Diet Health Books

I haven't really tried many recepies in this cookbook. I'm a really picky eater so this cookbook doesn't really help me. But I stil thought some of the recepies had some really good ideas.

I flipped through this about 5 times, and only about 2 or 3 recipes looked good to me, and I'm not a picky eater--believe me! Stick with Weight Watchers cookbooks, they're way better!

This cookbook is great and provided me with great stuff for my husband and I to eat. Trying to get Coach D to eat healthy is kinda hard. So if I fill him up on these great dishes, maybe I can keep him healthy. Most of the recipes are easy and quick to fix.

6/23/2008

THE BIGGEST LOSER COOKBOOK
More than 125 Healthy, Delicious Recipes
Adapted from NBC'S Hit Show

By Chef Devin Alexander, et al

(picture jacket here)

A review by Marty Martindale

The whole Biggest Loser concept is good, it seems, for these times, in that they have dealt with not only the food and its recipes, but a pyramid, general instruction for good sense and several graded workouts with Bob Harper and students on CD. This is a good program for these times when weight seems a problem for too many.

The Biggest Loser Diet is "calorie-controlled, carbohydrate-modified, fat-reduced and high in protein (which controls hunger.)" They want you to eat three meals and two snacks each day. "The 4-3-2-1 Biggest Loser Pyramid" is four tiers, the base, or largest is fresh fruits and vegetables, the next level is protein foods, seafood, cheese, beans, fish and yogurt. The second from the top level is whole grains, your breads, cereals and wheat pasta. The top level, or "The Extras" are sweets with a 200 calorie daily limit. They have an equation for your calorie quota: if you weigh between 150 and 300, multiply your weight by seven, and this is the number of calories you should keep your maximum to. Some simple pointers: No white potatoes, limit amount of starchy vegetables such as pumpkin, winter squash, sweet potatoes and yams. Avoid dry fruits. Choose whole fruits over juices. Vary your proteins and limit red meat servings to two a week. Avoid processed cold cuts. There's a few more guidelines, but nothing too restrictive, really common sense.

They divide the recipe section into Breakfasts, Hearty Snacks, Sandwiches-Soups-Stews, Sides & Salads, Main Courses and Sweet Snacks. Here's some examples:

MANGO STRAWBERRY BREAKFAST SUNDAE: Calls for orange juice, ice cubes, honey and high-fiber, low-sugar cereal

SUNRISE OATMEAL: Orange juice, oats, blueberries, water and orange extract

BRIAN'S BREAKFAST SCRAMBLE: Green bell pepper, onion, tomato, egg whites, and Cheddar cheese

COCKTAIL-HOUR TUNA TARTARE: Mango, cucumber, lime juice, cilantro, green onions and sesame oil

JESSICA'S "THE RANCH" BLT WRAP: Turkey bacon, wheat tortilla, Galeo's Miso Caesar Dressing, lettuce and tomato

PB & J SPIRALS: Wheat flour tortilla, peanut butter and strawberry all-fruit spread

PAM'S COTTAGE CHEESE MARINARA: Cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese and spaghetti sauce

JEN'S ASPARAGUS GUACAMOLE: Add sour cream, guacamole seasoning mix and tomato.

INDIAN CHICKEN SALAD POCKETS: Mayonnaise, lime juice, curry paste, cucumber, red onion, wheat pita and lettuce

MATT'S GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH: Rye bread, Cheddar cheese and oil spray

PARMESAN-PEPPER SWEET POTATO FRIES: Olive oil, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne and ketchup, if desired.

DANA'S SPINACH AND FETA BROWN RICE: Onion, garlic and feta cheese.

