Customer Reviews

The Cheat to Lose Diet: Cheat BIG with the Foods You Love, Lose Fat Faster Than Ever Before, and Enjoy Keeping It Off!

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Good -
The diet is sound, appears to work well and most importantly (for most people) it's easy to follow. The book is easy to read, gives good information on this diet and why some others fail.
The Bad -
If you are a numbers person (like I am) - and you want to be able to check off "perfect diet day", you won't be able to. Joel gives no recommendations on number of calories, grams of carbs, fats, protein etc. He gives size recommendations (a piece of chicken breast about the size of your palm counts as a protein item in a meal) and he has a bunch of great recipe's in the book, but I would have like to know what counts as a "low carb day" for instance - if I'm under 100g?, 50g? 30g? As I'm sure this was conscious decision on Joel's part to make the diet easy to follow, and so as not to scare off the masses, I can't really kill the book because of this.
The Ugly -
OK 2 things here.
1) The book has almost as many pages of references as it does diet information. At the end of each chapter he just lists a ton of references - sometimes 8-10 pages of them! It honestly looks to me like the books editor said "The books great Joel, but without the recipe's it's only 100 pages - we need another 50 or so" and they just found a bunch of studies on leptin and threw them into the book (by the way my numbers - 50 pages - are probably an exaggeration, but the point is there is a lot of "wasted" pages.)
2) The web site - if you go to the web site for the book, it's set up to have you pay $5/month to use "The Cheat to Lose Diet" - I didn't buy the book to be upsold on a web site - if they are going to put a site up for the book, it should have a free area for the people that buy the book, and then maybe a pay area for extra recipes, one on one Joel info etc. It almost looks like the book is just a marketing tool for the web site which is kind of annoying.
That said - the book is cheap and contains enough info to execute the diet, so I can't complain too much.
My review sounds more negative than my real feeling about the book. The 4 stars is my feeling, so don't skip the book because I didn't say it was perfect. I think, for the average person, this might be the "perfect" diet because you can eat whatever you want at times.

I recently purchased this book and gave it a read. I had been dieting and exercising pretty hard lately, but I had been stuck at the same weight and bodyfat level for a good two weeks or so. I was really depriving myself and was getting discouraged.

After reading the book, I decided to give the full day cheat a try. On Saturday, I feasted on pancakes, waffles, sausage and hash browns. Later that night, I made macaroni and cheese. I really enjoyed the day as I loved all the food I ate. :)

On Sunday, I resumed the diet and exercise plan. It is now Wednesday and I've already lost 3 additional pounds! I'm now officially the lowest weight I've been in over 2 years. The cheating recommended by Joel Marion in this book really works! I've seen the results first hand.

I recommend this book to anyone that wants to lose weight but still enjoy life and good food!

Excellent book. Easy to read, informative. I know some people will ask "isn't this just a eat clean during the week and cheat on weekends book?" No, it's not. Joel tells you how to use strategic cheat meals to keep your fat burning hormones (letpin) primed and working with you, not against you, as they do on many traditional diets.

The book will help you out with exercise, meal planning and how to set up each of the phases of the diet. My only problem is that it's called a "diet." I know that word sells, but it should be called a life-style, since this plan could be followed long-term.

As with all diet books, there is a long list of recipes in the back. I don't like this aspect, but I know many people do. I will say that the recipes are easy to use and use common ingredients, unlike books that have you running to specialty shops for odd ingredients.

Overall, I'd give the book 5 stars, and I'm very selective when it comes to diet and exercise books.

If you have been stumbling around in the dark looking for the right weight loss program, look no farther. The light at the end of the tunnel is here. Joel Marion has come up with a three-stage program that will take you where you need to go.
The Cheat to Lose Diet is a very easy system that anyone can follow. You have three stages; Priming, Core and Maintenance. I know, you've heard these words before. What makes them different this time? By using strategically placed "cheat" days, you can still eat all your favorite foods and not miss anything.
How do I know? I used this diet last year and I lost 18 pounds in six weeks. It works and it is easy and simple to follow. An added bonus, it has easy to prepare menus by Dr. John Berardi, PH.d. one of the industry's leading authorities on nutrition. His meals taste great and they are healthy to boot. This gives you a real two-fisted approach to weight-loss.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to lose bodyfat, whether you are a weightlifter or a desk bound office jockey that wants to get into shape. This is the book for you.

