Customer Reviews

The Coconut Diet: The Secret Ingredient That Helps You Lose Weight While You Eat Your Favorite Foods

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Cherie Calbom has written the book I have been waiting for. Because of my concern about nutritionally sound weight loss and wholistic health, I wanted to have a book that encompassed each of these areas.
As a biologist who has pursued health and nutrition for most of my life, I've tried many of the popular diet programs throughout the years. Many of them work for a while, yet do not provide long-term health benefits or are damaging to the body over time.
I was introduced to the benefits of coconut oil before I read this book, and they are indeed wide-ranging---coconut oil added to the diet increases health and wellness. However, most of the people I have coached need a clear path to run on. This book provides that pathway by giving clear instructions that can work for anyone, regardless of where they started or what they know. The book has a programmed pathway to effective weight loss, as well as instructions on how to restore the body to the health we were all created to enjoy. Many people I know have reported excellent results after only a short time, not only with weight loss, but also with increased energy and a sense of well-being. For those with atherosclerosis, liver congestion, high cholesterol, or other serious problems, Cherie's Phase II Liver Cleanse can help the body restore health when properly followed.
The book is fun to read, has great recipes, plus guidance for overcoming obstacles to weight loss, including emotional issues. I was especially impressed with the sections on blood sugar imbalances, thyroid problems, and candida, which have been a challenge for me personally as well as many of the people I coach. I highly recommend it.

Cherie Calbom, in collaboration with her behavioral medicine specialist husband, John Calbom, has once again produced a scholarly and eminently useful book on nutrition and diet. Obesity is now epidemic in America and new ways of thinking and acting are required. As a physician and public health scientist, I have several patients who not been able to lose weight on any kind of diet and who are now shedding pounds using the Coconut Diet. One woman has lost 50 pounds over the past six months! Good science, tasty food, and accessible writing make this a necessary cookbook for every kitchen in our obese society. I highly recommend it!
Kenneth L. Bakken, D.O., Dr.P.H.
President
HealthVision International, Inc.

I came to Cherie Colbom's book by way of a sort of synchronicity: my husband and I had been in the Philippines a year ago and had fallen in love with coconuts and had found the Tropical Traditions site, and I had read and was following the precepts of Jordan Rubin's "The Maker's Diet". I also have Sally Fallon/Mary G Enig's "Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats". The "Coconut Diet" is a nice third piece in this triad. Like Jordan Rubin, Cherie brings a gentle Christian perspective to her lifestyle approach to better health. I also have a couple of her "Juice Lady" books, so this is an excellent, update and complement to them. I have given away all my vegetarian cookbooks and we have sworn off soy products as a result of this book and other literature (see Dr. Mercola's site online for more information on soy). Great recipes and an easy-to-follow three week regimen that includes directions on cleanses, etc. A comprehensive look at the new paradigm shift in the alternative health world.

I bought this book based on the reviews that I read here and was very disappointed with it. Coconut oil may be a good idea but the sketchy research in this book didn't convince me. The recipes sound good but have many fancy, hard-to-find ingredients and are just too time-consuming to be practical. I have only used one recipe from the book, as I found all the others to be impractical. Take the Thai Chicken Soup for example: It has 16 different ingredients, 10 of which have to be chopped, sliced or bruised and many of which would be difficult to find and/or expensive such as lemongrass, galanga root, Thai fish sauce and Kaffir lime leaves. Most regular grocery stores wouldn't even carry all those items.

The Phase I of the diet is a 21-Day Weight Loss Kickoff which consists of three meals per day and two snacks. Some examples of the snacks are:
herbal tea and 6 macadamia nuts (no joke, thats all you get for that mid-morning snack)
12 raw or toasted almonds
1 celery stalk stuffed with goat cheese
3-4 sardines packed in mustard sauce
6 pecan halves
3 radishes and 4 green olives
These are all individual snacks, not combined! If you normally eat like a bird, this might work for you but if you normally have a real snack, 6 macadamia nuts with sparkling water.

