Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Book Needs Editing But Diet Does Work
Comment: The editor of this book should have been fired. It is filled with inconsistencies and missing information. It's shocking that it would be published in this condition, but I guess it still sells. Nevertheless, if you can figure out what to eat (and what not to eat) by following the guidelines for each phase of this "eating plan" (she does not use the word, "diet"), you will find success. HOWEVER, this is no miracle diet as others have claimed and you will not lose 25 pounds in 8 weeks unless you are starting this program as morbidly obese. I lost 7 pounds in the first week and by the end of 8 weeks I had lost a total of 8 pounds. I followed the plan pretty much to the letter. My exercise was light--just a daily walk of about 20 minutes. The meals are what I would describe as tolerable--nobody will mistake Wendy Chant for a gourmet chef that's for sure. Her "breakfast crepes" taste like cardboard with saccharine. I will give this 8-week cycle another try and amp up the exercise next time. All in all, not a bad diet (very hard for me to lose any weight), but don't expect miracles and except for a handful of "cheat days," you will forfeit delicious foods for a couple of months.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Valuable reading
Comment: This is a valuable read. If followed strictly... it will train your
body to perfect eating habits.
Customer Rating:
Summary: My husband and I lost a total of 55lbs in 6 weeks!!!!
Comment: Finally a way of eating that works!!! We bought the book first, and the video came next. My husband was very interested in the video, after losing 8lbs the first week. He was a big help, with helping me keep the days straight, after watching the video. He would have never sat and read the book (to busy you know). We are on week 10 and are still going down on the scale, yeehaa!!! This new way of eating works for us. It does take planning and commitment, but it is working for us, cause we eat all the foods we have always loved, on the days they are allowed, and that is doable.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Crack the Fat-Loss Code
Comment: Awesome! I've tried them all, and this is great. Easy to follow. You do need to prepare your food for the day, but I'm in my 6th day and have lost 7 pounds. That speaks for itself.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Want to lose weight? DO NOT buy this book
Comment: After going through this book extensively and finding mostly jabberwocky, I felt compelled to write a review in order to save readers their time and money.
Let's start with what is promised in the Book Description (copied and pasted):
"LOSE UP TO 25 POUNDS IN 8 WEEKS AND KEEP IT OFF!"
We'll move on to what is actually stated in the book, Appendix A, pg 265:
"Let's face it: when all is said and done, this is a book about losing fat. Notice I didn't say 'losing pounds' or 'losing weight.' I said losing fat."
That's one of the few honest, if contradictory statements in this book. It really is not about losing weight, though I have no doubt some people will lose some weight (short-term) if they follow it completely. That's because of:
A: Week 1, which severely limits carbohydrates and thus creates a 'whoosh' of water loss, and;
B: Weeks 2-8, which severely limits calories. Yes, on 'cheat' days you can eat anything, as long as you don't eat much - or in the author's words "don't stuff yourself."
Point "A" is why most of the readers following the diet and posting on the book's forums repeatedly write that they lost weight "the first week, but nothing or not much afterward." Had those same posters followed the proven way to lose pounds and inches: high fat, moderate protein and low carb consumption - they would have continued to lose weight and inches week after week after week, without having to follow some cockamaimie up/down scheme that is ultimately doomed to fail. And by ultimately fail, I mean that as soon as someone can no longer tolerate a low fat, relatively low calorie diet, they will not only gain back their lost weight, they'll add to it.
Let's move on to the very bad science that stands behind this book. The author states that:
(pg. 28) "Studies have shown that too much saturated fat in the diet raises the cholesterol level in the bloodstream." In fact, studies have shown the exact opposite, and that:
1: Saturated fat, when combined with low carb consumption, creates the very best lipid profiles of all. It's especially good at dramatically lowering triglycerides, which is one of the only two lipid markers that matter for assessing heart disease risk. The lower Triglycerides, the better. It also improves the other marker - HDL - and raises it dramatically.
2: Elevated cholesterol has NOTHING WHATEVER to do with heart disease.
3: For women older than 50, elevated cholesterol levels means they will have a higher life span, and much lower mortality figures than their sisters with 'good' cholesterol readings.
Saturated fat does many good things for the body. To learn what and how, read a far more valuable book than this twaddle; a real owner's manual, if you will: Gary Taubes' seminal work: "Good Calories, Bad Calories." And of course, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick's "The Great Cholesterol Con" - both available on Amazon.
Chant then moves on to:
(pg. 31): "Despite the prevalence of 'low carb' diets---and the way they are perceived as successful by many short-term dieters---carbohydrates are actually vital to the human body."
Hmm. "PERCEIVED as successful?" How about: Have been proven successful by every single study that has tried hard to prove them unsuccessful. As with the Israeli study, published in July in the New England Journal of Medicine, and many, many others.
--"short-term dieters?" How about the tens of thousands of people who, rather than diet, simply follow a low carb way of eating for a lifetime. A lifetime, that is, of being slim, healthy, fit and decidedly not fat.
-- "carbohydrates are vital to the human body?" How about not needed at ALL. There are entire civilizations that live on a diet of 80-90% fat with the balance of nutrient being provided by protein - who, by the way, have some of the lowest rates of stroke, heart disease, obesity and diabetes in the world.
(pg 31): "The body chooses carbohydrates for energy because they digest first and most easily."
Duh. That's why they are BAD. Whether you're eating multi-grain bread or a squishy slice of wonderloaf, the body has precisely ONE reaction upon consumption: it sees it all as sugar. Which raises blood sugar levels. Which summons up insulin, which promptly stores all that 'quick energy' as fat. Adipose fat - the very worst kind. Eat that carb with some fat (fast food, for example, or even the fat Chant feels is 'good' -- but which is actually bad), and the fat storage goes from bad to worse. But that is precisely the nutritional advice she gives the reader, week after deplorable week.
(pg 32): By manipulating all of the macronutrients in our macro-patterning program, particularly carbohydrates, we train your body to use fat and the carbohydrates we eat for energy instead of shuttling them off to the fat stores immediately..."
Dear Ms. Chant: Evolution called, and wants its pancreas back.
I suggest that instead of spouting sheer nonsense, like believing that eight weeks of 'training the body' can override the last, oh, few million years or so of human development, you take a few elemental bio-chem classes to learn under what conditions insulin is created by the pancreas, and how it is *invariably* used, your 'training' not withstanding.
Wendy Chant's bottom line, after promising WEIGHT loss and making readers wander though a maze of 264 imprecise and unclear pages of charts, initials and bizarre instructions -- delivers on page 265 only the info that the previous tome wasn't about weight loss at all. The bottom line of this review is that there is a wealth of real information out there about how the body works vis-a-vis weight and fat loss that will deliver real long-term success --- and while I hope this review's readers find it --- this book ain't it.
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