PARMESAN-ROASTED CAULIFLOWER: Parsley, garlic powder and olive oil

FRESH AND COLORFUL JICAMA SLAW: Cucumber, carrots, cilantro, lime juice, olive oil and red pepper flakes

BROCCOLI SALAD WITH SWEET VINAIGRETTE: Orange juice, plain yogurt, mustard, orange marmalade and red onion

HOT AND COLD BROWN-RICE SALAD: Chicken, broccoli florets, bell pepper, red onion, Italian dressing, and balsamic vinegar

DARI'S PICANTE CHICKEN: Picante sauce, cream cheese and Cheddar cheese

HEATHER'S MEXICAN ROLLUP: Ground turkey, extra-lean, wheat tortilla, sour cream, romaine, tomato and salsa

ANGEL HAIR WITH ROCKIN' RED CLAM SAUCE: Onion, garlic, baby clams, tomatoes, oregano, olive oil, red-pepper flakes and Parmesan cheese

ICED BUFFED MOCHA: Powdered coffee, chocolate soy milk, vanilla yogurt, Splenda, fat-free whipped topping and cocoa powder

RASAH AND EDWIN'S WARM GRAPEFRUIT DESSERT: Add ground cinnamon and bake.

TIFFANY'S CANDIED ALMONDS: Butter spray, almonds, cinnamon and Splenda

In a world where too many are jeopardizing their health by carrying too much weight, the whole Biggest Loser program, the exercises, advice and recipies are well worth considering.

You can reach Marty Martindale at Food Site of the Day.

Special interests: Healthy Living

This book if far more that I expected it to be, far more than a cook book! It has so much information before you ever get to the recipes it is amazing. It is an overview of how the system works for Biggest Loser. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to adopt a healthier lifestyle!

This book opened my eyes about my bad eating habits and put me on the path to a healthier lifestyle. I would recommend it to a friend.

S.F.

Overall, this book is a great referance for those interested in a pH balance diet + a way to a healthier eating life style.

This book contains all the facts you need to know about acid-alkaline diet with scientific explanations.
The food list is very comprehensive.
A must buy for anyone that is interested in this subject.

This book is more than a food guide - it explains in easy to understand terms why one would want to follow this type of diet. It's easy to understand, explains the basic premise well, and I trust the food guide more than others because these foods were lab tested for thier effects on a person's body pH. The guide is easy to use - I keep it in my purse. I eat very well (a lot!) and feel great!

This is a great guide to help you find what foods are best for you to keep good health. I highly recommend it.

This book is great. After a friend let my boyfriend and I borrow it we just had to own it. Although we haven't gone completely "raw" yet, we learned alot and it's great having this book on hand to reference.

The Raw Food Detox Diet: The Five-Step Plan for Vibrant Health and Maximum Weight Loss very informative

This is a really well-written book with practical advice for those of us who may not be ready to go 100% raw. I found it very inspirational!

I am new to the world of raw food and if you are too, this book is an excellent place to get started...in fact, it will carry you from where you are currently with your eating all the way to totally raw, if that's where you want to go. A questionnaire will help you decide at which of 5 levels you should start with the program, so don't get freaked out if you are currently subsisting on Big Macs and diet Coke...you don't necessarily have to do a 180 right off the bat. The book is filled with excellent information and rationales as to WHY this is a desireable way to eat, and anyone should be able to ease in to it. The recipes are wonderful, and you won't have to be buying rare, exotic foods in order to make it work. A juicer is recommended, and I bought the one the author suggests. It is amazing. Simply, if you are wanting to explore the world of raw eating, start with this book. I think you will be very pleasantly surprised at how easy it can be to incorporate!

I have now been following this "diet" for about a month. I hate to call it a diet because I feel it is a change for life. I am eating raw for breakfast (usually "juice" and fruit, and for lunch as well with a cooked dinner. I have found it to be easy to follow and maintain. I crave the recommended green lemonade in the morning, and have the gazpacho for lunch at least every other day - DELICIOUS. I feel healthy, lean and have a ton of energy. How could anyone argue with eating more fruits and veggies? The food combining takes a little practice and thought, but I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants a healthier way of eating with a bonus of shedding pounds!

Info makes sense and have tried a similar nutrition/eating regime, works well, great that someone has study the affects of hormones and how to harness that in a healthy no chemical way.

I've been taking all of the vitamins that the book suggests for about 5 weeks. I've actually lost over 1" from my belly. I'm in my mid 40's and have the typical belly too many of us middle aged women get. Nothing I do seems to touch it, but so far this looks promising. I am hoping to actually have a waist again. I'm going to stick with it. Their reasoning for why we get that belly fat makes sense to me.

