South Beach Diet vs. Atkins

Both South Beach and Atkins diets are the creation of medical doctors. The father of the South Beach Diet is cardiologist Arthur Agatston, MD, director of the Mount Sinai Cardiac Prevention Center in Miami Beach, Fla.

Both the South Beach and the Atkins Diet are best-selling diet books. Only someone living in a cave hasn’t, by now, heard of Agatston’s The South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss.

Both South Beach and Atkins diets restrict carbohydrates — carbs, as diet dilettantes like to say. True, “good carbs” are allowed. But South Beach dieters must say goodbye to potatoes, fruit, bread, cereal, rice, pasta, beets, carrots, and corn for the first two weeks. After that, most of these foods remain strongly discouraged.

Read which is declared the winner between South Beach Diet vs. Atkins.