The South Beach plan is among the most widely used methods of losing weight today. It is styled around diet and exercise changes that help you achieve realistic weight loss goals. By cutting out "bad" fats and carbohydrates and having plenty of "good" ones, dieters can shed excess pounds without feeling deprived or sacrificing their health. 

There are three stages in the diet plan. During phase one, dieters don't eat any carbohydrates except for vegetables. Although multiple foods are banned, dieters still have a wide range of foods they can eat. Phase one is the most demanding phase, but also the quickest since it only takes two weeks. Dieters can expect to lose approximately ten pounds during this phase. 

In the second phase, dieters begin adding the previously restricted carbohydrate-rich foods into their meals. Dieters are expected to lose a few pounds each week while slowly increasing the volume of carbohydrates they eat. Phase two lasts until dieters achieve their target weight. 

The third phase is the maintenance phase. Dieters take the healthy eating strategies from the second phase to maintain their desired weight throughout the rest of their lives. If dieters begin to gain weight again, they may revert back to phase one of the diet. 

You've likely seen pre-packaged South Beach meals and snacks at the supermarket. These items are very handy, but you don't need to buy them in order to follow the diet. You only need to commit to the various general guidelines for each phase of the plan. 

During the first phase of the diet, you can have lean meats, such as fish, turkey, and chicken, eggs, most vegetables, nuts, and a small amount of nonfat dairy. Fruit juices and fruit are not eaten during this phase because of their sugar content. Also restricted are all carbohydrates, fatty cuts of meat, alcoholic beverages, and certain vegetables that may have high sugar content, such as beets. The function of this phase is to ban "bad" carbohydrates from your diet and jumpstart the weight loss process. 

During phase two, dieters slowly reintroduce whole grains, fruit, and other banned foods into their diet. In the process, dieters discover how to adjust their diet to maintain a desirable weight. Once this is successfully accomplished, the diet switches into the life maintenance phase, in which dieters try to maintain the healthy habits that brought them to their target weight. 

The factor for success with the South Beach diet program is committing to healthy eating. Although that sounds simple, this diet program and many other diets fail because dieters give up before the plan can start to work. The problems that most people have with weight loss often come from deeper problems such as a lack of motivation, a habit of binge eating, or an uncontrollable appetite. The good news is that all of these problems are treatable with techniques that anyone can learn from an excellent hypnotherapy diet CD program. 

To treat a lack of motivation, practices from a tool called Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) will help give you a powerful desire to stay on track with your weight loss goals. 

To begin with, dieters identify precisely what things are most valuable to them, as a person. This is called their "highly valued criteria." Then, NLP techniques are employed to make the dieters feel that by losing weight, their highly valued criteria will benefit greatly. An alternative is to make the dieter feel that if they don't lose weight, their highly valued criteria will be placed in jeopardy. 

Motivation comes from what we believe in, not from logic! So in the above case, let us say that the dieter's most valued desire is that the dieter's kids are happy and safe. Using an NLP tool called Submodalities, we can direct the dieter into believing that if she or he is unable to lose weight, the kids will be condemned to emulating their parent and they will be overweight and dissatisfied. This type of belief will give a powerful urge and feeling to stay committed to the diet and lose weight.

Many NLP techniques can help to lessen or even entirely eliminate the urges and cravings that compel one to overeat. This works very well to help dieters stick to the first and most challenging days of the South Beach diet. Additionally, it helps dieters commit to an exercise program, which will increase the effectiveness of any weight loss plan.

Alan B. Densky, CH is certified by the NGH. Visit the hypnosis website for Free hypnotherapy newsletters, videos, and downloads. He offers several ways to lose weight, including NLP for weight loss MP3s and lose weight hypnosis CDs.

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