This book is a quick read and easy to understand. The Doctor gives you a way to help yourself via saliva tests and non-pharmaceutical remedies. I recommend this book.

I will be going through with the saliva test and phone consult and have just started to use the Doctor's cream daily. Although I havent had my consult yet, I just started using the cream and I am finding that there are immediate side effects that they dont mention. I have felt nauseated and had a migraine since I started. Presumeably, these effects will subside. I suggest you google the side effects of progesterone creams. In just 2 days I noticed my hot flashes were cut in half which is such a relief. If I can just get rid of this headache....

This book has also inspired me to seek out a holistic minded ob/gyn in my area.

I gained 30lbs in 8 months, and I have been on some sort of diet for two years with only weight gain to show for it. I assumed I might be having hormone issues so I tried this book. What I read, really seemed to apply to me and I was excited to get started. Now after 2 months on the program, I am not as excited. I didn't have to change my current diet plan much and in the first 30 days I lost 5 lbs - which is not great, but it's the first downward movement I've seen on the scale since early 2006 so I was very excited and hopeful. The second month I gained 3 lbs back and I didn't change anything. So - as far as weight loss, I am not sure this is the one for me either. But I can say that since I started taking the supplements, I do feel better overall, I am not as tired so I will continue those. (I didn't use the progesterone cream as I had a reaction to it). There are a lot of 5 star ratings, so I have to assume that this plan works for some people.

This is just another diet book that encourages you to spend more money on additonal products. If you are a South Beacher don't bother wasting your money. Any sensible diet will help you lose weight AND diminish your belly (along with many other areas). All the creams and lotions and "potions" suggested to go along with this diet will certainly help you lose. Lose your money!

Found the book to be a little basic and was hoping for many more recipes. Good for folks who don't understand what their high sugar, high fat, low fiber diet is doing to them.

Unfortunately I found the Big Book of Culinary Medicine to be mainly boring with little new information to offer.

Thanks for bringing this topic into mainstream western medicine ~ most of what I learned about nutrition over the last 30+ years can be attributed to studying cultures who base their diet on their own medical systems, such as Indian cooking, based on Ayurvedic medicine. Books I read in the seventies and cooks I worked alongside of, knew the usefulness of each ingredient. It is truly amazing what we can do when we 'let food be our medicine'. I look very much forward to reading your book (will give it five stars for the idea alone), and having a blog to continue this evolving discussion is brilliant ~ see you there!

Just when you think you know alot along comes Chef M.D. and adds valuable info in an easy fun way. This is a terrific book if you want to do easy things to eat for good health.

Excellent information-- delicious recipes easy to follow

Highly recommend it for anyone wanting to eat healthier.

This book was very easy to read and understand. It had a wealth of information in it. I would recommend it to anyone who has any questions and wants answers about the thyroid gland. The book gives some great programs for you to follow.

I was very disappointed in this book. Didn't feel that I learned anything that I didn't already know.

This doctor goes very in-depth in his explanations of symptoms and how the thyroid works, but he is never talking over your head. He explains in easy-to-understand language how the thyroid works and what happens when it doesn't. This book has caused me to search for a new endocrinologist who is as concerned for his/her patient's overall health as Dr Arem. I recommend this book to all who are suffering from thyroid disease, even if you have had it for a long time. You will learn something new about your disease and it's treatment.

I had severe (tsh 337.85) hypothyroidism by the time I was diagnosed. This is the only author that I've seen that even mentioned some of the things that I experienced. I think that this doctor has a real feel for what the thyroid patient goes through.

After 11 years with hypothyroidism, this book finally answered all of my questions. If your lab tests say you're normal, but you don't feel normal, this book explains it ALL. Highly recommend!

