Customer Reviews

Fat Free, Flavor Full: Dr. Gabe Mirkin's Guide to Losing Weight and Living Longer

5 star:		(17)
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I lost 30 pounds in 6 months on this diet and kept it off. The reason this book succeeded for me where all other diets failed is that it supplied me with lots of recipes for food that I could stuff myself silly with. There is no limiting portions or stopping at one serving (with the high fiber, low fat recipes). I can make a whole pot of stew and eat the whole thing at one sitting if I want. It works for me because I find the recipes absolutely delicious. This book won't help people who dislike grains, beans or the exotic flavors it uses. But if you like this type of food, this is THE weight loss book to use!

The book is inspiring, and I highly recommend it. What made this diet extremely easy for me (as a working mom with a nursing 1-year-old I have little time to cook) is that there's a company near me called Diet-to-Go that delivers Mirkin Meals to my home. I feel like I could eat this way forever. I have lots of energy, and after just two months of eating Mirkin-style, even my pre-pregnancy clothes are all loose on me. For people who like whole grains, beans, veggies and fruit, this way of eating is extremely satisfying. The food is filling, and it seems like I'm getting a very nutritious diet every day, with enough protein, complex carbs, vitamins and minerals. I find that I really don't crave the fat, and that 20 grams of fat per day is plenty. I think this type of diet also boosts the immune system, because even though others in my household (who are not on the diet) have been coming down with colds and viruses, I've stayed healthy. Mirkin recommends exercise, but with so little time, the best I can manage is to wear a pedometer and try to walk 10,000 steps each day. But, I've found that even walking an average of 4,000 steps seems to be sufficient to cause weight loss on the Mirkin diet.

Dr. Gabe Mirkin and Diana Rich (his wife) have a talk show in the DC area where they discuss nutrition, diet, medicine, disease, etc. This book covers mainly his philosophy on eating. However, half of the book is a compendium of his low-fat, high fiber recipes, most of which are vegetarian, but some of which involve fish and shelfish. Basically Mirkin's philosophy involves eating low-fat, high-fiber foods. You are supposed to eat no more than 20 grams of fat per day. And you are allowed only 2 or 3 serving per day of low-fiber foods (like milk, jam, bread, pretzels, etc.). This may seem a harsh regimen, but Mirkin includes some leeway as well: for one or two meals a week you can have whatever you want, which makes eating out much easier; and you can have as many whole grains (whole wheat, barley, oats, etc.), beans, fruits, and vegetables as you want. The idea is that you will never feel deprived because you can always go to the cupboard and eat two cans of beans, a pineapple and a pound of broccoli. Mirkin emphasizes that his eating plan won't take pounds off unless you exercise, so this is no magic formula. What I liked so much about this book was how Mirkin describes the science of how fats break down and are absorbed into the body and used, the chemical differences between saturated, mono-saturated and poly-unsaturated fat, and how curbing fat and calorie intake can not only elleviate many of the health problems that we already associate with obesity (such as heart disease), but can actually cure other problems such as adult-onset diabedes. If you're not into dieting or healthy eating, it's at least interesting as a scientific look (albeit at a layman's level) at food and how the body is affected by it.

I started researching this topic about 2 years ago when my 35 year old husband became violently sick one night, he went the next morning for a blood test and his triglycerides were over 1800. They should be around 150 for a normal person. My husband has what Dr. Murkin calls Diabetic genes (all of his siblings and father suffer from high tri's & cholesterol). His HDL was 20 and his cholesterol was 400. After 2 weeks on Murkin, tricor and niacin he's bloods were in a good range. Since my husband & I prefer not to take medicine, he dropped the niacin and tricor after about a month. His bloods remained low with just the Murkin Diet. He began cheating about 6 months ago and spiraled out of control, a recent blood test showed tri's up above 2000. We are back on the diet in a big way and we will never go off of it again. I highly recommend this book!!

I absolutely love Mirkin's books. My hubbie and I converted to his "life style change" 6 months ago and we practically had to go out and buy a new wardrobe because of all the weight we lost. I went from 136 to 102 and he went from 220 to 180 -- all in about 4 months. Neither of us starved or went hungry to do it!

Mirkin's theory is rock solid, and you can't argue with results. Limiting that fat intake and eating LOTS of high fiber filling foods (unrefined carbos like fruits, veggies, and beans) works 100% more effective than any stupid fad diet I've seen.

His recipes taste great and his 19 meals rule makes the diet easy to follow (every 19 healthy meals you get 1 or 2 "free meals")

Definately get his books if you want to get realistic and are tired of all the fad diet junk out there!!

The book was easy to read and informative. My wife and I have tried many of his recipes and they taste great. Even our kids like them. They are very easy to make. The ingredients are easy to find and amazingly economical. We filled a whole shopping cart with Mirkins ingredients for only $50 Cdn. The bonus is that we have lost weight. Best cook book I have read.

Fat Free, Flavor Full is the book where Dr Mirkin lays down the thought and the science behind his 20-gram/ "20/30" plan. If a Mirkin book has been recommended to you by a doctor, this is the book to read (get it from the library if you must, but do get it). He lays out his story, explains why genuinely low-fat diet is important, and the links between high fat and disease. I cannot recommend this book enough for those with high cholesterol, who have typeII diabetes, or TypeII runs in their family.

For most Americans it requires a bit of a seachange in eating habits, but it's well worth it. With the right foods, you can lose weight while eating as much as you want(I work in a very physically demanding job, build up a whale of an appetite, and teeny portions of food are simply NOT going to cut it!).

His tone can be a bit magisterial at times and I personally don't share his dislike for soybean products, but the science and reasoning behind this book are undeniable. If you are serious about losing extra weight and living healthier, get this book. Read it, absorb it, make the change, and live better.

As a lazy cook and wanna-be vegetarian, I found this book perfect for me. By following Dr. Mirkin's program for about 5 months, my clothes were literally falling off. Since I was on a mission, I found the receipes easy to follow and the vast majority of them were very tasty. I've even claimed a few as my very own. In fact, I've used the paperback version so much I'm reordering. My blood pressure went down and my cholesterol dropped into the "very good" range. I think I've found the key to doing all the things my doctor has been preaching about and that happens to be following the things outlined in this book. Thank you Dr. Mirkin!

I edit cookbooks for a living, and this is one of my favorites from which to cook. If a strict fat-free diet isn't necessary for you, modify as I do by saut?eing veggies in a little olive oil, and feel free to improvise with substitutes. But this book is solid and full of creative, colorful food and wonderful flavor combinations.

This is an excellent cookery book. You will lose weight if you use its recipes diligently. It is very useful for people used to high fat diets that don't know what to serve their vegetarian and/or low fat friends. I find the food not quite as spicey as Robert Pritikin's book which also has some excellent low fat recipes.