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Yo-Yo Dieters Dream! Nov 13, 2006 (137 of 142 found this helpful)
This book taught me that you aren't really eating "normally" on most diets. Your body confuses a diet with a time of famine and is trying to keep you alive. Your body doesn't know that you can afford to lose the weight, and that the "famine" is self-imposed. It explains the role that chronic low-grade stress (work, relationships, etc.) plays on weight gain.
The book explains how to eat well for your body so that you are satisfied, not hungry, and in a way that your body knows it is OK to shed pounds. Your goal is to remain satisfied or pleasantly full throughout the day. The other part of the book that resonated with me is that variety is what is killing us. The authors suggest that you automate your breakfast and lunch, eating the same thing or from a small group of things every day. This takes the guesswork out of things. Then you should eat a handful of nuts before dinner, so that you do not overeat. It also explains the effect that "bad foods" have on your hormones and brain chemistry vs. the effect that "good foods" have - other than just the extra calories that you are intaking. This was most interesting, and what sets it apart from other diet books or plans.
The difference between the You Diet and any other that I have tried is that there was no 2-3 day period of feeling terrible or having to adjust. Just a clean-out of highly processed foods from our kitchen and a trip to Trader Joes for some healthy foods and lots of label reading. Now I just feel better and better the longer I do it. It is amazing how tasty whole grain foods can be and how much more they fill you up than processed carbohydrates. My husband is even enjoying the foods I am making!
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Great book, Great information, Really makes you think Dec 29, 2006 (51 of 52 found this helpful)
I get tired of people saying this is the same old information. It is not. When has any other diet book gone into such detail about digestion and how our bodies store and use fat? When have you ever heard the word Omentum before? This book really makes you realize what you are doing to your body with fat and sugar. It makes you WANT to eat better. It tells you WHY you should eat certain foods and what happens when you eat food. It's great. I have been following this plan, and it really works. You can eat, be satisfied, and not starve yourself. It has recipes, tells you what to order when you eat out, and puts you in control. I can't even consider eating a cookie after reading this book. If I look at one, I get images in my head of what my body will do with that cookie, and it's not pretty. This book has a scared straight appeal, and it really made me change my life.
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Elisa Zied, registered dietitian, freelance writer, and author Nov 6, 2006 (98 of 106 found this helpful)
As a registered dietitian, I often approach diet books with some skepticism, as I have found many popular ones to be too gimmicky, too extreme, nutritionally imbalanced, or too unrealistic to be followed over the long-haul. Imagine my surprise when I read You on a Diet. As Drs. Roizen and Oz have done in the past, here they have managed to simplify science and draw attention to the health perils of having too much body fat (especially in the abdominal region) in a witty, warm, encouraging, positive, and entertaining way. They explain in simple, easy to understand language how to reprogram your body to support healthful weight loss. Along the way, they encourage people to consume more protein, fiber, and healthful unsaturated fats, and less saturated fats, trans fats, and sugar, all of which can certainly support weight management efforts and have heart-health and other benefits as well.
Too many diet books preach quick fixes and ask you to forego too many foods in pursuit of a thinner physique; instead, this book takes a very positive approach, shows people what to consume more of, supports regular physical activity, and encourages people to set realistic goals--instead of striving for model-thinness, it asks people to aim simply to lose some inches from their guts which can improve not only their physical appearance but their health as well. Perhaps the greatest strength of this book is its light and encouraging tone, not to mention the illustrations which make it an easy and enjoyable read.
Having lost more than 25 pounds myself, and having maintained a healthy body weight for more than 10 years, I know first hand how tough it is to lose weight. For me it was a slow, gradual process that took years. I would have found this book quite useful about 15 years ago (before I became a registered dietitian) when I started to change my eating and fitness habits, and now am happy to have a popular diet book to recommend to clients and the lay public.
Although calorie counting is not emphasized in the book, my experience shows that when you embark on weight loss, you need to first know where you're starting from in terms of calories; also, knowing something about the calorie content of the foods and beverages you consume can help you when you hit a plateau and your weight seems to stall at a certain level despite your continued efforts to lose weight. And while the menu plans and recipes in this book seem sound and do-able, they include few low-fat dairy foods and other non-dairy sources of calcium which may make it tough for many to meet their calcium and/or vitamin D needs without supplementation. Also, because the menu plans do not include many of the foods people in America commonly consume, such as refined foods including pizza and pasta, and snack/dessert type foods (many of which are admittedly low in nutrients and high in calories), following these plans to the letter may make people feel that they are in fact on a "diet" and that they have to eat very differently than they normally do to lose weight. This can make following the program a challenge over the long-term.
