My wife and I began the South Beach diet when the doctor told her she had to lose at least 40 lbs. and reduce her cholesterol. Faced with that challenge, we decided to try 'living on the beach'. The first few weeks were really tough - headaches and cravings - but once we got into the main part of phase 1 things got easier and that's where this cookbook begins to shine. Finding different, tasty, and appealing recipes for phase 1 is not easy but the cookbook is ready with suggestions that make it easier. After my wife and I moved into phase 2 the book was even more helpful with many more recipes. The only downside to the book is that the recipes call for ingredients that are a bit on the expensive side. However, our success on the program (my wife lost the 40 lbs. and has kept it off for more than a year, cholesterol is now great) makes the cost more than acceptable. We're still 'living on the beach' in phase 3 and use the cookbook at least once a week.

I don't follow the South Beach diet. However, as a vegetarian it's important for me to get in enough protein every day- woman can not live on brown rice alone- and I thought perhaps the recipes in this cookbook would provide a good base for high-protein dinners (meat substituted, of course) to add a little variety to my diet. And well, it seemed like a good plan at the time... but when I actually got the book, I realized there was no way these recipes would be in a favourites list anytime soon.

First of all, there is a certain amount of labour and random ingredient involved. This is a little inconvenient, but hey, if the food's good, it'll be worth the extra effort, right?

Right?

Well, the gathering was done and the food... was not great. It wasn't even really that good. It was fairly mediocre- bland, uninspired.

Save your money and invest in a good cookbook. Even if it's not diet specific, you should be able to modify any recipes into fitting the requirements for South Beach, and you'll get a better meal to boot.

I bought this book on a recommendation from a friend and I was not impressed with the recipes at all. I tried quite a few and only found two recipes that I would consider successful. All of the desserts we tried were terrible with the exception of the Key Lime Pie. Not only that, the ingredients called for in many of the recipes are very expensive.

The cook book does explain the principles and different phases of the South Beach Diet for those not familiar with the process. Also, I do believe in the basic principles of this diet and think they are based on solid nutritional fundamentals.

However, the recipes are just plain bad and inedible in many cases. I fully support my husband on his quest to lose weight and eat healthier, but we both agree that this cook book is not going to go with us on our weight loss journey!

This book is filled with plenty hard to make and hard to eat recipes. I would hope that a meal that takes hours of preparation would at least taste somewhat appealing. This book does not have recipes that fall into either category.

If you are hardcore into this diet, than I recommend you but the book. Otherwise the book just isn't worth it.

The book says that it's "Good food that's good for you". Where as the book has recipes that are good for you, I beg to differ when they call it "good food".

Some of the ingredients listed were hard to find and very expensive.

The only thing I can see this book making lighter is your wallet!

I bought this book for my mom for Christmas last year. We both try to follow a lower in carb, low sugar diet to keep from gaining a lot of weight. I thought this would give her some good ideas for something new to eat so they wouldn't get bored with food. I glanced through it myself and ended up liking a lot of the recipes, so I bought a copy for myself as well. Some of the ingredients are kind of hard to find in the Midwest, so that is why i gave it three stars instead of 5. My mom especially had trouble finding some ingredients at her local grocery store because she lives in a rural area in Kansas. But of the recipes we tried, they were all very good and helped to satisfy hunger and keep away those nasty carb-cravings that are our downfall! I do recommend this book, especially if you live in an urban area where you are more likely to have all the ingredients at your fingertips.

I have a really, really too-big collection of cookbooks, especially diet cookbooks. I’ll admit, most of my cookbooks are “diet” cookbooks (how boring am I? I mean, really). Even if I don’t particularly follow any specific diet, such as the South Beach Diet, I DO enjoy buying the cookbooks if the recipes look healthy and tasty. I was drawn to this one because it was on sale--fortunately the South Beach brand of cookbooks are easily available for reasonably prices. This one has some great entrees (the Asian-style dishes are all amazing!), but my main gripe is that the recipe lists are a bit on the long side. I have a tiny kitchen and I rarely keep a large list of ingredients on hand, so I wouldn’t recommend this to people who want quick and easy meals with a small list of ingredients (one great one I found that uses smaller lists of ingredients is Hungry Girl’s new cookbook).

This is a decent cookbook for all standard SB dieters, as well as those trying to watch their weight in general, though it’s more of a every-now-and-then cookbook for me and my small kitchen.

This cookbook is just a further extension of what was offered in the South Beach Diet. The Chapters are broken into stages, to make it easier for people following South Beach Diet.

I have made many of these recipes, and they were all very good. However, I also try to stay away from processed food as much as I can, and do not have a strong sweet tooth. For people that do not like the taste of whole grains, you may need to gradually get used to it by doing a mix of whole grain and the refined grain you consume, until you get used to everything.

Also, this does requires some prep time on your part. If you are the kind of person that wants a meal made a in a mere five minutes, you will be very much out of luck here. A lot of these recipes take a good twenty minutes or so to prep, and then varies on cooking time, half hour or more, pending on the recipe. Obviously, one can cut down prep time by washing all the produce after going to the store, and could probably make a day of preparing some of these dishes ahead of time and then just reheating them...but, it will take organization on your part. If you like to cook, and don't care for over refined foods, then I think you will enjoy the recipes in this cookbook.