I have been following Joel's work on Cheat to Lose since it began back in 2002. It is obvious that Joel has worked and experimented very hard to make sure that the diet works. Not only does he provide you with guidelines for how to implement the diet, but for those interested (and trust me, you will be once you start reading the book), he goes into great detail about what happens to your body during a calorie restricted and why they simply don't work long term. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in changing their body composition for the better.

Unlike Most Fad Diets, the Cheat to Lose Diet is proven to work. By looking at our bodies Leptin levels in association with what we eat, we can shock our metabolisms by altering our Carb and Fat intakes. The diet allows us to cheat one day, which can be seen as a reward for dieting. But are we really dieting? I've been on this diet, close to 2 months and I feel great. Im never hungry, I've been eating foods such as fruits, whole-grains, Foods I havent had in years and I've been shedding off Body Fat and Increasing my Muscles. Out of all the diets I've tried, this is by far the best and most logical way for anybody to diet.

I have tried so many diets over the years from Weight Watchers to LA Weight Loss to South Beach - and I always felt like I was being cheated and the first chance I got, I sabotaged myself and started all over. I really love this diet. I have been on it 11 weeks and I have lost 25lbs effortlessly. My husband is also doing it and getting great results. I have two small children and I cannot get to the gym as often as I would like - so I am so excited about this diet and the great results! The planned cheat day is great - and I do not feel like I am dieting - we call it our new nutritional lifestyle and we love it. I have recommended it to so many people! FYI, I have been using Detour Low Sugar bars from various vitamin stores and even EAS low sugar bars from Target and they are working fine for me instead of ordering the Metabolic Drive bars and shakes.

What I like most about this diet is that there's absolutely no food that is permanently verboten. It's all about timing. I, like most people, have felt that 'slow down' that happens a couple of weeks into a calorie-restricting diet. That combined with the idea of almost NEVER eating some of my favorite foods has destroyed all of my dieting efforts after about 2 months.

I'm a weightlifter and found an interview with the author of this book on a weightlifting website. I've always been irritated that although I can pack on muscle, I've never been able to get my body fat below about 13%. A few weeks into dieting and my energy just drops and I have a very hard time keeping up my energy so as to keep lifting. I'm hoping this diet will counteract that.

I was a bit disappointed that the book was so short. It takes very little time to read. It appears meticulously researched, and the research 'footnotes' for each chapter are at the end of that chapter. They sure look impressive, but I'm not about to look up all the studies. One disappointing aspect of the plan is that you have to diet for three weeks before the first official 'cheat day'. Supposedly, this is to re-sensitize one to leptin and fend off leptin receptor resistance.

All in all, a good diet book with all the main information presented straightforwardly. It remains to be seen whether this will be effective for me.

I thought the diet plan was very interesting and the research behind it is the most compelling part of the book. The fact that everything is supported by clinical research is what has persuaded me to give this a go.

In regards to a separate review on Amazon the supplements can be found in the store section of [...]. He does state that Biotest makes the supplements and names the supplements as well. A simple search engine like yahoo or Google will find the website if you search by product name. Type in Metabolic Drive on Yahoo.com and it is the number 1 result.

Also, you will be hard pressed to find any protein supplement that does not have an artificial sweetener in the product. Furthermore, Biotest makes a very high quality protein supplement whereas I would not trust all supplement company's ingredients and potency. If you are that worried about sweeteners go to [...] and custom mix your own protein without sweetener. I bet you will never get the bitter taste down. However, The Protein Factory has the best quality ingredients around - you will notice a difference.

Getting back on track this is a great book. As researchers and professionals further understand nutrition as it relates to body composition and health the more our diets and discussions will be linked to the comprehensive impact the food has on our bodies especially in regards to hormones. I have read many books on these subjects and this book does a great job of outlining a sound plan for any individual from a professional to someone just trying to look better.

wasn't able to exercise for a while for medical reasons and was not able to lose any weight. i hate dieting. wait, let me rephrase that... I HATE DIETING. So, we gave this a shot. It's easy, idiot proof, adjustable for your likes and dislikes. If you're patient, try all the recipes.. you'll find some of them are really good - even the ones that sound weird. You feel like you're eating constantly and you're still losing weight. I've since resumed exercise and am down 21 lbs over 4.5 months with 2 vacations in the middle where i ate basically whatever i wanted. Returned from vacation = no weight gain. The plan allows you to be more cognizant of what you're putting in your body... if you think you already have a clear understanding of nutrition, you don't know anything. read this. do it. you'll lose weight and keep it off.