Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less

I agree with you about the "exotic" recipes. I live in a small town of 2000. In order to buy many of the ingredients and spices, I would have to drive to another town to find them. With gas approaching 3 buck a gallon, that's not about to happen. Plus, time is indeed a major factor. I wonder if anyone has found a solution to that.

Good advice, but it's the same information that a hundred other books give us. The problem is that we won't change our ways. I dream of living in Europe where people go to market every 2 days and eat fresh foods, but I wonder if I would really do that if I lived there. After all, I could go the the Farmer's Market every 2 days here if I wanted. There's something inside of me that just isn't letting go of the addiction.

Yeah, I know what you mean about the exotic/weird recipes they usually have in these kinds of diet books. I guess most of them would be really healthy and probably tasty, but a lot of them call for fancy techniques that are hard to do properly and exotic ingredients that I know my grocery store doesn't carry (I looked...my grocery store definitely doesn't have spelt flour or farm-raised tilapia). If someone comes up with a diet book that involves simple, cheap, easy-to-find ingredients and quick prep time, they'll make a LOT of money.

People don't eat convenience foods because they are time challenged, they eat them because they are lazy. My wife and I both work 45-50 hour weeks, I go to the gym 3 times a week and we eat zero convenience/processed food. I cook fresh produce everyday. There are a million dishes that can be prepared in 20 minutes. Buy the widest variety of fruits and vegetables available and any use any cookbook for a few weeks. After that you will know the basic techniques and be able to experiment for yourself.

...it's really easy to make excuses; 'this is too dificult,' or 'that's hard to find', but I think the basic principle of this book is to eat less processed food and get back to basics... I work 2 jobs, have a 6 year old boy; AND a roommate who's a vegetarian, and a prtner who is very much a carnivore- since I started dieting about 3 months ago I thought I'd go crazy trying to cook healthy for myself while still accomodating all the other eating styles in our family- but you know, I think that if you make it a priority to just buy only the healthiest whole ingredients you can find (and every grocery store has fruits & veggies, people) you will find quickly that not only is it pretty easy, you end up getting really creative with what you come up with. As with every diet, portion control is super important. You can eat sh*tty processed food all week long out of convenience , laziness or whatever... but calorie-wize you have to eat so much less of it, you'll find that with eating good whole ingredient foods that you get so much more energy and long lasting fullness out of it that it's truly worth the extra 1/2 hr. a night of cooking.

In answer to the question below you can order just about anything online - you do not have to drive at all.

Well, I think a good diet is just a balance of what has been said above. Although I'm not sure how much water you people drink, but I drink about 2 to 3 liters of water a day. I find it keeps my system hydrated and I don't get that groggy feeling when I don't have enough water in me.

Yeah, I don't eat processed foods but I don't make elaborate things either. I don't need a stupid book to tell me that a dish that consists of mostly veggies with a little lean protein is healthy. I make up my own recipes all the time and most of them are pretty simple. I used to eat crap all the time because it was convenient and I THOUGHT it tasted good. Now I've retrained my palate to like unprocessed, natural foods and I do eat them.

You're going to have to go into the grocery store sometime, if only for toilet paper! So try this: make a circuit around the outside edge, where the fruits, veggies, chicken, meats, and milk are. Get bagged salad, tomatoes, etc. Get some canned beans. Also pick up some reduced sodium cooking broth, fresh herbs, canned tuna, and a good whole wheat bread. Maybe some granola and fruit for breakfast. Now you have everything you need to make a good simple soup, salad, or sandwich. Batch cook the soup on a weekend, and put the salad stuff in the refrigerator in a colander or a salad spinner-- so you can grab a salad anytime. So now you can brown-bag a lunch in less time than it takes to work your way through the drive up, and you'll save gas, too. It can be done.

The people who wrote this book is partially right but need to fix a few things.

You need half your protein intake in fish. That's exactly our diet was 2 million years ago. The rest should be a variety of meats that are pastured raised and fed grass and chickens are fed worms (That's right, chickens do feed on worms) flaxseeds, and seed meal, as well as being allowed to roam around the pasture. Vegtable crops should use crop rotation instead of pesticides to control the weeds.

Though this book enphesizes on the restriction of red meats, chickens and turkeys are so awfully raised in America that you are better off eating canned ham than diseased drug-induced chickens here.

And another thing, you need to eat a certain amount of protein and a certain amount of fruit and vegtable carbohydrates according to your metabolic rate. Red meat does not make you sick as long as it's raised in a good manner.

And lastly, don't use the toaster or the microwave. Instead of toast and margarine, have some free-ranged omega 3 boiled or poached eggs with a fruit cup or vegtables for breakfast. Instead of fried burgers and french fries, have salmon with soup or vegtables. For diner, instead of spaghetti or pizza, a nice bison steak with steamed, buttered brockley, raw brussel sprouts, and a small amount of brown rice. For dessert, a mixture of pineapples, coconut, and sprinkle a bit of dark chocolate complete with an acai juice to finish off the day. For snacking, a fruit in the morning, and nuts with some dark chocolate for an afternoon snack. Much better than eating bread, chips, fried foods, and sugary junk foods. I think you get even more nutrients in these foods than in the foods mentioned in the book.

