Customer Reviews

The Perfect Fit Diet: Combine What Science Knows About Weight Loss with What You Know About Yourself

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

 

 

I've got at least a dozen diet books under my belt (not to mention just a few extra pounds) and finally I have found one that describes a world I understand. I am a veteran of the Zone diet (too hard to figure out), the Atkins diet (too dull and I felt awful), the carbohydrate addicts diet (managed to make up for all the missed carbs of the day in my one free meal)
and a whole bunch of others. When they didn't work I just figured it was me. I knew these diets had worked for friends. I couldn't figure out why they didn't work for me. This book tells me what I should have known all along: one size doesn't fit all. And none of them were working for me. Now I understand why. Dr. Sanders book helped me recognize that the best diet for
me is one that lets me get the variety I need by looking at calories rather than carbs. And while I still eat fewer carbs that I used to, I understand now that I can't be happy on a diet that makes bread completely off limits.I wanted a low carb diet because my friends told me I'd never be hungry and it wasn't true. But on this diet, I'm never hungry and I feel free to eat the foods I love and I'm losing weight like crazy.

Another aspect of this book that I think makes it so great is that the author explains how all this works. I'm no dummy I am pretty well informed about food and nutrition, but there was alot of info in this book that I just didn't know.
For me, knowing how something works helps me figure out how to do it my way. For instance, now I know it's protein that makes me feel full and variety that makes me feel satisfied. I can choose meals and snacks that I'm sure will hit the spot -- make me feel full and keep me full until
the next meal or snack. And feeling full, and knowing that I'm going to feel full, makes it easy for me to stick to this diet.

One thing you need to know about this book -- and I was prewarned so let me pass it on to you -- is that you won't be able to start the diet the day you buy the book. Dr. Sanders makes you keep a diary of what you eat for one week before
you start. Writing all that down isn't easy and yet doing it was probably the best investment I've made in my health in quite a long time. Maybe ever.

This may be the last diet book I'll ever need to buy.

I was really excited about purchasing this book but ultimately very disappointed.

I have read many diet and nutrition books so this particular item was not impressive. The questionairre may be enlightening for someone who has either: never been on a diet, or never really thought much about their motivations behind food.

When I completed the questionairre it told me to Count Calories which I know from past experience does not work for me.

It does have some good information for a beginner. Maybe someone who just needs to take off 25 pounds of recent weight gain but I would not suggest this for anyone who has tried multiple diets. It won't tell you anything new.

Let me begin by saying I am glad I am not the author Lisa Sander's sister. Poor Shelley must be gnashing her teeth over Lisa's willingness to share sister Shelley's personal weight loss problems. But share she does and Shelley is one of the few real life examples given in the book. Which makes one wonder if the author successfully tested her theory and followed up to see if lost weight stayed lost.

The author claims that different people lose weight on different types of diets. The goal then is to find the correct diet for you. After journaling and answering questions you will be given your "perfect fit" diet.
The diet may be a counting calories diet, low carb diet or low fat diet. This diet is then tailored to suit your needs.

I have several problems with the book. The first is that she categorizes diets according to how weight loss is accomplished on pp 28-29. For example Dr. Ornish's diet helps people according to Sanders because they eat low fat. Sugar Busters limits carbs as does Dr. Atkins. Then she says that American Heart Association and Weight Watchers are low calorie. BUT here the author misses the point. ALL OF THE DIETS WORK BECAUSE THEY ARE LOW CALORIE. Not because they are low fat or low carb..but because you are eating less. So to say you can lose weight because you are eating low carb is inaccurate. To say you can lose weight because you are eating less calories because you are eating low carb and hence cutting calories is accurate.

So then we get to the type of diet themselves. Yes Atkins may help you lose weight but is it a healthy diet long term? Yes the Ornish plan of VERY limited fats will help you lose weight but fat free is a pretty joyless plan. Yes the Zone plan can help you shed fat but can you stick to it long term.
So here Dr. Sanders advocates picking one of these diets and she helps you choose it BUT can you do it LONG-TERM?

And if you are going to go on a low carb diet or low fat diet, why not just pick up the ORIGINAL diet book which will have more recipes and information? Because Sanders thinks you don't know what type of diet will work for you. But most of us have been around the diet block and know what works for us and what doesn't. And most of us know that most of these plans don't work long-term because they are hard to stick too. Who wants to count calories the rest of their life?

My thought is make small changes in your diet. Eat less of what you eat now. If you eat a lot of sugar cut back so you don't get the strong sugar urges. Walk more. Make simple changes. Weight loss will be slow but it will stay off!

I am a victim of the F's: 40's plus, a father, fit - sort of, failing to make my diet and lifestyle work together and therefore FAT. I got here the easy way. I like to eat, I like to cook, and when I don't think about it I eat too much of what I like. Now I'm not one of those people who get's their weight down, only to ballon back up. I'm one of those people who go from overweight to FAT. But now that I'm on the back side of my 40's, I've started to notice that I have the same health risks as people who smoke a couple of packs a day, only more. Fat people have heart and lung problems, they are at greater risk for cancer, then there is diabetes, bad knees, bad back and just plain old bad Karma. I quit smoking over twenty years ago, so why can't I deal with this fat problem? Well you can't just quit eating, and going hungry doesn't work very well either. I had the chance to interact with Dr. Sanders as she wrote this book, and I have had an advance copy since November. Lisa Sanders has written a book that isn't really a diet and it isn't really one of those lifestyle books either. What this book does is give you a way to look at what you like to eat, when and where you eat it, factor your real life into the equation and come away with a plan that fits you, lets you eat food you like, and creates an infrastucture for thinking about food in a different, positive way. Taking the books questionnaire is one of the most self-informative, and ultimately self-motivating things that I have ever done, and implementing Dr. Sander's suggestions have allowed me to make some real progress on my long-term goals. Those goals are: loose 80 pounds, get my running back up to 30 miles a week, recapture the energy and focus that I have lost. And where am I after about six weeks, including the holidays? Well I'm 15 pounds lighter. I am running 15 miles a week. I finished a strenuous hike on New Years eve that I could only do half of a month ago. I'm sleeping better, and my kids say that I am nicer. Oh yes, and I'm not hungry, I didn't quit eating the things that I like, and I don't have to eat cheese burgers all the time, or pasta all the time. What is really differnt is the way I think about my food and what I do with my time. I feel better and I know that I can reach my goals and maitain them because Dr. Sander's book let me find the right fit.