Phase II is a section on cleansing: first colon cleansing, then liver cleansing, gallbladder cleansing and finally kidney cleansing. You may as well forget this phase if you don't have a juicer and all day to devote to the schedule. For example for liver cleansing you would start your day like this: 7:00 or upon rising, drink 1 cup hot water with the juice of 1/4 lemon and a dash of cayenne pepper. 7:15 Beet juice cocktail (juice cucumber, carrots, a beet with greens, celery, ginger root and lemon). 8:00 any breakfast suggestion from the breakfast recipes and include raw food take 1-2 capsules of the herb milk thistle or liver cleansing herbs 9:00 1-2 teaspoons Beet Salad (recipe on page 226) 10:30 ginger or echinacea tea 11:00 1-2 teaspons Beet Salad. Sound like a lot of work? And you are only up to 11:00! It continues until 8:30 p.m.

Phase III is Introducing Healthy Carbs where you get to add a few more carbohydrates. The meals are still a lot of work and the snacks are still tiny (you can have 6-10 macadamia nuts!)

Phase IV is Maintaining Your Healthy Weight. More of the same but who could stick with it that long anyway?

Unless you love to spend the whole day in the kitchen and have a lot of time and money and have nothing better to do, you won't like this program. Coconut oil may be worth a try but this book really isn't.

I like to eat healthy but this plan is rediculous!

I was on Atkins for years, and while I love that diet, I was unable to to ever get below 150 lbs ( I am 5'2). This book offers specifics for various health issues that will block your weight loss; I lost 30 lbs in the first 6 weeks, and after a few more weeks got down to 128. Amazing. (And, honestly, I didn't do the recommended juicing, my system won't allow it, so this was the diet plan alone.)

The coconut oil and recommended supplements also helped other health issue, not just the weight loss. I am not cured of various health issue, but feel better than I have in years.

If you are having trouble losing weight on other plans, or hit a plateau you can't shake, this book will definitely help!

This review is mainly made, if any, to help clear up the "negative reputation" Coconut Oil has been given from a reviewer, and to help them get a clearer picture of this wonderful oil. In addition to Calbom's book, Bruce Fife goes into "GREAT" detail(Scientifically,and generally), as to what Coconut Oil can do for our bodies and how, in his book: The Coconut Oil Miracle (read other peoples'testimonies through their reviews on Amazon). For example, it can dissolve kidney stones,cure candida,act as an anti-fungal agent,possibly cure HIV,aid in weight loss,help with prostate issues,"lower cholesterol", and much more. Yes, good fats help in lowering cholesterol. I witnessed a miracle of Coconut Oil when my 2 month old baby developed this horrible diaper rash, which became very fleshy and even started to bleed a little. This was from using those baby wipes that contain so many chemicals, which plenty of people aren't really aware of or give much thought to. Diaper rash creams, which I applied faithfully was not working at all. I decided to apply the Virgin Coconut Oil to the affected area with each changing and stopped using wipes, and it was healed in less than 48 hours. It worked as a anti-fungal agent because what he had was a fungus. Just from the day I started using the Coconut Oil, instead of using wipes (when he had a bowel movement),I would put him in the bath tub. So,please make an effort to further educate yourself on the healing properties of Coconut Oil. It's definitely worth your time. Once again,it does not raise your cholesterol level.

I have read many books on diet and nutrition trying to find the answer to my weight problem. Though I have learned many things from a number of books, this one has been the most comprehensive in helping me to understand why I have been unable up to now to lose the weight I need to and to keep it off. In the book are helpful questionaires to be filled out to determine whether or not you have problems with insulin resistance, an underactive thyroid, and/or a yeast problem. All of these things make it difficult to lose weight and to keep it off. Also included are suggestions on how to combat these problems as well as other issues that may be keeping those pounds from coming off. While the diet itself is low-carb, it includes a wider variety of foods to eat than the Atkins diet making it a bit easier to stick to. Though the benefits of using coconut oil for losing weight and overall health are discussed, this book is far more than a book about coconuts! Well worth the money as well as the time invested to read the book.

I have no need to lose weight, but have been looking for alternative to soymilk (which many discover as their alternative to animal milk), because soy oil and the pseudo hormones in soy are not good for you, I believe.

