Well, the wife and I are starting the South Beach diet tomorrow. It seems like a reasonable diet & not as extreme as Atkins. Neither of us are that heavy; we’re both hoping to lose 5-15 (ok, 5 for her, 15 for me) pounds. Primarily, we’re looking to improve blood chemistry and for me lower the blood pressure a bit.
Any advice from those who have been on south beach and been successful?
My new wife and I just did Phase I of South Beach before our wedding. In the interest of preparing you for how I feel the diet really works, I have to tell you the following: be prepared to be really, really bored with your limited food choices. If you follow the diet to the letter, you certainly will lose weight, because you’ll be so bored with the food that you will lose all interest in eating.
Worked great, though.
Dishwasher. You really, really need a dishwasher.
That, and string cheese. (it’s great for snacks…ok, I overdid the cheese, and still lost weight).
If your wife only wants to lose 5 pounds, she might consider the possibility of starting with phase II. It has all the health benefits, but none of the monotony.
I found it a pretty easy diet to stick to, because, even aside from the boredom, it keeps your appetite on an even keel. I did pretty well on Phase I, because I don’t have much of a sweet tooth anyway. It did feel kind of silly, not eating fruit, but it’s doable.
My advice would be to treat yourself to a food shopping spree, so that your choices are varied and you aren’t tempted to reach for something on the forbidden list. It does take a bit of planning, especially if you are bringing food to work.
The first couple days are the hardest by far. I recommend getting a bunch of sparkling water (I like the lemon kind) to drink morning noon and night because man the soda craving was fierce for me. The sparkling water made me feel like I was having a treat, but no calories!
I didn’t find it such a hard diet to stick to. The first 2 weeks were definitely the hardest. The best advice is really just to read the book, maybe a couple of times, and stick to the plan.
I found myself pretty tired and a little cranky by the second week of Phase One, the no sugar thing really hit me. Drink lots of water, take fiber supplements, and have approved snacks handy.
I need to start Phase One again really soon. I suppose before Halloween would be a good time. 
psycat90’s post reminded me of something. I think you can feel a little low-energy from time to time on Phase I. This is reduced a lot if you take advantage of being able to eat beans, lentils, etc. They help even things out and are a nice break from meatfishcheese.
Found it to be a wonderful diet, boring as all get out, and found i’d spend a lion’s share of my free time (which i haven’t much of) cooking and planning my meals. Lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks though.
I pretty much concur with cher3. I had no trouble with planning menus and used the recipe choices quite a bit, but it does take some effort.
I only wanted to lose about 10 pounds, and I really had a hard time giving up bread. (Also there were constipation issues.)
I ended up just going into Phase II. It worked. Lost all my weight and then some.
Husband had much more self discipline and he also lost all the weight he hoped to, though he fell off the wagon a bit this past summer. (He has a sweet tooth.)
One interesting thing is that while we still eat potatoes every now and then, they are not the constant staple they once were. Ditto bananas.