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Like many diets, the South Beach is divided into three phases. In Phase One, most carbohydrates are banned to give your body a complete rest from fluctuating blood sugar and insulin levels. The theory is this will help to resolve insulin resistance.

During Phase One, the banned foods list includes bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, fruit, milk, sweets, cake, biscuits, ice cream, sugar and alcohol. A few low GI veg such as broccoli and cabbage are allowed, but the focus is on eating lean meat, chicken, fish, eggs, low-fat cheese, some nuts and olive oil. You follow this phase for 14 days.

In Phase Two, low GI carbs including most fruits, Granary bread, wholegrain cereals and pasta and low-fat milk are reintroduced. The idea is to stay with this phase until you’ve reached your target weight.

Finally, in Phase Three you introduce an even wider variety of foods. This phase is aimed at keeping your weight steady and the diet recommends you stay on this for life.

For each phase, there are no limits on portion sizes – you simply eat enough to satisfy your appetite – and you’re encouraged to eat three meals and snacks each day.

In today’s dieting world where low-carb, high-fat diets are in vogue, it’s good to see a diet that recommends eating fewer foods packed with saturates and replacing some of these foods with heart-healthy monounsaturates. Diets based on eating low GI foods are also becoming increasingly popular and in general, encourage you to ‘de-junk’ your diet and cut down on carb-rich foods that are packed with few other nutrients such as white bread, sugary cereals and sweets.

Nutrition experts and dietitians are generally in favour of diets based on the Glycaemic Index, but while most believe in eating more foods with a low GI value, they don’t necessarily think all high GI foods should be banned. This is because the GI value of a meal changes considerably when foods are eaten together. That said, few experts would argue with a diet that recommends cutting down on processed carbs and swapping foods rich in saturates for those containing monounsaturates.

Most nutrition experts are less happy with the recommended weight loss. General guidelines recommend losing no more than 2lb a week for good health and so experts are concerned that this diet promotes such a large weight loss in the first two weeks. They say this is unhealthy and is simply the result of a severe calorie restriction caused by cutting out all carbs.

As for losing weight specifically from your midriff, most nutrition and fitness experts believe it’s impossible to lose fat from just one part of your body. Nevertheless, losing weight will almost certainly result in a reduction in waist size – and this is linked with a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes.