The journey toward reaching your weight-loss goals starts in the kitchen. Taking stock of the foods that you will be cooking and eating, and learning which to avoid, as you follow the South Beach Diet, is a good way to set yourself up to succeed. When we say avoid, it ideally means removing sugary and starchy foods altogether if you’re beginning the diet on Phase 1. To help you get started (or to serve as a reminder), we’ve created this checklist of foods that should be eliminated for this Phase. Some of these foods can be reintroduced two weeks later, once you enter Phase 2. Learn how to create a Phase 1-friendly kitchen with this easy cheat sheet:
Foods to Avoid on Phase 1
Baked goods: All breads, bagels, and rolls (even those that are 100% whole wheat or whole grain), cakes, cookies, crackers, cupcakes, muffins, pastries, and waffles
Beverages: All fruit juices, sugary sodas and any other drinks containing added sugars, as well as all alcoholic beverages. See also dairy below.
Cereals: All varieties of cereals
Condiments, dressings, and seasonings: Barbecue sauce, honey and honey mustard, ketchup, teriyaki sauce, cocktail sauce, maple syrup, and any other condiment, sauce, or salad dressing made with added sugars
Dairy and cheese: Whole milk and 2% milk; cheeses made with anything but 1%, part-skim, or fat-free milk, including creamy cheeses (except for low-fat cottage cheese and spreadable cheese wedges); ice cream, soymilk with more than 4 g of fat per 8-ounce serving; full-fat cup-style or frozen yogurt
Flour: All flour (even whole wheat), including pancake and waffle mixes; cornmeal
Fruit: All fruit and fruit products, including dried and canned fruits, and sugared fruit jams and jellies
Meat and poultry: Anything processed using sugars (honey-baked or maple-cured ham, for instance); fatty fowl such as goose and duck legs; pâte; dark-meat chicken and turkey (legs and wings); processed fowl such as packaged chicken nuggets or patties; beef brisket, liver, rib steaks, prime rib, skirt steak, bacon (except Canadian bacon and turkey bacon), bologna, full-fat beef pepperoni, salami, and other fatty meats.
Oils and fats: All solid vegetable shortening or lard, butter, and hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils
Pasta: All pasta, even whole wheat
Rice: All rice, even brown
Snacks: All unhealthy snacks are off-limits (such as chips and cookies, pretzels, and so on)
Soup: All powdered soup mixes (many are loaded with trans fats and sodium)
Sweeteners: All sweeteners, except sugar substitutes
Starchy vegetables: Beets, calabaza, carrots, cassava, corn, green peas, sweet and white potatoes, pumpkin, taro, turnips (root), winter squash, and yams