My son was 21 when he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2004. We found Breaking the Vicious Cycle in 2006. It was a godsend for my son. After being on the diet for a year or so, he was feeling like a new man, so much so that he went off the diet. Needless to say, that didn't last long! He had a major flare-up of his colitis within weeks. He now knows that this is going to be a life-long diet for his health and sanity. He "slips" every once in a while, but he's young and that's to be expected. I highly recommend this book/diet to anyone with any kind of stomach/bowel/colon problems. If it helped my son, it can help you, too!

My 18 year old son was diagnosed with UC in May and I was told it was lifelong and incurable and he would be on medicine forever. That's when I fired the Dr. and found this amazing book. I am NO cook! We kept a journal of what he ate, bm's, cramps etc. and I have a whole spreadsheet that proves it works. By day 7 he had no cramping at all, by day 27, regular bowel movements returned.

I think it's absolutely retarded that Dr's say what you eat has nothing to do with your health........... who trains these people??

Hello,
I had decided to write the review after reading and implementing [for my son] what book is suggesting.
My son developed colitis when he was 16 , after going through the doctors and pills we realized , that there must be the other way than taking medicine for rest of the life.
We spent a lot of time doing reaserch to find alternatives and came across a lot of information and this book - Breaking the vicious cycle- read the book , and with the proper diet [ our son is not taking pills anymore] he had not have a "flare-up" for 5 years.
I would highly reccomend this book - after reading - please "stick" to it.

I've known for years that I was gluten-intolerant and strictly avoided it. A friend of mine who is also gluten-intolerant with other problems (rice and corn etc) recommended this book to me and while I didn't seem to have any problems with other foods, I have been struggling with feeling tired all the time and sick and achey. Well, I have been on it now for almost a month and I am practically a new person. The first 2 weeks were a little rough, I really felt "wiped out" but I hung in there and at the beginning of the third week, I started feeling so good and having so much energy! I'm nearly 40 years old and I have never felt this good! On the sdc website is an explanation for the feeling tired, too long to post here, go read it, it's very interesting. Plus, I'd like to point out that the feeling bad at first is like the pain from a surgery. Ya know, the injury is one kind of pain, but the surgery pain is a "healing" pain, well that's the best way to describe the first two weeks on this, you feel bad, but it's not the same feeling bad that you get from eating something you shouldn't, at least it was for me. I also love all the recipes in the back of the book, they are just basic recipes, but tasty and I've already started redoing some of them to suit my own tastes. I also feed my whole family and have fed company some of the dishes and everyone has remarked on how healthy the food is and how good it tastes. I hope everyone who gets this has the great success that I am having. And also remember, this diet isn't for life, I intend to stay on it for a long time to make sure I am all the way healed, and I look forward to an occasional chocolate, but right now, NOTHING is worth risking messing up this wonderful wonderful feel good!

I bought this book because I was no longer digesting food normally. Nearly everything I ate was passing through unchanged, and I was very concerned that I would be unable to work, enjoy going out for a normal life, not to mention what may happen to my health if I could not digest food! Doctors/scopes were no help. There were no pathogens detected, and I do not have any of the diagnoses listed by other reviewers; the only lead I have is that it seems the decade of nonstop NSAIDs damaged the small intestine, not accessible with scopes. I've since learned from medical journals that NSAIDs rapidly ulcer the small intestine in the vast majority of people. Anyway, I followed this diet, with very quick improvement. The references to actual research was one of the things I appreciated. If a doctor doesn't "buy into" this program, I am ready with the proof! I also don't think I ever would have figured out that starches were a problem if this book didn't clearly spell that out. It has been half a year for me; healing this much damage does take time and I am not done, but as long as I follow the diet I do very well. Regardless of the source of intestinal damage, it seems there is a similar healing process so this book is likely to be helpful to anyone who needs to heal the intestines. I highly recommend this book. Best wishes for good health!

Great book,my daughter bought this book first. great cookbook. This book has it all.

This is the second book I bought. This one was for a friend. Every recipe I have made in this book has been awesome. They are easy to make and very tasty. I have yet to make something I didn't like.

I would highly recommend this book for everyone. If you are looking into changing your diet so that you can eat the right types of food that is still very flavorful then this book is for you.

