I snapped a picture of the new South Beach packaging at Sam’s Club

One of the most common themes I talk about is how you can’t just go on a low-carb “diet,” but that you must make it your permanent and healthy lifestyle change. That’s why I use livin’ la vida low-carb instead of “low-carb diet” to describe this way of eating for me. It’s all about the “living” and the makers of the bestselling South Beach line of products are finally embracing this concept in their marketing.

A Kraft representative says they want to “broaden the appeal of the brand and fuel its growth” by implementing this name change from “South Beach Diet” to “South Beach Living”. Since more people are looking to eat healthy rather than losing weight (something I discussed in a recent podcast show), they wanted to put that message on the 70 South Beach products that line supermarket shelves. And “South Beach Living” fits the bill.

Click here to learn more about the significance of this name change and whether it will make any meaningful difference to healthy and weight-conscious consumers.

Jennette Fulda went on South Beach, dropped a cool 200 pounds!

Something rather strange happens when you become a blogger. You kinda get so caught up in your own blog, working on your stuff, writing about this and that and everything else, and responding to your readers that you forget there’s a big universe full of people JUST LIKE YOU out there on the Internet doing the exact same thing in their own little world. The bad part of becoming so self-absorbed in what you are doing is that you miss out on some rather extraordinary people who have achieved some rather amazing accomplishments.

Take blogger Jennette Fulda from the “Half Of Me” blog, for example.

I discovered this superb blog a few months ago and I’ve been hooked ever since! THIS is a blogger who has poured out her life story sharing with the entire planet about her stunning weight loss success journey from over 370 pounds down to her current weight of 180 and falling.

Since I too lost nearly 200 pounds on a low-carb diet, I thought it would be interesting to interview Jennette about her South Beach Diet weight loss success story that is still in progress. And it will always be in progress for those of us who have chosen this journey to travel down for the sake of our weight and health. But it’s a choice that both Jennette and I happily take!

Right now you can hear directly from the woman herself as she answers all the questions I had for her about her remarkable journey from almost 400 pounds into that adorable, cutie pie of woman she is today. Read about Jennette Fulda’s remarkable and inspiring 200-pound low-carb weight loss success story by clicking here.

Dr. Agatston says livin’ la vida low-carb can help make people heart healthy

There’s a new book in the successful bestselling South Beach diet series from Rodale (who hired the former vice-president at Atkins to join their team in July this year!) that came out on Tuesday called The South Beach Heart Program: The 4-Step Plan that Can Save Your Life. Written by Dr. Arthur Agatston, creator of the low-carb South Beach diet program, this book tackles the most lethal health problem in America today–HEART DISEASE!

With the release of a Harvard Medical School report on the heart health benefits of a low-carb, high-protein diet this week, the timing for Dr. Agatston’s book could not have been fortuitious. But it’s something most of us who have been livin’ la vida low-carb for a while have known already.

As a cardiologist, Dr. Agatston has a deep-seeded passion for sharing with his patients what they can do to prevent having a stroke or heart attack. In fact, he states in 2007 alone that over 600,000 Americans will suffer from a stroke while more than 1 million more will have a heart attack! YIKES!!! And these numbers are not coming down because the strategies for confronting heart disease have clearly been ineffective at best with their focus on making money on expensive surgery rather than natural prevention methods.

That’s why Dr. Agatston and advocates for livin’ la vida low-carb are attempting to get the word out about preventing these health calamities BEFORE they hit by using the latest medical knowledge and research to educate the public on the steps they can take in their own life to protect themselves. Millions of people have already experienced the lifechanging impact of the South Beach diet approach on their weight and health, so The South Beach Heart Program is merely an extension of that.

There are four specific areas that Dr. Agatston recommends:

1. Heart-healthy low-carb eating
2. Regular aerobic and core-strengthening exercises
3. The latest diagnostic testing (like the VAP test)
4. Heart medications when necessary

Other than that last one, which Dr. Agatston is a proponent of popular cholesterol-lowering drugs like the joint-jarring Lipitor (UGH!), I think he makes some valid points that unfortunately are being ignored by most doctors these days. It’s not totally the fault of the members of the medical community, but there needs to be a better way to deciminate information to the physicians on the frontlines treating patients.

We see examples of how low-carb is indeed improving heart disease all the time despite warnings from the media and so-called health experts about saturated fat and meat consumption. But the research is in: heart health problems are NOT an issue with low-carb diets. PERIOD!

In fact, just the OPPOSITE is true! If you want to do something GOOD for your heart, then try livin’ la vida low-carb. That’s what Dr. Agatston is promoting in his new book and it’s high time people start paying attention to this. What we are doing currently is the definition of INSANITY–doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result! Nothing is going to change until WE change our mindset about what to do.

I was pleased to see an essay by Dr. Agatston entitled “What Size Is Your Cholesterol?” on Amazon.com. The whole idea that your total cholesterol number is all that matters is already considered a stone age way of looking at heart health. Additionally, when you are on the low-carb lifestyle, your cholesterol numbers are looked at differently than when you are on a high-carb, low-fat diet. Dr. Agatston discusses this more in his engaging essay.

