The Juan-Carlos Cruz Calorie Countdown Cookbook: A 5-Week Eating Strategy for Sustainable Weight Loss (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Getting started on a weight-loss plan is always one of the most difficult moments..." (more)
Key Phrases: nonfat cappuccino, air fries, garlic chili sauce, Calorie Countdown, Dinner Dinner, Afternoon Snack Afternoon Snack (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The Food Network’s Calorie Commando shares his five-week weight-loss program, including 150 low-fat, healthy, and delicious recipes that follow his mantra to "keep the taste while you trim your waist."

As a pastry chef at Los Angeles’s glamorous Hotel Bel Air, Juan-Carlos Cruz created dazzling desserts. Surrounded by the best ingredients and the most tempting dishes, he began to gain weight, eventually topping 280 pounds. Finding little relief in fad diets, he developed his own weight-loss strategies and re-created many of his favorite dishes reducing both calories and fat content.

Today, he’s a buff television star who reinvents recipes on the air, slashing wasted calories and making flavors sizzle. The Juan-Carlos Cruz Calorie Countdown Cookbook reveals the tricks of his trade, delivering a five-week plan to get menus on track and establish a weight-loss plan you can savor for life.

After telling his own story of success and weight loss in the "Confessions of a Recovering Pastry Chef" chapter, Cruz eases readers into a gradual calorie-reduction plan. He provides five weeks of daily menus that incorporate his own recipes as well as popular commercial foods. By the end of five weeks, readers will have omitted five hundred calories from their daily intake. Tips, such as his "Chocolate-Chip Cookie Theory," help readers identify how one deleted menu item can result in big annual calorie savings and sustained weight loss.

Recipes spanning breakfast, snacks, appetizers, sandwiches, main dishes, and even desserts put the spotlight on Cruz’s world-class cuisine. Chicken parmesan, macaroni and cheese, tortilla casserole, calzones, and even chocolate cake and cheese fries prove that with the right ingredients there is room for indulgence in a healthy diet. Sixteen pages of tempting color photography complete this savory, surefire package.

About the Author

Juan-Carlos Cruz is the popular host of two of the Food Network’s shows, Calorie Commando and Weighing In. He lost a total of one hundred pounds, sixty of those pounds on the Discovery Health Network’s Body Challenge show, inspiring him to launch Calorie Commando Catering. A graduate of the California Culinary Academy, he is also the owner of Pastrydude, one of Los Angeles’s premier custom wedding-cake destinations. He is currently touring the country speaking at health fairs and conducting healthy-cooking demos.

Martha Rose Shulman is the acclaimed author of more than twenty-five cookbooks, including the award-winning Provençal Light and Entertaining Light.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Gotham; 1 edition (December 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592402585
• ISBN-13: 978-1592402588
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #93,349 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real food for Real People, January 9, 2007

By	Becky Lee (New York) - See all my reviews

Ever find yourself frustrated by the sheer quantity of ingredients in a weight watchers recipe for a meal you wouldn't even eat under normal circumstances, never mind the prep time? Tired of eating faux lasagna and cutting out the bread and cheese at every meal? This is the book for you.

Juan-Carlos Cruz provides recipes for foods regular people eat that are tasty, low-fat and don't use outlandish ingredients or preparation methods. Meatloaf tastes and feels like eating meatloaf, low fat mashed potatoes still have a satisying creamy texture and lots of taste. Nutritional information is provided with every recipe, so it's worth the money even if you don't follow his 5 week plan.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Weight Loss Book for Everyone!!, January 10, 2007

By	W. GORDON - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is a weight loss book for everyone! I could never use a weight loss book before because all of the recipes and meal plans were always one-size-fits-all. Most of the menus in those books were too low in calories to allow me to reach a happy medium weight with my fairly high metabolism.

However, this book is different. Each of the weekly menu sections in the book has weekly menus from 2,400 to 1,200 calories a day, allowing you to adjust your menu if you are not getting the calories that you need to live healthily. This is a real-world weight-loss book and not a starvation diet that you find in so many of the other books.

Mr. Cruz knows what he is talking about. He mentions that he lives in the real-world and that you can still eat a Wendy's hamburger or a chocolate dove bar once in a while and still realize weight-loss. You don't have to go cold-turkey on the foods that you love, you just have to do the Calorie Countdown! Plus, the recipes in this book are delicious! He really cut down the calories in these menu items without sacrificing the taste or texture. This makes it even easier to lose the weight and I have not even been using this book for very long!

Buy this book, your new trim self will thank you!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Fabulous, January 4, 2007

By	C. Iwuoha "Reny girl" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have read many cookbooks, but this one is the best by far. The recipies are top of the line even while keeping the calories low. Mr. Cruz has taken great care in preparing this cookbook and adds his special touch to each recipie. I am sending copies of his book to everyone I know, I am a true fan of this cookbook, and I hope he will put another one out real soon, I will be waiting. If you have not bought his book, I encourage you to buy it now and start cooking the right way, Mr. Cruz's book is the best one out there.