This was a really great review. Very thorough and clear. Thanks for the info.

I think that this is a GREAT thing to do . This has made me want to try to loose more weight !! (Yay Me)! But i think you all have done a really good job of giveing people incouregement to do something like looseing weight. But i got to go to bed i half a class in the morning so i will write later buh bye ..(thanks for the info)!!

I LOVE this book, and the principles it teaches. I am the mother of 4 yr. old triplets, and work full time, and like most working moms, have a crazy schedule. However, I have found this diet to be wonderful!! I have just started the second week, and lost 6 pounds the first week. Many of you have commented that it takes to long to cook most of these recipes, I'm doing it now, and it's really not too bad. Also, the beauty of this book is that it has a "portable plan" option, which gives options to folks that are "too busy to cook" or do not have access to a fully stocked kitchen. I really recommend this book.

In regard to your comment about not wanting to hunt around a health food store for items and ingredients... I agress as that comment alone sums up half of the problem. There needs to be more access to healthy foods in general. It seems it's much too easy to pick up unhealthy food.

With that said, I know people who will go to a particular gas station because they feel the gas makes their car run better, but won't put in half the amount of priorities to their own bodies or their childrens.

Tanya, well said. I remember years ago watching the Frugal Gourmet cooking show and Jeff Smith said "I get lots of letters from people who complain that I'm always using Extra Virgin Olive Oil on my recipes. They write and say "I have to feed a family of 4, it is too expensive, I can't afford to buy Extra Virgin Olive Oil". It is food that you feed your children. Isn't that more important to buy than to buy other things?". Your post reminded me of that.

Jan, I totally agree. Quality food is one of my essential budget items. My husband disagrees with me on this one because he feels that food should be cheap. For example, he thinks bread is a great food because it gives you calories and it costs hardly any money. I think spinach is a great food because it gives you tons of vitamins and minerals and hardly any calories. My husband thinks that spinach is a ripoff because it costs $3 a bag and has "hardly any calories and tastes gross". :P Good thing I do the shopping.

Spectra, I struggled with that with my husband for a while. His family grew up with different priorities. His father would bring home a 4-pack of yogurt each month he went to the supermarket. He had 3 kids. He kept a calendar for which kid got the extra yogurt that month, to rotate it. That would be totally ok if his mother didn't have 3 fur coats, tons of diamonds, they had 2 luxury cars, went on lavish trips, and so on. The concept of allowing each of your kids 1 cup of yogurt a month while you have all that sickens me.

I had a friend growing up that when I was invited for dinner or lunch at their house, the 3 kids (and me) and the help would get just a plate of potato soup and bread if it was dinner. If it was lunch, we'd get rice, beans, and 1 potato fritter each. Only the parents got steak, steamed vegetables, and all the other foods they deemed "too expensive for kids". They were also very well-off and ate at expensive restaurants all the time, redecorated the house constantly, etc. The first time she had lunch at my house, she was shocked that there were 3 of us eating (me, her, and my mom) and that my mother made 3 chicken breasts.

I see a lot of people who don't make the food budget a priority then spend tons on medications. They don't focus on prevention. I save whenever possible, by avoiding the "convenience health foods" (baby carrots are so good, but so much more than real carrots), but I'm not going to save when it comes to compromising my health. And that is because I'm not well-off. If I had the money for diamonds and luxury cars, I'd be eating salmon everyday of the week instead of spending it on the cars.

My aunt who likes to study nutrition gave me this diet from a magazine. Just a basic outline of it. I love it because it is laid out for me what i need to have and options to pick from each meal. The ones in the magazine are fairly bland, but I can imagine that there are more in the book. By saying bland I am not an eater that needs bad things in my food. I already rarely eat fried food, or a lot of sugars, etc. My problem was eating consistently and eating out for each meal, even though it wasn't "bad" food.

I've been on the diet since sunday. I am down three pounds so far. which is big for me because I NEVER lose weight.

My husband and I have been eating the meals on the first week of the 21 day plan. They are really delicious even though somewhat time consuming in the beginning. We have felt great, with lots of energy and no hunger between meals. Our problem is we have not lost an ounce and we are on day 5. We are both only 10-15 pounds from ideal weights. We are almost vegetarians but eat fish and these recipes are similar to our style but even more whole with absolutely no processed food at all. Maybe we just need fewer calories or smaller portions or more exercise. Anyone else not lose very quickly on this plan?

Consumer Reports (magazine) in 2007 (June, I think) said that Willett's diet provided 1,910 calories a day, on average.

Many people, especially women, won't lose weight eating that much.

-Steve Parker, M.D.
author of The Advanced Mediterranean Diet

Jan74, how many calories per day are required for maintenance of weight, for a 5'4" woman, 35 years old, weight 160 pounds, who is somewhat active?

According to the Daily Needs Calculator at NutritionData.com (under "Tools"), she eats 2261 cals/day. In my experience, that is a fairly reliable estimate, on average. In reality, some women like her are eating 1800 cals, others are eating 2600 cals, even remaining at steady state weight. Metabolic rates can be that variable.

If she ate the 1910 daily cals on Willett's program, the average hypothetical woman I described above should indeed lose weight.