I love reading the Amazon reviews & always look at the negative ones to see the shortfalls. After two weeks on the diet, this 60 yr old, who spent 2 weeks without cheating on South Beach without dropping a single pound, has lost 13 lbs even though I have been on a plateau for 5 of those days. I'll try to remember to update this at the end of 30 days.A few responses to "Disappointed and Impractical"'s review, who felt the diet didn't work for a single person because some of the recipes are for a large number of servings:
As a single, I've been been adjusting recipes for years and had zero problems doing so with this book. What recipe book only shows recipes for single portions? Most are for a family of 4. Yes buying for a single can be a problem, but no more for this book than any other one. So I'm doing the same thing I've been doing for years, keeping a soup pot in the fridge and freezing items I don't use.
I did adjust the recipe for some of the soups, and the chili for the number of months I thought I would be on the diet and freezed them. I LIKED the idea, since after the first 30 days, I'll still be eating healthily but with greatly reduced meal preparation time.
And if you don't like something, common sense tells you what to replace it with. One dark leafy green for another, etc, just as they recommend substituting when they talk about the exercising. If you don't like to walk, substitute something you do like, such as an exercise bike or swimming. If you like it, you'll do it.
More importantly first of all, this diet WORKS for me, and the older I get the harder it is to lose weight. Food wise it certainly is well balanced and nutritious. The variety seems to address each craving I have. . Just when I want something crunchy, there are the almonds, or tacos. Just when I want something sweet, there is a peanut butter and sugarless jelly snack. The meals are, in my view, delicious for the most part, and the snacks are timed to keep your blood levels stable so you metabolism doesn't shut down. And I ADORE the way the exercising increases each day. And the daily thoughts are great. Just when I hit my plateau, there was the talk about plateaus. And if I want more insight, I go to the NBC Biggest Loser Website and look in the nutrition blog in the Exclusive section for more information. (the NBC site has lots of helpful hints that are not on the other Biggest Loser websites.
I work out in the early morning to get it out of the way and raise my metabolism for the day. The breakfasts in this book are huge, so if you eat first, you'll have loads of energy to work out. The dinners are on the light side, sort of the way the Europeans eat. I thought that would be hard, but I've had no problems with it so far.
To date this is the best diet book I've ever tried. The one recipe I thought I would not like was the fish tacos and actually they were just great (I used Orange Roughy as a substitute fish).
After 40 years of dieting, I think I've finally faced the fact that diet and exercise is intrinsically intertwined, and that getting in shape MUST involve both. For me this book is the best vehicle I've found to address both factors.
I can't wait until the new Biggest Loser season starts on the 15th. I plan to be right there with them: my and my 30 day jumpstart diet book.
Don't be fooled by the cheesy cover. Inside are nicely designed pages with photographs and lots of color. The food shots, in particular, are beautifully done, and make you want to try the recipes. Advice from TV-show contestants and trainers is sprinkled throughout.
One of the big tips to losing weight and getting fit is being organized; this book follows its own advice. The recipes are easy to follow and the exercises are also accompanied by photos of someone demonstrating the workout.
First you meet some of the Biggest Loser contestants, nine people who had to follow this 30-day plan at home. Each person has a photo, a bio, a quote about why they are ready to lose weight, and a week-by-week diary detailing their progress. Next are chapters introducing the basic tenets of healthy eating and exercising. The guts of the book come next: the "30 days of transformation." Each day tells you exactly what to eat, including recipes, and what your exercise should be, including diagrams.
Recipes include some real winners: Confetti Couscous, Frosty Pumpkin Smoothie, Vanilla Poached Pears and Fish Tacos.
The back of the book gets a little cheesy again, though, as a few pages are devoted to advertising the Biggest Loser product line of books, DVDs, equipment and protein powder.
Here's the chapter list:
1. Ready... Set... Jump!
2. There's No Place Like Home
3. The What, When, and How of Eating
4. Building a Fitness Foundation
5. 30 Days of Transformation
6. Now What?
Contributors
Acknowledgments
IndexI bought this book and was extremely disappointed. While it does lay out a different menu for each of the 30 days, grocery shopping for these menus would be completely impractical. I sat down to write the list for the first week and by the time I got to day 3, it was two pages of ingredients in small quantities which is impossible to shop for. While the variety is enticing, it's not expected that you'd find one slice of reduced fat swiss cheese or two butter lettuce leaves for sale. You'd end up buying all this food to only use a small amount the book doesn't reuse certain ingredients enough within a week's time that you'd actually benefit from buying the entire package of swiss or the entire head of butter lettuce. Also, some of the recipes are for WAY too many servings for example there's a recipe for 24 mini blueberry bran muffins, but you only are instructed to eat four of them in the 30 day period. Similarly there's a recipe for 12 servings worth of chili but you only eat one. Unless you've got a freezer the size of a closet, I can't see this working out well. Variety is great, but when it becomes expensive and impractical it doesn't make sense. The Biggest Loser contestants didn't pay for the food and there was more than one of them on the diet at the same time, so buying the ingredients in bulk in a situation like that would make sense. For a single person, this plan doesn't make good sense at all. Overall, I was extremely disappointed.Last year I bought this book in March. By April I had lost 25 pounds.
I stuck with the diet tips & went to more advanced, intense workouts and lost another 35 pounds by July.
The diet works. The exercise program is excellent for people COMPLETELY out of shape.
You CANNOT follow this book exactly, nor can you any diet. You will have to adjust. The book gets 4-stars for not showing you how to adjust or be flexible.
This is what I did.
Don't like a recipe? Find something else from another day and substitute.
Don't have an ingredient? Improvise. If you add calories just skip calories elsewhere.
Follow the exercise plan. You can do that.
If you miss a day just move on. Don't try to catch-up. That's a recipe for frustration.
DO NOT MISS TWO DAYS in a row. If you do skip a rest day and insert a workout there.
Read each day's entries completely. This will keep you on track. Reading & learning about nutrition will help most. Most diets give you it all up front, then just follow with a long list of recipes or exercises. Having a slow progression to read each day helps you absorb more info. This is the book's real secret.I started out cooking the recipes, and following Jillian Michael CD's, rather than the suggested daily exercises, I was so sore but wanted to continue exercising. My husband asked me to look a Richard Simmons Sweatin to the Oldies video tape and before I knew it I completed 58 minutes of dancing, singing and smiling to the Oldies with Richard and loving it. Combining the recipes with Richard Simmons workouts, six to seven days a week, I lost 10 pounds in 20 days. I found it hard to eat all the food each day, I often left out one snack, and had days I skipped a meal but did eat the snacks. I mixed up the recipes, didn't follow them in sequence, ALL the recipes are wonderful, I am big on spices and herbs, added herbs de provonce, garlic salt and pepper mix to the amazing mushroom soup, it was perfect and so delicious as well as the portabella pizzas, banana oatmeal, flank steak, turkey burgers, not much I've made that isn't fantastic and I LOVE to cook and of course eat! I look forward to cooking the recipes in this book, and with three adults in our home we use any left overs for lunches or save them for the next day. I did eat the same meals for a couple of days, its calories in and energy expended that is key to loosing weight. I can see myself making these recipes for the rest of my life. BTW I've done Weight Watchers and never lost weight this fast, even when I followed it faithfully and walked 30-45 minutes daily. Hands down this is a five star cookbook and fast weight loss is easy with a Richard Simmons Sweatin to the Oldies!
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