Yeah, my great aunt Helen always has a coffee cup in one hand and a cigarette in th other.  She's in her late 80's or 90's now and has been skinny all her life.

I have a feeling that a lot of it has to do with genetics.  There are also very conflicting studies on coffee.  One shows that it aggravates diabetes, another shows that it can prevent diabetes.

A lot of diet pills contain caffeine because caffeine is a stimulant.

I'm currently under the notion that I just eat too much and don't move enough   But, we'll see how this goes.  You can have whole grains, cereal and health carbs, so it is very different from the "low carb" diets that are around.

Yea the south beach seems like a good diet.  I sort of do the same thing with not eating foods that hike up my glycemic index, but of course i slip sometimes.  But the best part about it is that if you slip you simply do the induction phase for as long as you feel is right. 

The Induction phase is pure hell if you love your starchy carbs, but if you honestly make it through that phase without cheating, i really think the rest of the diet is much much more manageable.

I think that the problem with coffee in the US is that we don't drink just coffee.  We load it with cream and sugar and drink it in excess.  However, just like anything, if you have a predisposition to something, certain chemicals will aggravate it.  I, personally, didn't gain weight until I started chugging coffee (which will be the hardest habit to break for me- I can't do the full induction phase of South Beach because I'm too addicted to caffeine.)  However, I also had my first thyroid surgery around the time I became a caffeine addict (gave me energy I was lacking) so what happened to me is not "normal".  But, you never know what can be contributing to it.  But, like I also said, there are very conflicting studies on it.

Actually, Syndrome-X and Insulin Resistance are precursors to type II diabetes.  Diabetes is Diabetes.  It's not hyperglycemia, insulin resistance or Syndrome-X (which is really a scientific way to tell that you are at risk to develop diabetes and other diseases).  The reason this is important is that you can control insulin resistance (which can or can't be part of Syndrome-X) and you can prevent Syndrome-X from developing into diabetes with proper diet.

I have always known that I was at risk.  I also know that if you really don't want to be diabetic, staying at your ideal weight or slightly below will help more than just about anything you can naturally do.  But, being the moron that I am, it took the real diagnoses of "diabetes" to make me change my evil ways.

Before South Beach, I was following a Doctor prescribed "diabetic" diet.  Unfortunately, it left too many "fudge factors" in it.  Though I was losing weight, my glucose levels weren't being lowered. 

And, to Ash the anonymous, did you actually read and study the South Beach Diet and the science behind how it works?  Did you actually learn about the Glycemic index?  By your post, it sounds like you think that it is still low carb like Atkins.  It's not.  It's the *right amount* of carbs built with the right amount of fiber. Fact is- we typically simply eat too many carbs.  Did you also learn about digestion and how that affects the effects of insulin?

To be brief, the whole point of this diet is to eat things that will slowly digest.  Simple carbs (like sugar, white bread, potatoes) digest quickly and enter the blood stream quickly and gets stored as fat quickly.  Simple carbs also do not satiate hunger like whole grains, protein and fat do.  However, a whole grain bread will not digest quickly and will digest even slower with protein.  Another thing that was mentioned that gets overlooked- eating something acidic with a meal (especially with carbs) slows digestion. Slow digestion means a more level glucose level which means you can use your new energy.

And, yes, the portions are "small".  Of course they are.  You don't get fat by eating the right size servings.  You get fat because you eat too much and move too little.  The servings in the book are the correct portion sizes.  There is no miracle diet.  You can't just eat everything you want and lose weight.  Calories are calories.  If you eat too many, you gain weight.

My point about the diet is to get my glucose down.  I don't want to go on medicine.  The weight lost is just and added benefit.

Yep, I am sure that a lot of the simple carb thing has been known.  They might not have known *why* it was bad, they just knew it was bad.

One of the things that have apparently screwed up "dieters" is the low fat craze.  They discovered how bad cholesterol was.  Before realizing that there was bad *and* good cholesterol, they went crazy- the egg became evil and all the low fat stuff came out.  But, low fat is not low calorie, and low fat digests faster so you become hungry faster because of the drop in blood sugar.