The Keto-Friendly South Beach Diet

REMEMBER THE SOUTH BEACH DIET? It’s back with a keto twist. Here’s how it can help you beat sugar addiction, burn fat, and achieve lifelong health.

- By Vera Tweed

Sugar addiction is the same as alcohol, cigarettes … any addiction,” says Arthur Agatston, MD, author of the South Beach Diet and his latest, The New Keto-Friendly South Beach Diet. But you can beat it, he adds—for good.

As someone who has struggled with his own sugar addiction, Agatston knows the pitfalls of diets only too well. “When I put weight on my belly after I cheated, my wife would say, ‘Arthur, you can only do radio,’” he recalls. But rather than giving up, he found the lasting cure.

“I feel so much better. I really call it the fountain of youth,” he says after staying slim and full of energy for the past year and a half. And the same holds true for his patients who’ve adopted these new eating habits.

What’s New

Agatston’s new diet lowers carbs enough to turn on enzymes that burn excess body fat, but not so low that it’s difficult to maintain. And it ends the pattern of eating throughout the day—the popular pastime of “grazing.” In terms of the underlying science, it combines two effective principles: the keto diet and intermittent fasting.

Agatston has found that for most people, eating a bit more unprocessed carbs and protein than you would in the very-low-carb keto diet can produce comparable benefits. But it’s easier than a “diet” that inevitably ends one day.

Timing of food is equally important. For years, many nutritionists have believed that small, frequent meals— every three hours or so—were essential to keep levels of blood sugar stable and prevent cravings. Not so, says Agatston; “We now know they do the opposite.”

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