The most helpful thing about this book is that it presents a dispassionate description of three major types of diet: low-carb, low-fat, and the Heart Association (count calories) diet. Unlike many diet advocates, the author does not demonize any diet. She says each of these diets may work well for you depending upon your situation. She dismisses the arguments that any of these diets, especially low-carb, are unhealthy for you. She also presents a very interesting chart showing how different diets compare on a spectrum of low-fat to low-carb.

The book contains a lengthy 141 question survey of your diet and exercise practices, and your current and historical health. The questionnaire helps you identify your bad habits and gives you suggestions for overcoming them.

The survey also tries to help you decide which type of diet is best for you by analyzing what you like to eat now. The author seems to believe that you can achieve your weight goals just by tweaking your current diet. That may be true if your goal is modest, such as a loss of 15-20 pounds or less. But if you must reduce your weight substantially more than that, your diet needs more than just some simple tweaking. The author doesn't seem to consider the possibility that some people may need major changes in their thinking about what is appropriate for them to eat.

The author recommends three broad categories of diets: low-carb, low-fat, and calorie counting. I think she does a poor job of describing the low-carb and low-fat diets. For low-carb dieters, she discourages eating saturated fats. Most major proponents of low-carb now enthusiastically encourage eating saturated fats. For low-fat dieters, she recommends consuming 33% of calories as fat. That is nearly as much fat as she recommends in the calorie counting diet which is 35-40% of calories from fat. She criticizes both low-carb and low-fat as being boring diets. That can be true if you don't know how to cook either of those styles and aren't willing to learn. There are many good cookbooks for either style. If you are bored with either of them, then you probably haven't given them a fair trial. The people who are successful on those diets aren't bored - and you shouldn't be either.

The author seemed to me to favor the calorie counting (Heart Association) diet. This diet allows you to eat anything including high fat and high carb items that wouldn't be appropriate on the other two diets. The calorie counting diet offers the greatest variety of foods. The author recognizes that the big drawback of this diet is the requirement for "portion control." Overeating and/or binge eating often defeat dieters who rely upon calorie counting. Every diet has its challenges.

I agree with the earlier reviewer who said this book is good for someone who is new to dieting. But it might also be helpful if you are flustered from repeated efforts at unsuccessful dieting. It gives you a dispassionate overview of different diets without being hypercritical of any. The questionnaire may help you identify your good lifestyle practices and bad ones which you need to change. If you decide to follow a low-carb or low-fat diet, however, you should consult other books for the best way to practice your chosen diet.

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I've been on tons of diets and when they didn't work -- or at least not for long -- I just figured it was me. But it wasn't just me; it was me on those diets. They didn't fit me and I didn't know why. Now I have a much better understanding and I've started a new diet (counting calories) and I get it. I really get it. And I'm losing weight, just to prove it. The test will be if I can maintain the loss but I feel confident that I am designing a diet that's going to fit me and that I can stick to forever. I love this book! And I bet you will too.

Finally, somebody who has a clue about what makes some diets succeed while others fail. This book has helped me achieve real weight loss with so much less stress than I'm used to. How come my doctor didn't tell me about this? This book abandons the cookie-cutter approach to diets that try to fit me and everybody else into a single plan. Dr. Sanders doesn't have a gimmick--she has figured out what your individual needs are and gives you a diet based on that.

Everyone self-conscious about their weight, even when not dieting, should read this book to understand why they eat what they eat and how they can change.

It's refreshing to find an approach where you choose the best approach for your weight loss. I found the homework exercises to be very enlightening and the approach I selected has resulted in a 9 pound weight loss the first week in spite of eating 10 oz. steaks and huge bowls of broccoli. I think I have finally found the approach that will work for me. Thank you!

fabulous effort...the first thing I found out was that a diabetic friend had been on the wrong diet for three weeks...thank you Dr. Lisa, at least now she knows why South Beach didn't work for her...now we're both figuring out the diet that will work for each of us...this is great.

As a fellow nutritionist and herbalist/acupuncturist, I looked forward to this book with great anticipation and was sorely diappointed to find that it lacked both depth and a comprehensive view of body image and its relation to diet responsiveness. The idea of listening to one's body is hardly a new one, and Dr. Sanders sadly does not rise above some of the psychobabble of other popular culture-directed diet books. Readers expecting to start a diet immediately upon reading this book will be sorely disappointed, as doing so is not possible. Others hoping for detailed recipes to fit their body types will not find those in here, either. Given Dr. Sanders' background, I'd have expected a much more detailed examination of the powers of certain foods as well as ways in which to prepare them. I'm not surprised to read in a previous review that another reader found herself plagued by flatulence, as this is a hazard inherent in many diets, including the ones Dr. Sanders endorses here. Readers may find much of the advice vapid and ill-suited to their particular needs. Sadly, I found that Dr. Sanders' reach greatly exceeded her grasp, which was a shame, given the inflated praise given by others for this book.