When aiming for a healthy way of life, the main purpose is to achieve a balanced diet. Diets address both to those who want to eat healthy and to those who want to lose weight.

Many weightloss diets don't work because of the way people approach them. A good diet does not rely on starvation and short-term willpower, as these are stress factors and induce a state of frustration and depression.

A change in diet must be preceded by a mental change. This change should start by analyzing your alimentary habits and trying to change your lifestyle on a long term basis.

If your eating is on an emotional background, you should become aware of it and try to replace eating used as a comfort factor with something else: a walk, a bubble bath, a good book, etc.

The best way to regain your body line and health is to change your attitude towards life in as far as food and exercise are concerned.

• a well-balanced diet, containing the main nutritive principles, with three meals a day (eating enough so that hunger is satisfied), midmorning and mid afternoon snacks, dessert after dinner.
• low carbohydrates level, but only complex ones are allowed (whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and lean fats and proteins) with the purpose of improving metabolism and insulin resistance leading to weight loss.
• low fat protein - fish, chicken.
• the diet is based on the Glycemic Index (GI) of foods.

Used in diabetes cases (type 1 and type 2), low GI diets improve both glucose and lipid levels. Low GI diets also reduce insulin levels and insulin resistance.

The principle of the South Beach Diet is to eat several meals a day based on good carbs and good fats and thus balancing blood levels of glucose, insulin, cholesterol and other coronary heart disease (CHD) markers.

The weight control results with this type of diet come from the fact that it helps control appetite and delay hunger.