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Its great that you are taking steps to lose weight and improve your health. Your health will absolutely improve as the poungs come off.

Southbeach is probably not a bad starting point, but much depends on your approach. The diet is designed to shift your carb consumption from the unhealthy, highly processed, simple carbs, to the healthier complex carbs, including whole grains, veggies, and fruit. During the initial stage of the diet you will eat no carbs at all (with the exception of veggies), in an effort to detoxify and overcome cravings for junk food carbs. Then slowly, you introduce healthy carbs back into your diet.

I believe that you can acheive improved health and weight loss following a simple formula that doesn't require a book. It is foolproof, easy to follow, healthful, and you can stick to it forever. Its not really a diet, just a modified approach to eating. The formula is as follows:

1. Calculate your BMR to determine how many calories you need to maintain your weight completely sedentary. Do a google search on "BMR calculator" The BMR factors your age, height, current weight, and gender. Once you have this number, you need to factor in your activity level which may or may not increase the number slightly. To lose weight you can decrease your calories by 10-20% and/or increase your activity level. This will provide you with a fairly accurate number of calories to eat that will have you losing weight at a healthy pace - about 1.5-2 lbs per week.

2. For optimum health, I recommend that you consume your calories as 50% carbs, 25% protein, and 25% fat. Once you know how many calories to eat, figuring this out is simple math. 1 carb gram = 4 calories, 1 protein gram = 4 calories, and 1 fat gram = 9 calories. So if you can eat 1600 calories per day, you can have 800 calories in carbs, 400 calories in protein, and 400 calories in fat. This converts to 200 carb grams, 100 protein grams, and about 45 fat grams daily. Remember, you need to recalculate this on your specific calorie needs. Keep in mind that if you eat the right carbs, they probably will not make you sick. You need to avoid the junk carbs and focus on the complex, fibrous carbs.

3. Next, spread these calories out over 5 meals throughout the day. I recommend eating at 8am, 11:30, 3:00, 6:30, and 10pm, but you need to do what works best for your lifestyle. Eating this often will stabilize your metabolism and help you maintain energy throughout the day. You can divide your calories into 5 equal meals, or some people are more comfortable with 3 meals and 2 snacks. Then you simply apply the formula from step 2 to each meal you have. So if you eat 5 equal meals, each meal would be 320 calories and consist of 40 carb grams, 20 protein grams, and 9 fat grams. If you have 3 meals and 2 snacks, your meals would be 400 calories each and consist of 50 carb grams, 25 protein grams, and about 11 fat grams -- your 2 snacks would each be 200 calories consisting of 25 carb grams, 12-13 protein grams, and 5 fat grams.

4. Finally, the last piece of the formula is applying good sense and basic healthy eating habits. Don't eat junk carbs, avoid white flour and sugar products, focus on complex carbs - whole grains, veggies, fruit. To help you can add these daily goals to your formula: 25-30 grams of fiber, no more than 300 mg of cholesteral per day, no more than 2500 mg of sodium per day, and finally drink LOTS of water.

In order to follow this type of diet you will need to read labels and have a good kitchen scale. But after a few weeks you will start to automatically know your portions and know what a single meal consists of, regarding portions and ratios of carbs, protein, and fat. Its just a simple learning curve.

I guarantee you that this formula works, is extremely healthy, easy to follow, and you will never feel hungry. Because you are giving your body exactly what it needs in terms of nutrients and calories. Of course excercise is a critical component - so don't forget to include it if you can, even a simple 1-2 mile walk per day.