The recipes are convenient and basic, and you can substitute to personalize and make it your own. There are some good ideas I never thought of in here, such as using salsa to cook my chicken for fajitas instead of a seasoning packet. I'm not a huge fan of the desserts, but there is enough to keep me going in here that I keep a list of my favorite recipes from the book in my kitchen. I think you can increase the health standards of a few of the recipes by avoiding processed ingredients. Also, once you cook it, try to stick to your portion size!

This is the most informative book I have had the pleasure of reading in a long time. I love the way it is written, I feel as if Bill is talking directly to me. The recipes are balanced, delicious and simple to create. From the first day I had this book, I was making these meals, fast and easy! I recommend this book for anyone who is tired of restrictive diets and wants to finally be at peace with food. If you want to have more energy and give your body what it truly craves, I recommend you read this book.

I am at my lowest weight in 5 years thanks to learning how to eat the right way. If I can do this, anyone can.

This book is definitely a rare find!

Excellent year round breakfast dishes. Love the recipes that Arthur Agatston puts together. Tasty but not fattening. This is another of his great cookbooks

Four years ago we did the South Beach diet. I lost 30 pounds which I have been able to keep off for these four years. My wife did't do quite as well, but she has always felt better and had fewer incidents of acid stomach using these recipes. We constantly return to the diet because we feel better, but one of the problems of the early diet was the lack of nice and easy recipes. The first week of the diet is a chanllenge to the cook. These recipes are actually good and make the diet easier. We use them freqeuntly with guests and are asked to share the recipe. Basically they help us stay within the parameters of healthy eating advocated by the South Beach diet. We recommend this cook book whether or not you are on the diet.

The recipes in this book are awesome (& you don't have to limit them to just summertime)! Meals are so flavorful & there's enough variety to satisfy any mood or pallette. I'm not very creative so tend to get in a rut with my meals, eating the same few things over & over, so it was fun to break out of that rut & be adventurous. So far I've found the recipes to be easy to follow & I've amazed myself that I was able to put together things that were so delicious! (Wow, that came out of MY kitchen?!) Friends & family are quite impressed! Even the salad dressings were so good! I was just going to use something bottled but thought I'd try one & it was so easy to make so now I use freshly made almost exclusively. My only complaint is that I've found a few of the ingredients difficult to find (my supermarket doesn't carry jicama, for example), but these recipes sure do make it easy & pleasurable to incorporate fresh, healthy meals into your life.

Great receipes- so good I can serve them to my family and friends and they never know they are eaing healthy. It's not your typical diet plan- it is a way to improve and incorporate healthy eating into your lifestyle.

I serve these receipes and no one would ever think they were diet receipes.

I have tried about 6 recipes in this book. So far, everything has been well received by my family. The recipes are easy to prepare and are wonderfully refreshing during these warm summer days.

I loved the Skinny Bitch book, after I read it. I wanted to try Skinny Bitch in the Kitch. So far I tried the Potato Scamble and thought it was great! I love that these books come together as they compliment each other very well, and that they are hardcover as they will last longer.
Skinny Bitch has changed my life. It has helped me become aware of the things I put into my body, how food is processed, etc. I give it 4 stars instead of 5, for the fact that some things may or may not be true, just as anything may be. Use your own judgement.

Didn't realize this book was about animal rights. Thought it was about healthy diet.

Initially, I thought I didn't want to read all the cursing, etc. However, I appreciate the direct and frank tone the authors gave me about being obese, feeling sorry for myself and eating foods that are literally killing me! I am following their advice and as a result, I have become a vegan. I feel 100% better, I have more energy and I look forward to being a "skinny bitch" in a good way! Sometimes, it takes someone like these authors to give you the truth without making it sound "cute and pretty". I need to hear the TRUTH without the fluff.

I really enjoyed these books. I liked all of the information and the sassy style in which they are wriiten. I would have liked there to be more recipes that didn't contain so much soy, (I am allergic) but other than that...I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to be healthier.

This is a great book. It really opens your eyes to what is happening out there in the industries. Plus the writers make you laugh and get all teary eyed but it all down to earth.