Probably due to lingering, and by now undispellable, anti- "tropical oil" propaganda I still harbor a worry that coconut oil's saturation is not good. Any info on the subject is welcome, and there is much info in this book about coconut oil VS soyoil, and the anti-thyroid qualities of soy (and peanuts) are of particular interest (tho I have no official diagnosis of hypothyroid).

This is a well-written book, friendly and compassionate, but two items should be corrected, and I say that knowing this same bad info has been promulgated in other books, TV shows, magazines, and commercials. The Coconut Diet book, in listing foods to eat, and in what quantities, mentions rice and almond milk. The amounts of nuts, for example, to be eaten daily are (recommended to be) restricted due to the "high carb content" of nuts. Ricemilk, on the other hand, is on the list of allowed foods, but with no mention of quantity restrictions on it. But ricemilk is almost all carbs. Not only is it almost all carbs, but those carbs are comprised in hi degree of simple sugar (maltose). It's bad food, period. Matter of fact, it aint even food. It's watered-down candy. Ricemilk is made from rice syrup, a sweetener. The sweetener, yes, is made from rice, perhaps brown rice, but the "milk" is made from the syrup. Almond milk is also recommended, and when unsweetened, it is better than ricemilk--but most people are too "wimpy" to endure the taste of unsweetened almond milk, which, with or without sweetener is, IMO, also not worth its unrecyclable "Tetrapak" container.

Another error, made not only in this book, but in countless other places, is that eating fish is good for you because fish supplies the body with Omega 3 oils. Fish supplies clean protein, and does NOT supply animal fat like tallow or lard. That's why it's good. But it is not a supply of bio-USABLE Omega 3 oil UNLESS you eat RAW fish, because Omega 3, like any oil, is oxidized by heating (cooking), and thus eating fish, especially when grilled, supplies you with OXIDIZED Omega 3. Since this "super-unsaturated" oil is very fragile under heat, it sustains more damage from heat than even soy or corn oil, which turn almost to plastic (polymerize) when heated (never, never eat deep-fried foods). So, whenever you hear or read a "health" tip to eat fish because of its Omega 3 either plan to eat the fish raw (and it's best not to), or discard the info as false. Rely on your source of Omega 3 to come ONLY from supplements made from raw fish (oil).

Generally, the advice in this book to eliminate vegetable oils--soy, corn, sesame, canola, etc--is, imo, very good advice. The coconut oil issue, however is yet perplexing to me, and, notwithstanding proven anti-viral properties of the lauric acid in coconut oil, the jury is still out about whether or not I should start ingesting it in significant, that is, "therapeutic", quantities.

Just wanted to point out to Mr Coach Dad that coconut contains zero cholesterol. Only animal products contain cholesterol. Coconut is good for you in many ways. For cooking it is the best oil there is, far better than the last fad (olive oil).

Cherie Calbom has written the book I have been waiting for. Because of my concern about nutritionally sound weight loss and wholistic health, I wanted to have a book that encompassed each of these areas.
As a biologist who has pursued health and nutrition for most of my life, I've tried many of the popular diet programs throughout the years. Many of them work for a while, yet do not provide long-term health benefits or are damaging to the body over time.
I was introduced to the benefits of coconut oil before I read this book, and they are indeed wide-ranging: coconut oil added to the diet increases health and wellness. However, most of the people I have coached need a clear path to run on. This book provides that pathway by giving clear instructions that can work for anyone, regardless of where they started or what they know. The book has a programmed pathway to effective weight loss, as well as instructions on how to restore the body to the health we were all created to enjoy. Many people I know have reported excellent results after only a short time, not only with weight loss, but also with increased energy and a sense of well-being. For those with atherosclerosis, liver congestion, high cholesterol, or other serious problems, Cherie's Phase II Liver Cleanse can help the body restore health when properly followed.
The book is fun to read, has great recipes, plus guidance for overcoming obstacles to weight loss, including emotional issues. I was especially impressed with the sections on blood sugar imbalances, thyroid problems, and candida, which have been a challenge for me personally as well as many of the people I coach. I highly recommend it.