plan? Also is Sugar Busters close to the maintenance of South Beach.

I lost weight on Suzanne Somers plan and have maintained what I lost by following The Schwarzbein Principle) basically. Over the summer I had some cheats (used fructose and Splenda to sweeten but had so much extra activity it did not bother my loss. But I have gained a cpl. of extra lbs. after the holiday season (the real thing--sugar! and less activity due to the colder weather and not being able to walk as much (excuses,excuses)

anyway -- I have been seeing a lot of good things about the South Beach diet so I came here to get some 'real people' opinions. I plan to buy the book when I can get to my favorite half price book store. It must be popular-- I put it on hold at the public library and am #119 (I guess others are curious too!)

I think I will be returning to this board to read of your experiences. I feel ready to start getting serious again to see if I can get into a BMI that is in the normal range by losing the last 10 lbs I have come so close to but not attained for several years.

What is the South Beach authors ideas on artificial sweetners?

He's for 'em. Including Splenda and Aspartame.

You can find a Prevention magazine guide to the Weight loss in supermarkets right now that is the SBD in a nutshell, so far in reading the book I haven't found any extra info. For $4 maybe a good place to get the basics until it comes in from the library. That's exactly what I did.

Well I did get more information at www.prevention.com too including a transcript of a chat with Dr. A, so some of the book info I have already read probably came from there. Let me know if you go looking for it and have trouble finding it.

Thanks! The link worked beautifully, I printed the chat and will read it tonight when I return frome work.

This plan looks like the kind of happy medium I have been looking for at this time in my life.

Has anyone started with phase 2 and found success ?

I'm with you on the "happy medium" thing. The beans keep me going on Phase 1. Well not that I"ve done a good job but because of the beans and milk I can.