Following the South Beach diet is one of the most popular ways to lose weight today. It is based around lifestyle and diet changes that bring healthy weight loss. By avoiding "bad" fats and carbohydrates and eating plenty of "good" ones, dieters can lose weight without sacrificing their health or feeling deprived.

There are three phases in the South Beach diet.

During the first phase, dieters avoid all carbohydrates except for vegetables. Although many foods are not allowed, dieters still have a variety of foods they can eat. The first phase is the strictest phase, but also the shortest since it only lasts for two weeks. Dieters are expected to lose between 8 to 12 pounds during this time.

In the second phase, dieters begin adding the previously banned carbohydrate-rich foods into their diet. Dieters can expect to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week while slowly increasing the amount of carbohydrates in their diet. Phase two lasts until dieters reach their target weight.

The third phase is the lifetime maintenance phase. Dieters use their healthy eating strategies from the second phase to maintain their desired weight throughout the rest of their lives. If dieters begin to regain weight, they can go back to the first phase of the diet.

You have probably seen pre-packaged South Beach snacks and meals sold in stores. These products are highly convenient, but you don't need to buy them in order to follow the diet. You just need to follow the different general guidelines for each phase of the program.

During phase one of the diet, you are allowed to eat lean meats, such as chicken, fish, and turkey, eggs, most vegetables, nuts, and a small amount of dairy. Fruits and fruit juices are avoided during this phase because of their sugar content. Also banned are all carbohydrates, fatty meats, alcohol, and certain vegetables that may have high sugar content, such as corn. The purpose of this phase is to cut "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 balance their diet to maintain a desirable weight. Once this is successfully accomplished, the diet transitions into the lifetime phase, in which dieters try to maintain the healthy habits that brought them to their goal weight.

The key to success with the South Beach diet is dedication to healthy eating. Although that sounds simple, the South Beach diet and most other diets fail because dieters give up before the plan can take effect. The difficulties that most people have with weight loss often stem from deeper issues such as a lack of motivation, a tendency to overeat, or an inability to control the appetite. The good news is that all of these issues are treatable with techniques that anyone can learn from a high quality hypnotherapy weight loss CD program.

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

First, dieters identify exactly what it is that is most important to them, as an individual. This is called their "highly valued criteria." Then, NLP techniques are used to make the dieters believe that by losing weight, their highly valued criteria will become enhanced. An alternative is to make the dieter believe that if they don't lose weight, their highly valued criteria will be in jeopardy.

Motivation is created by what we believe, not by logic! So in the above example, let's say that the dieter's most highly valued criterion is that the dieter's children are safe and happy. Using an NLP technique called Submodalities, we can guide the dieter into believing that if he/she fails to lose weight, the children will be condemned to emulating their parent and they will be fat and unhappy. This type of belief will provide a powerful urge and feeling to stick to a diet and get the weight off.

Other NLP techniques can help to reduce or even completely eliminate the urges and cravings that compel one to eat too much. This works very well to help dieters stay on the first and most difficult two weeks of the South Beach diet. It also helps dieters commit to an exercise program, which will increase the effectiveness of any diet plan.

Stress is a factor that often drives people to overeat or stop caring about their health, but stress-relief can be provided by both NLP and hypnotic techniques. One such technique is called the NLP Flash. With the Flash, having the unconscious use stressful thoughts as triggers for relaxing thoughts eliminates the stress that triggers the urge to overeat.

Uncontrollable eating habits can also cause people to gain weight. Many people have seemingly uncontrollable appetites because over time, they have unconsciously developed a "conditioned response" to eat in certain situations. For example, many of us snack in front of the TV even when we're not really hungry. Fortunately, hypnosis and NLP both have techniques that can rapidly extinguish these conditioned responses. These techniques create natural appetite suppression without pills or drugs.

By targeting the underlying issues that keep dieters from losing weight, hypnosis and NLP has helped countless people finally get fit and slim for life. Combined with the South Beach diet, dieters can enjoy natural weight loss and success at achieving their weight loss goals.

A list of the common uses of hypnosis.

© 2008 By Alan B. Densky, CH. This document may NOT be re-printed without permission. All Rights Reserved. We are happy to grant reprint permissions for our articles free of charge to approved websites. Click here for more information.

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