising. Simply by eating the right foods and being more active, he started losing weight fairly quickly. By the end of 4 months, he was off the blood pressure medication, and by the time he left us 18 months later, he had lost 30 pounds. While living with us, he learned how to read food labels and make good food choices. I hope he continues to live a healthy life. My husband often jokes that I should open my home to people who want to lose weight.
    I am happy with my weight loss but even happier that my husband and I are healthier people because of the way we live and eat. I am a true believer in the South Beach Diet way of life.
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    If you’re like me, you find how we got into this sad state not only depressing but scary. But there is hope if we take action today. Because we finally understand so much of what has gone wrong, we can use our advanced technologies to turn things around.