There’s a pretty neat little deal going on right now at Amazon.com when you buy this book. Place an order for The South Beach Heart Program and you will receive a FREE immediate one-month trial membership to The South Beach Diet online as well as The South Beach Diet Fitness Club online (both are a $32.00 value). Cool!

Slowly we are moving the mainstream towards the low-carb solution to the ever-growing obesity, diabetes, and heart disease epidemics that plague the health of literally tens of millions of people in the United States each year. While I wish the learning curve was quicker, I am encouraged to at least see it moving in the right direction with this book from Dr. Agatston. Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

For those of you who are following Dr. Arthur Agatston’s South Beach Diet, you’ll be pleased to hear that there are two brand new books for you to enjoy that will help you along in your South Beach lifestyle change.

The first book is the South Beach Diet Quick & Easy Cookbook, which contains lots of delicious recipes that will keep your low-carb plan on track while providing you with awesome food to eat and enjoy.

bq. Most people who follow a low-carb lifestyle are eating the good fats, healthy amounts of protein, the good carbohydrates while avoiding the unnecessary sugars, white flour, and starchy foods that lead to weight loss disaster. Dr. Agatston understands that and is trying to help others take an interest in their own health before it is too late.

The second book is the South Beach Diet Dining Guide for those times when you need to go out to eat and want to know what you can order. This will become a handy reference guide for those unexpected times.

bq. This handy little restaurant reference guide is PERFECT for people following The South Beach Diet who are wanting to know what they can eat when they are out with friends, family, or clients. It covers over 75 popular restaurant chains of all types, including some local upscale family restaurants in America’s most popular cities.

Get a free excerpt of this book by clicking here.

Read my full reviews of these two new South Beach Diet books by clicking here and here.

Kraft, along with South Beach Diet Foods, will begin offering more products to make your dieting easier.

bq. In 2006, Kraft is expanding its South Beach Diet line of popular convenience foods with several new nutritious eating options, including new hot breakfast choices in four varieties, perfect for starting the day right. Available in Denver-Style, Southwestern-Style, All American and Vegetable Medley, these protein-rich frozen wraps make breakfast delicious, nutritious and convenient — great for at home or on-the-go. Each fiber-rich tortilla is packed with real egg whites, reduced-fat cheese, meats and is microwaveable in just two minutes.

It seems dieting has become so much easier now that you can pick up your breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks at your local store. This way you spend less time preparing meals and more time concentrating on your diet and excerise.

Continue reading for some Asian dishes that will make your mouth water.

Read more…

Editorial — According to the sales rankings at Amazon.com, low-carb titles are still selling well despite the growing popular belief that low-carb dieting is dead. With the announced bankruptcy protection by Atkins Nutritionals this week, critics of low-carb diets had some meaty facts to bolster their arguments. However, it’s worth noting that Atkins Nutritionals Inc is primarily a food company–not a publishing company (the publisher of New Diet Revolution is Avon Books, a division of Harper Collins).

Let’s take a look at how well low-carb titles are selling on Amazon.com. Remember this is the same list that includes titles like Harry Potter.

* The Southbeach Diet is currently #37
* New Diet Revolution is currently #3,338

So it’s true there has been a shift (at least in sales) away from Atkins, but after experiencing years on the top it was inevitable. No single diet book, no matter the genre, can last at the top forever. At least with our readers we have seen Southbeach become more popular.

We just hope that all the headline reading people don’t see the word Atkins and bankruptcy together than conclude that low-carb dieting is dead and does not work.

Kraft Foods will expand its alliance with The South Beach Diet and its creator, Arthur Agatston, M.D., by launching a broad line of new products under the South Beach Diet brand. The wide variety of products–offering choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as snacking–will reach national distribution in spring 2005. The South Beach Diet line will include cereal, meal replacement and cereal bars, refrigerated sandwich wraps, frozen entrees and frozen pizza.

The creator of the South Beach Diet says it isn’t a fad and will outlive the low-carb craze. “We are not low carb. We are good carb,” Dr. Arthur Agatston, a cardiologist who developed the diet to help patients in his Miami practice, said in a recent interview. “There is a lot of misunderstanding.”

Kraft has teamed up with the creator of The South Beach Diet, Dr. Arthur Agatston, on a new line of products. Available in stores nationwide next month, a variety of Kraft products will have a “South Beach Diet Recommended” badge to help consumers find foods that fit within the diet. It appears on favorites such as Boca Burgers, Kraft 2% Milk and Fat Free Singles, certain Oscar Mayer Deli Meats, Planters assorted nuts, and Light N’ Lively Cottage Cheese, to name a few.

Also in October, the new “Kraft South Beach Diet Recipe Sampler”

In an article spotlighting John Edwards’ wife Elizabeth Edwards, USA Today reporter Jill Lawrence notes that Mrs. Edwards has at least tried the South Beach Diet. However, she quickly found out that the campaign trail is no place for a diet:

bq. “I’m like every person who would like to lose a few pounds,” Edwards said in an interview Saturday as she rode the few miles from a huge welcome-back rally here to her spacious, wooded home, where a CBS crew from 60 Minutes was waiting. “Every night, you know, I’m going to be on that diet [South Beach Diet] tomorrow. And sometimes I am, and sometimes, particularly in the campaign, it’s really hard. They feed you constantly.”

John Edwards is John Kerry’s running mate and the likely Democratic VP nominee.