Diet guru struggles to stay on own plan

By Carolyn Susman, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 24, 2004

He's only human, and that means the author of the best-selling The South Beach Diet (Rodale, $24.95) is an admitted chocoholic who battles to keep his weight in line, just like almost everybody else.

From Katie Couric on down, Miami cardiologist Dr. Arthur Agatston -- he's still practicing medicine -- has been upfront about his frailties in the diet department.

"I cheated a little bit over the holidays," he responds when asked about his adherence to the world-famous plan he developed for his patients.

"My wife said I was the only one not on the South Beach diet."

That could be. His publisher says the book ranked first on the list of bestselling nonfiction last year.

Based on a low (processed) carbohydrate diet -- not all carbs are bad -- that includes "good" oils such as olive oil, the eating plan is aimed at preventing heart disease, lowering cholesterol and reversing adult-onset diabetes.

This is accomplished after a two-week "detoxing" period when all carbs are removed, followed by the gradual introduction of whole fruits and whole grains. This allows people to lose their carb cravings along with an average of 7-14 pounds, he says.

"We actually encourage maximizing the good carbs, rather than limiting all carbs," he stresses.

Agatston's lastest book, The South Beach Diet Cookbook (Rodale, $25.95), includes more than 200 recipes based on his approach to weight control and disease prevention.

Although his diet differs from the low-carb, high-protein diet advocated by the late Dr. Robert Atkins, Agatston thinks the attacks on the doctor, based on Atkins' weight at death, are inappropriate.

"The attack on him personally was unethical.... He never looked overweight to me. You can gain a lot of weight when in heart failure at the end. (The medical examiner's report on which the attacks were based) was not an autopsy. It was very flimsy evidence to go and attack him."

But Agatston did say that "the information was not there when (Atkins) developed his diet. He thought it necessary to go into ketosis (a starvation-like state) to lose weight, depleting your sugar stores.

"We did our studies giving enough veggies and good carbs, and (the dieters) still lost their (carb) cravings."

Our screwed-up diet is to blame for most of our ills, Agatston has said, because we don't eat the fruits and vegetables we should, or get the natural good oils and fats from fish and nuts that our ancestors did.

Our processed-food diet has resulted in an out-of-balance consumption of "bad" carbs, such as white flour and sugars, that threw us over the edge as a population when the low-fat craze first hit.

People didn't understand, or want to, that stuffing themselves with low-fat pastries wasn't the path toward healthy eating.

He fell into the trap himself, he said, before he developed his diet plan.

"We now know what causes the (food) cravings, the drop in blood sugar. I used to get it. I gobbled up a low-fat muffin in the doctor's lounge. I thought I was fine, but you keep eating. You're always hungry. It's almost impossible (to control).

"We recommend strategic snacking, every few hours. I won't be hungry. I won't get that drop."

Doctors, as well as dieters, are glomming onto his plan, he said, because it makes sense to them.

"People are understanding the basic science behind it. So many are doing it in schools and offices. Our sense was that we'd improve blood chemistry and decrease waistlines. What we didn't appreciate is how much better people feel."

And how does he feel now that he's the rock star of the diet scene?

"Most days, I feel like a regular cardiologist. But Bette Midler was here (giving a concert in Miami) a few days ago. The publisher arranged for us to meet her.

"We went backstage, and there was a big group of people, and she came out and was so nice. And then they're all asking to take pictures with me! That was a unique experience."

South Beach Diet creator argues for moderation
By DAVID ROGERS, Daily News Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 24, 2004 — To what he sees as two extremes, Dr. Arthur Agatston offers an alternative.

To Agatston, a cardiologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, the diet debate is not low fat versus low carbohydrate.

Agatston thinks that creating a leaner, more healthy body is a matter of eating a balance of moderate amounts of fat, protein and carbohydrates.

The creator of The South Beach Diet will appear Sunday evening at a by-invitation reception and fund-raiser for the Foundation for the Advancement of Cardiac Therapies — or FACT — at the Palm Beach home of Don and Stephania Conrad.

The growing phenomenon of obesity in America, Agatston said Monday during a break from his practice, has been fueled by decades-old American Heart Association recommendations — modified somewhat in recent years — that emphasize high carbohydrates and low fat.

The problem is that Americans eat too many processed foods that are low in fat but high in simple sugars.

"The processing takes out the fiber from grains, which also takes out most of the nutrients," Agatston said. "It's rapidly digested and causes a big swing in blood sugar, so we're basically walking around hungry all the time."

That hunger results from the succeeding drop in blood-sugar level. Consuming so much sugar has created insulin resistance in many Americans, a condition that makes losing body fat difficult and can precipitate the onset of diabetes.

But natural sources of low-sugar carbohydrates, such as asparagus, broccoli and many other vegetables (excluding most root vegetables), as well as beans and grains, provide vital nutrition, Agatston said.

The South Beach Diet warns against eating too many starchy foods, such as white potatoes and white rice, because these foods have high rankings on the glycemic index. Foods with a low rank on the glycemic index satisfy hunger and reduce cravings, he said.

The prominent alternative to the low-fat approach, the Atkins diet, does not differentiate between beneficial and harmful carbohydrates, and beneficial and harmful fats, Agatston said.

That diet was created by the late Robert Atkins about 30 years ago. "He lumped all carbs together," Agatston said. "It is the processed carbs that are the problem, not the whole grains or vegetables or whole fruits, which are also carbs and supply all our important vitamins and nutrients.

"The other thing that he didn't realize is that saturated fat isn't good for our blood vessels, and it isn't good for long-term weight loss or preventing diabetes. What we've learned in the subsequent 20 years — and this science really wasn't available to Atkins when he developed his diet in the ’70s — we know that the good fats — the Omega-3 fish oils, the canola oils, the Mediterranean oils — are good for our blood vessels."

Agatston's diet emphasizes lean cuts of meat with less saturated fat, such as Canadian bacon, some cuts of chicken and fish, including orange roughy and salmon.

The South Beach Diet gained national attention last spring, and its popularity shows no signs of waning. Since it debuted last year, The South Beach Diet, has sold more than 5 million copies and remains near the top of the New York Times best-sellers list. Another Agatston book, The South Beach Cookbook, will hit bookstores in mid-April. And, in a few months, Agatston anticipates announcing a line of whole-food products to debut next year.

Agatston created the diet to help patients stave off heart disease and lose body fat.

"The feedback we get is how much better people feel," Agatston said. "It's a combination of not having swings in blood sugar and getting good nutrients. They focus better. They feel much better than they ever did before. On the diet they have more energy because it's really the way we are meant to eat."

At the Conrad reception Agatson is scheduled to attend, FACT co-founders Drs. Mehmet Oz and Chauncey Crandall will unveil a rendering of the foundation's planned headquarters, a heart disease research and education center.

Oz is a heart surgeon at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. Crandall is a local heart surgeon. FACT has signed a contract to buy land in downtown West Palm Beach from the Palm Beach Opera.

For more information, call 655-7464.