The Miami (or South Beach) Diet

Phase 1: Eliminate food cravings and lose weight quickly (14 days)

The first, lasting two weeks, is  very restrictive and selective . A first step that can put off the less adventurous.

During this phase, the patient can eat the following foods at will:

• Animal proteins (beef or fish for example).
• Vegetables: only artichokes, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, zucchini, broccoli.
• Dairy products: milk, eggs, soy milk, cheese, yogurt.
• Dessert: cocoa powder (no added sugar), gelatin, syrups, ice cream sticks, jam.
• Oils: avocado, virgin olive oil, salad dressing, olives, margarine.
• Condiments: almost any type.
• Beverages: coffee, tea, vegetable juice (like tomato juice), soda.

For the Doctor, these foods involve good fats as well as good carbohydrates.

In return, everything else is  prohibited  during this phase. Thus sources of carbohydrates, legumes or alcohol are totally banned. No bread, no pasta, no rice, no fruit, etc.

The list of prohibited foods is therefore quite substantial, for a complete list you can either obtain all the details in the cardiologist’s book (you will find a link to the Doctor’s book in the  sources and references  of this file) or on the site Official Internet which is in charge of promoting the regime (whose address appears, again, in the  sources and references  of this file).

Phase 2: Reach your goal weight

The second phase resembles the first, but the diet is more balanced even if the list of permitted foods does not change much. It is substantially the same as for the first phase, but new authorized foods are appearing: fruits for example, carrots, sweet potatoes, wholemeal bread, quinoa or even alcohol. Apart from a few novelties, the list of restrictions therefore remains enormous and there are extremely few authorized foods.

Refined bakery products (white bread, etc.), certain fruits and vegetables and their juices are to be avoided, as are foods with a high sugar content. This phase is longer than the first since the goal is to reach your ideal weight goal.

Phase 3: Stabilization with authorized deviations

Finally, the last phase is a stabilization phase. Here again the list of authorized foods is expanding (a little bit). You can now eat pistachios, walnuts, etc. Not many new permissions, but  prohibited foods  can now be eaten occasionally. The inventor of the diet considers this phase as a lifestyle, and not as a stage of weight loss.

This diet is partly based on carbohydrate deficiency, although this was not at all what Dr. Agatston wanted. Indeed for him there is no “  low-carb  ” or “  low-fat  ” approach, you just have to consume the right carbohydrates and the right fats. Carbohydrates are not prohibited, but the list of foods is so restrictive that carbohydrate deficiencies are well and truly present. In phase 1 the carbohydrates represent, in the Miami diet, 14% of the daily calorie equivalence, whereas the ANC (Recommended Dietary Intakes) recommend that this figure be between 50 and 55%.

This carbohydrate deficiency would force the body to modify its metabolism and thus affect fats to produce the energy necessary for daily activities (since there are no more carbohydrates to participate in the production of energy). This is the principle  of the Doctor Atkins diet . These fats are then transformed into ketones, which are then eliminated. This type of diet causes both a  decrease in appetite  and also a melting of fat, which mainly explains the weight loss caused.

This diet is easily applicable at home. But given that carbohydrates are scarce on the plates, the patient has to be (very) imaginative in culinary terms. In restaurants, this diet is very difficult to follow. The most common dishes are usually forgotten , and this can cause the person to stop the diet,  or to isolate themselves .

ADVANTAGES

In the medium term, the Miami diet seems to be more effective than a private diet . But in the long term, the results are not necessarily convincing. In addition, at the end of a Miami diet, patients generally have a tendency to regain weight, this is the yo-yo effect.

DISADVANTAGES

Due to rapid weight loss in the first phase, the patient experiences a yoyo effect .

This type of diet strongly recommends aspartame. But this does not make it possible to get rid of the taste of sugar (therefore deviations are more frequent). The small amount of cereals causes a deficiency in vitamins B1, B2 and B3 as well as minerals. In women, the iron deficiency is quite strong (compared to men who have lower iron needs). ^{The diet provides 10.3g} of iron on average (per day) during the 3rd  phase, against 16g recommended (per day) by the health authorities.

In addition, athletes are at high risk of experiencing a drop in performance (due to the lack of carbohydrates). And this diet causes a loss of healthy tissue, such as muscle.

Despite this, a scientific study (from 2004) showed that out of 54 participants followed over a year, this diet had had positive results  ⁽⁵⁾ . However, Dr. Agatston was part of the scientific committee that carried out the study,  so handle it with care…

A second scientific survey (from 2005) confirmed these positive results, but  again  this study must be taken with a grain of salt: it was in fact conducted by the company ”  Kraft Foods  “, which promotes the diet on the Internet ( the company owns the brand ”  The South Beach Diet  “).

ORIGINS OF THE REGIME

Originally, Dr. Agatston was aware (as a cardiologist) that a low-fat diet helped to reduce blood cholesterol levels (in addition to allowing the prevention of certain heart diseases).

But in practice, the cardiologist found that patients were unable (or little) to follow such a diet.

Doctor Agatston made the postulate that patients who opted for  low-fat diets  compensated for the lack of fat by over-consumption of sugars and carbohydrates (which sooner or later become in sugar). Through this excess of sugar, the patients felt the need to eat even more. Their diet was therefore too high in calories, and weight gain was inevitable in most cases.

This echoes  the Atkins diet , which had been established a decade earlier and which was the first to advocate ”  low-carb  ” (i.e. a diet with extremely few carbohydrates,  if any at all ).  in  the first Atkins version which dates from 1972). But Dr. Agatston did not want to go down the same path, however, as he was reluctant that a partly high-fat diet like Atkins was the solution. For him, this kind of diet too low in carbohydrates necessarily led to too much fat (which is why the first phase of the Atkins diet is considered hyperlipidic by ANSES) and too little fibre. For the cardiologist, this kind of diet was incompatible with good cardiovascular hygiene.

This is why he decided to propose his own diet, which in France is called the Miami diet. In the USA the diet is only known as the  South Beach Diet .