Overall, You on a Diet can be a useful resource and motivator, and can be quite helpful resource for those who are tired of extreme dieting and want to start living as they pursue a healthier weight. This book makes a great bookshelf addition for anyone who is willing to take the time to learn how the body works to improve their overall eating habits, get more fit, and lose weight for life.
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Elite humor and science. More educational than practical. Nov 20, 2006 (147 of 167 found this helpful)
Loading a book with humorous caricatures, myths, and factoids is a risky undertaking, when readers expect doctors to remain "formal". But, the authors have opted to present hard science in simple artistic format and succeeded in rendering it palatable, at least for the segment of readers interested in the mechanics of disease. The gamble with caricatures added a legendary aura to the book that will endure for future generations.
The main contribution in the book, beside its educational style, is emphasizing the "waist size" as a reliable index for healthy living. The authors advanced their argument through physiological reasoning. They focused on the omental and skin fats and intestinal infection and inflammation in relation to waist size. Thus, the smaller is the waist size, the lesser the inflammation and the depot of fat that hinders health.
The book falls into an introduction, 12 chapters, and three appendices that could be summarized as follows.
Introduction: "You: On a Diet. Work Smarter, Not Harder" introduces the reader to the main idea of the book. That is management of waist size through understanding the biology of eating. It tests the reader's common knowledge through a multiple choice test that targets the various aspects of the history and science of eating
Chapter 1:" The Ideal Body: What Your body Is supposed to Look Like" discusses the interplay of genetics and environment in shaping our physique.
Chapter 2: "Can't Get No satisfaction: the Science of Appetite" describes the rule of the central nervous system in controlling satiety through hormonal feedback from the stomach, intestine, and fat. It simplifies matters through two hormones: Leptin for satisfaction and Ghrelin for hunger.
Chapter 3: "Eater's Digest: How Food travels through Your Body" describes, in an educational style, the journey of food from mouth, tongue, stomach, intestine, colon, to liver, heart, muscles. Its humorous caricatures make it invaluable and entertaining.
Chapter 4: "Gut Check: The Dangerous Battles of Inflammation in Your Belly" describes the first battle of digestion between the body and food intake within the intestine. The outcome of digestion affects the liver, skin, and general health. Its main hostile participants are inflammation and infection. Omental, skin, and liver fat replete from the ingested food. It considers the intestine as the second brain by virtue of its millions of neurons and 95% of whole body serotonin.
Chapter 5: "Taking a fat Chance: How Fat Ruins Your Health" dwells on the omentum fat, described in chapter 4, and extends its effects to arterial narrowing and mechanical hindrance of breathing and mobility. Arterial narrowing deprives the whole body of its health causing cancer, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Omental fat is claimed to be more ominous than subcutaneous fat because the omentum lies on the solid vital organs while the subcutaneous fat is peripheral and remote.
Chapter 6: "Metabolic Motors: Your Body's Hormonal fat Burners" describes how metabolism is managed by hormonal signals from the adrenals, thyroids, and gonads.
Chapter 7: "Make the Move: How You Can Burn Fat Faster" discusses the effect of exercise, weight lifting (strength) and aerobics (stamina) on developing the energy management system by: increasing metabolism, burn energy, release endorphins (pleasure stimulants), and unclog blood vessels.
Chapter 8: "The Chemistry of Emotions: The Connection between Feelings and Food" discusses the relationship between behavior and neurotransmitters: norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, gamma aminobutyric acid, and nitric oxide. It thus relates eating to emotions such as anger, depression, anxiety, stress, jealousy, and loneliness.
Chapter 9: "Shame on Who? The Psychology of failed Diet" deals with the thought process of dieti
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Interesting information but horribly written Feb 25, 2007 (55 of 60 found this helpful)
The information on biology and how your body works is interesting. And it is useful IF you want to understand why your body behaves the way it does with regard to food. For some, this understanding may support behavioral changes for a more healthy lifestyle - I'm hoping it does for me. For others it's just way too much useless information.
Furthermore, the way it's written is extremely annoying. I had a hard time finishing it because of so many corny references made to current pop culture (e.g. Paris Hilton). These references are distracting, out of place, and surely made the book twice as long as it had to be. I'd recommend reading a page or two before purchase to be sure you can stomach the writing style and are interested in this kind of information.