Following the South Beach plan is one of the most widely used ways to lose weight today. It is styled around diet and exercise changes that bring healthy weight loss. By cutting out "bad" fats and carbohydrates and eating plenty of "good" ones, dieters can take weight off without feeling deprived or sacrificing their health.

There are three phases in the South Beach diet plan. During the first phase, dieters can't eat any carbohydrates except for vegetables. Although several foods are not allowed, dieters still have a wide range of foods they can consume. Stage one is the most demanding phase, but also the quickest since it only lasts for fourteen days. Dieters are expected to lose between 8-12 pounds during this stage.

In the second phase, dieters begin reintroducing the previously restricted carbohydrate-rich foods into their meals. Dieters can expect to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week while slowly increasing the volume of carbohydrates they eat. The second phase lasts until dieters reach their goal weight.

Phase three is the lifetime maintenance phase. Dieters use their strategies they learned from the second phase to keep their goal weight throughout the rest of their lives. If dieters begin to gain weight, they are able to go back to the first phase of the diet.

It is likely that you have seen ready-made South Beach snacks and meals sold in stores. These products are very convenient, but you don't need to buy them in order to follow the diet. You just need to commit to the different general guidelines for each phase of the diet.

During the first phase of the diet, you may have lean cuts of meat, such as fish, turkey, and chicken, eggs, nuts, most vegetables, and a limited amount of nonfat dairy products. Fruit juices and fruit are avoided during this phase because of their sugar content. Also not allowed are all carbohydrates, fatty meats, alcoholic beverages, and some vegetables that are rather high in sugar or carbohydrate content, such as corn. The objective of this phase is to ban "bad" carbohydrates from your diet and start the process of losing weight.

During phase two, dieters slowly reintroduce whole grains, fruit, and other formerly prohibited foods into their diet. In the process, dieters learn how to balance their eating habits to keep a desirable weight. Once this is successfully completed, the diet shifts into the life maintenance phase, in which dieters attempt to maintain the healthy habits that brought them to their goal weight.

The factor for success with the South Beach plan is dedication to healthy eating. Although that seems simple, this diet and other diet plans fail because dieters give up before the plan can produce results. The struggles that most dieters have with losing weight often stem from deep-rooted issues such as a lack of motivation, a tendency to go on food binges, or an inability to control the appetite. Fortunately, all of these issues can be resolved with techniques that are easy to learn from a good hypnotherapy diet CD program.

To reverse a lack of motivation, a technique from a tool called Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) will induce a strong urge to stay on track with your weight loss program.

First, dieters pinpoint precisely what it is that is most important to them, as a person. This is called their "highly valued criteria." Then, NLP techniques are used to make the dieters feel that by losing weight, their highly valued criteria will become enhanced. Another option is to make the dieter feel that if they don't lose weight, their most valued criteria will be placed in jeopardy.

Motivation comes from what we believe in, not from logic! So in the above example, let's say that the dieter's most highly valued wish is that the dieter's children are safe and happy. Using an NLP technique called Submodalities, we can guide the dieter into thinking that if he/she fails to lose weight, the children will be condemned to emulating their parent and they will be overweight and dissatisfied. This belief will give a strong desire and feeling to stick to a diet and lose weight.

Many NLP techniques can help to reduce or even completely remove the urges and cravings that force one to eat too much. This works very well to help dieters stick to the initial and most difficult weeks of the South Beach diet. Furthermore, helps dieters stick to a fitness program, which will increase the value of any diet plan.

Stress is an issue that frequently drives people to eat too much or quit paying attention to their well-being, but relief can be provided by both NLP and hypnotic techniques. One such technique is called the NLP Flash. With the NLP Flash, having your unconscious mind use negative thoughts to prompt you to have positive thoughts relieves the stress that triggers the urge to overeat.

Unmanageable eating habits can also cause men and women to gain weight. Countless people have apparently uncontrollable appetites because over time, they have unknowingly developed a "conditioned response" to eat under certain circumstances. For example, many of us snack on junk food in front of the TV even when we're not actually hungry. Fortunately, hypnosis and NLP both have techniques that can easily eliminate these conditioned responses. These techniques eliminate the appetite without the use of pills or drugs.

By treating the root issues that keep dieters from losing weight, hypnosis and NLP has helped many dieters finally get fit and slim for life. Combined with the South Beach diet, dieters are able to enjoy easy weight loss and triumph at reaching their weight loss goals.