9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Healthy, Sensible, Fun and Funny, September 21, 2009
This review is from: The Denim Diet: Sixteen Simple Habits to Get You into Your Dream Pair of Jeans (Paperback)
I highly recommend this book. The title makes it sound like it is going to be a fad diet - it isn't! It's all about getting healthy and looking great in your dream pair of jeans. The book is divided into chapters in which Kami helps you tackle your health habits one-by-one with babysteps and a lot of humor. The nutritional advice is sound and the focus is on building healthy diet and exercise habits while also being mindful of the environment and sustainability.
Some of the topics Kami covers are: artificial sweeteners, sugars and alternative sweeteners you might not have thought about (such as agave nectar - yum!), simple vs. complex carbs, organic foods vs. conventionally grown and genetically modified foods, fast food, alcohol, coffee drinks, protein sources including meats, fruits and veggies, fats (they are not all bad!), snacking, portion sizes, eating with freinds and family, and exercise. She includes shopping lists, recipes that are easy and delicious, and tips for choosing well at a variety of ethnic restaurants and social events.
Kami's approach is down-to-earth, positive, and sensible. She also weaves in lots of personal stories that keep you interested and motivated, and she is laugh-out-loud funny to boot. I felt like I was in the presence of a friend when I was reading it, and I found the advice easy-to-follow. Does it work? Well, I have lost 14 pounds (and counting), and my family says I look like a different person. I have never felt deprived since the plan includes plenty of healthy, delicious foods. My skin is glowing and I have more energy than I have had in years. I liked the babystep approach, since I have found that trying to revamp everything in my diet all at once is a recipe for crash-and-burn. This is a simple, doable lifestyle change that you can approach at your own pace.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cheers to The Denim Diet!, March 6, 2009
This review is from: The Denim Diet: Sixteen Simple Habits to Get You into Your Dream Pair of Jeans (Paperback)
I like that this book is a quick read with a great message! I love the idea of eating healthy, choosing organic foods and learning a more sustainable way of life.
This is a great book for someone like me that likes to keep it simple. The food suggestions are not limited so, you can still eat yummy food and the bonus is that it's healthy for you and will help you feel and look better about yourself!
I found the alternative suggestions for certain foods is very helpful -(like the agave nectar in place of sugar).
'The Denim Diet' has made me more aware of what exaclty I am putting into my body. High Fructose Corn Syrup is one example - I did not realize it was in so many foods!
This book also has helpful ideas of what to eat when you go to social events and it gives you several tasty recipes to try.
All the tips are very helpful and simple- so Thanks Denim Diet- and hello to me looking HOT in my favorite pair of jeans!
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'Denim' Does It, January 27, 2010
This review is from: The Denim Diet: Sixteen Simple Habits to Get You into Your Dream Pair of Jeans (Paperback)
In "The Denim Diet", wardrobe stylist and designer Kami Gray, uses an extremely effective yet simple technique that I have been utilizing for years to insure that I don't gain an exorbitant amount of weight especially during the dreaded holiday time. In addition to this, she outlines a program that includes sixteen dos and don'ts that will formulate lifelong habits that will keep you trimly fitting into your favorite pair of jeans.
Not unlike the idea of Will Clower's "
The Fat Fallacy: The French Diet Secrets to Permanent Weight Loss," Gray inadvertantly advocates an American take on the French way of eating that eliminates obsessing over the numbers registered on the scale and focuses instead on whether or not your clothes fit. Substitute the black pencil skirt spoken of in Anne Barone's
Chic & Slim: How Those Chic French Women Eat All That Rich Food And Still Stay Slim series for a pair of True Religion (the brand is just a suggestion) jeans and you have the ultimate weight-monitoring gargoyle. The test is simple: Do they fit you? Are they tight? After eating certain foods, is there a subtle difference in the fit? When you look in the mirror while wearing them, what do you see from a 360- degree perspective?
So many women, especially those of a certain age make the paramount mistake of turning in their jeans for either leggings or the dreaded elastic waist. Essentially, what this allows is over-eating. Stretch yoga pants while not worn during exercise are not the `thing' to wear while eating lunch with girlfriends at a restaurant. Especially when those girls eschew eating flesh as a matter of conscience and concentrate on high-caloric bread, pasta, beans and cheese to balance out their diets. Caution, indeed, will be thrown to the wind along with those jeans the squeeze you into dreaded muffin-top disproportion.
Wearing jeans with a zipper or button closure or for that manner any form-fitting pant with a structured waistline and button or hook and eye fasteners, keeps your eating in check automatically. My simple rule is to try on your dream jeans every morning--if they fit the way you want, then you ate well the day before. If they don't rewind and figure out which item or which habit did the damage before the damage becomes irreparable. Of course, there is more to Gray's book to just pulling a pair of jeans on and off. Nonetheless the jeans do serve as an important benchmark that aids in self-restraint.
Thinking that you are eating right and actually eating correctly may be two very different things. My example of the women who embrace the vegetarian lifestyle without understanding the subtle balance of the body is a case in point. A little education using Gray's easy-to-read anecdotal sixteen-point plan will make keeping your weight stable a no-brainer. Leaving nothing out, Gray devotes a chapter to each of her eating sensibilities that include: "Slimming Alternatives to Sugar," "White Versus Brown Carbohydrates," "Healthy Organic Food Practices," "Caffeinated Beverages," "Booze," "Breakfast," "Healthful and Ethical Meat Consumption," "Fruits and Vegetables," "Cholesterol, Good and Bad Fats and the Superstars Omega 3s," "Getting Lean Means Better Planetary Health," "Snacking," "Customized Exercises," "Family, Friends and Food Enablers," "Calories, Portions and Proportions," and "Eating Healthy Out and About." Without hesitating to lay down the law, she dictates what you can and cannot eat if your desire is to stay healthy and slim. She follows her rules and regulations with a summary sheet, tips on how to dress five pounds slimmer instantly, how to stock your pantry and provides healthful recipes for each food category.
Gray takes many of the themed-diets like Mireille Guiliano's
French Women Don't Get Fat no-snacking portion control based plan, the
The Sonoma Diet: Trimmer Waist, Better Health in Just 10 Days!Sonoma Diet's emphasis on power foods like fruit, vegetables and nuts and the glycemic index system of ranking carbohydrates according to how much a certain amount of each food raises a person's blood sugar levels found in
The Zone Diet,
The South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss,
Sugar Busters!: Cut Sugar to Trim Fat,
Suzanne Somers' Fast & Easy: Lose Weight the Somersize Way with Quick, Delicious Meals for the Entire Family! and
The French Diet: Why French Women Don't Get Fat and factors in fashionable diet challenges and enhancements from ultra sugary designer coffee drinks, artificial sweeteners, holiday pitfalls and pig-out friendly fast food to eating green, vitamin supplements, protein bars, aerobic and weight-bearing exercises. She does an excellent job of covering all the bases.
Bottom line? In "The Denim Diet," Kami Gray provides a great nutritionally savvy guide to keep you slim for a lifetime. The title of the program may sound gimmicky and superficial, but disregard it and delve into the book's contents instead. Buy yourself that pair of jeans that you always wanted to fit into and try them on every morning as you follow Gray's sixteen guidelines. Keep track of what works for you and what does not and you will be well on your way to a healthful weight that makes the most of the current state-of-the-art knowledge concerning well being and weight control. Strict vegetarians may need additional nutritional aid. There are strict do's and don't so this is not for the faint of heart or those who make cheating part of the plan. Recommended as one of the best all encompassing plans I have come across.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"
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