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Following the South Beach diet is among the most widely used methods of losing weight today. It is built around diet and exercise changes that bring healthy weight loss. By cutting out "bad" fats and carbohydrates and having plenty of "good" ones, dieters can shed excess pounds without sacrificing their health or feeling deprived.

There are three stages in the diet plan. During stage one, dieters avoid all carbs except for vegetables. Although several foods are not allowed, dieters still have a wide range of foods they can consume. The first stage is the most difficult stage, but also the shortest since it only takes fourteen days. Dieters can expect to lose 10 pounds during this time.

In phase two, dieters begin reintroducing the previously restricted carb-rich foods into their diet. Dieters are expected to lose one to two pounds each week while slowly increasing the amount of carbs in their diet. The second phase lasts until dieters reach their desired weight.

Phase three is the maintenance stage. Dieters use their healthy eating strategies from phase two to keep their goal weight throughout the duration of their lives. If dieters start to regain weight, they can revert back to the first phase of the diet.

You have likely seen pre-prepared South Beach meals and snacks in the grocery store. These items are very handy, but you do not need to spend money on them in order to be on the diet. You just need to follow the various general rules for each stage of the diet.

During stage one of the diet, you can enjoy lean meats, such as fish, chicken, and turkey, eggs, nuts, most vegetables, and a small quantity of nonfat dairy. Fruits and their juices are not consumed during this stage because of their sugar content. Also banned are all carbs, fatty cuts of meat, alcoholic beverages, and some vegetables that may have high sugar content, such as carrots. The objective of this stage is to cut "bad" carbs from your diet and start the process of losing weight.

During the second stage, dieters gradually reintroduce whole grains, fruit, and other formerly prohibited foods into their diet. In the process, dieters learn how to adjust their diet to keep a desirable weight. Once this is successfully accomplished, the diet moves into the lifetime maintenance stage, in which dieters try to maintain the healthy habits that helped them reach their desired weight.

The factor for success with the South Beach plan is committing to healthy eating. Although that seems simple, the South Beach diet program and most other diet plans fail because dieters give up before the program can produce results. The difficulties that most dieters have with losing weight often come from deep-rooted problems such as a lack of drive to lose weight, a habit of binge eating, or an uncontrollable appetite. The good news is that all of these problems can be resolved with techniques that are easy to learn from a good hypnotherapy weight loss CD program.

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

To begin with, dieters identify exactly what things are most important to them, as a person. This is known as their "highly valued criteria." Then, NLP techniques are utilized 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 do not lose weight, their most valued criteria will be placed in jeopardy.

Motivation comes from what we believe in, not from logic! So in the previous case, let us say that the dieter's most valued desire is that the dieter's children are safe and well. Using an NLP tool known as Submodalities, we can lead the dieter into feeling that if he/she fails to lose weight, the children will be fated to follow the parent's lead and they will be fat and dissatisfied. This belief will give a strong desire and feeling to stay on the diet and lose weight.

Several NLP techniques can help to lessen or even completely eliminate the impulses and cravings that force one to eat too much. This works very well to help dieters stick to the initial and most challenging weeks of the South Beach diet. It also helps dieters stick to an exercise program, which will increase the effectiveness of any diet program.

Stress is an issue that often drives people to overeat or neglect their health, but stress-relief is offered by both hypnosis and NLP practices. One such tool is known as the NLP Flash. With this technique, having your unconscious mind use stress-causing thoughts to prompt you to have relaxing thoughts eliminates the stress that causes the impulse to overeat.

Out-of-control eating habits can also cause men and women to put on weight. A lot of people have seemingly out-of-control eating habits because over the years, they have 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 truly even hungry. Fortunately, hypnosis and NLP possess practices that can rapidly extinguish these conditioned responses. These practices eliminate the appetite without the use of drugs.

By treating the underlying obstacles that keep dieters from shedding pounds, hypnosis and NLP has helped many people finally get in the best shape of their lives. When used with the South Beach program, dieters can enjoy easy weight loss and success at achieving their weight loss goals.

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