Customer Reviews

The Skinny Carbs Diet: Eat Pasta, Potatoes, and More! Use the power of resistant starch to make your favorite foods fight fat and beat cravings

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

 

 

This book changed my life! Let it change yours! Watch ten pounds go flying out the door and have fun. No more empty stomach or cravings. Mr. Feder truly understands the chemistry behind eating to lose weight and designed terrific recipes! The hardest thing for me when dieting or - even when I am not dieting- is planning menus! He does that for you - it is like having your own chef! I hope that there is a Skinny Carbs Two soon that follows and maybe more recipes! No one should be without this book - it is the single most user friendly diet book I have seen.

This book uses the theory of resistant starch. It is supposed to resist breakdown in the upper digestive track. This is basically a six week plan. There are enough recipes contained to sustain you for these six weeks and a chart with menus for that time
There are 3 phases to the diet and they are well explained, with adequate information given to explain what resistant starch is and what it is supposed to do for you.
Each recipe gives the amount of resistant starch, the prep time, total time and calories and dietary information. The recipe sections contained are: breakfast, soups, sandwiches, salads, side dishes, meat, poultry and seafood, vegetarian entrees, snacks and desserts.
The ingredients for the most part are normal ones with the addition for many, of hi-maize resistant starch, which you can get easily on line at many reputable sites. There are appealing recipes that include lasagna, muffins, and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.
Two members of our family have tried this diet, and had success even with out adding hi-maize resistant starch. It's an idea to try especially if you want to keep some carbs in your meal plans.

If you are buying this book because you want to learn about the nutrition and chemistry aspects of Resistant Starch, then this is the book for you. However, if you are buying it because you want more recipes with RS, don't bother UNLESS your local grocery store has Hi-maize high fiber flour. If you can't get that locally, then you can ask Whole Foods to special order it for you, but they require you buy a case of the stuff. Otherwise, you can order 3lbs for $10 + shipping from the manufacturer, but that doesn't exactly help you make anything when you get the book. Either order the hi-maize before the book, or be disappointed, because there are VERY few recipes in this book without the hi-maize. You're better off with "The CarbLovers Diet" book. It has fewer recipes, but at least you can get most of the ingredients at your local supermarket, whether you are in a big city on the East Coast, or just in a normal city out in the Heartland or Plains States. Don't get me wrong, the recipes look great, but I honestly can't evaluate them because I haven't been able to get the hi-maize to be able to try them, and yes, I'm frustrated. The info on RS and how it works is really good. I learned a lot, but that doesn't help with the recipes.

Understanding how resistance starch benefits your body is a must for making this way of eating work for you. I have been using the principles outlined in this book and I am successfully losing weight - even on days when I'm eating things not necessarily nutritional (like diet decaf Coke & potato chips). However, lets be practical and acknowledge that a constant diet of empty calories is not only self defeating, but the odds are resistance starch will not support day after day of eating poorly with the results you're hoping for.

I've read all the recipes; and while many appeal to me, I've only prepared some of the soups. They're easy & good. Would certainly recommend this book for anyone trying to lose or maintain weight.

I "was" fat. No longer! I've tried so many diets and been to so many nutritionists --- and nothing worked! My main protaganist and enemy have been potatoes! I love 'em. I was eating more than 5 pounds a night. Yep, 35 pounds a week. And butter and cream. And pasta this and pasta that. But I wasn't regimenting myself. But this book changed it all. It's written in layman's terms and so I better understand how I was killing myself slowly. With this book, I can properly apportion myself, eat the right amounts. And the subtitle for the book is right on point: I love these starchy foods --- and this book helps me control my urges --- while allowing me enough to fill me up. I was fortunate enough to have seen one of the authors, David Feder, at a seminar on this very subject as he was researching the book --- and I was the first (I think!) to purchase it when I saw it was being released. It's no different than a person who has a chocolate fetish; imagine if there was a book that says "eat a lot of chocolate without getting fat --- just exert some controls here and there..." Same with this book. Starchy food and those fatty carbo's can be eaten --- but within an approach that won't kill you or add to the pounds. When's the sequel coming out?!

I've been looking for this book since last fall. It was well worth the wait. This book has some good new ideas and information. It containns lots and lots of recipes.

I got this book a couple of weeks ago while I was on a business trip and I really liked the concept behind it. Eating carbs again - without feeling guilty - woohoo!

I know that you're supposed to work your way into it, starting with 5 grams of RS, but I thought I'd give it a whirl with 10 grams RS and 20 grams of fiber from the get-go. My BF was coming along on the journey with me. Sure am glad I did.

Yesterday evening I started doing some chopping as prep work and also made the red kidney bean dip(Snacks)...and it was merely a preview of coming attractions. Today was spent almost primarily in the kitchen. I made the potato pancakes with eggs (suprisingly harder than it looked), the macaroni and cheese for my BF, the wheat berry and barley salad for myself, the citrusy red pepper soup and the corn, black bean and chicken salad for dinner. For breakfast for the week for both of us, I also made the banana pecan muffins. At this point, the thought of making what I had planned for desert makes me want to go on strike. The thought of having to make, from scratch, a dinner, a snack and a lunch for us for the next day every night is making me want to cry.

The recipes that I've made are very good, but this is more time-consuming than I had realized. I have spent the hours that I wasn't cooking looking for message boards, blogs, reviews, etc, from people who have tried this manner of eating and didn't have much luck. For a person who works full time and takes two classes a semester, I just don't have the time to do this. If there were meals that were a bit less time consuming to make or more grab-and-go options, I'd love to give this more time. I'll push through this week because I invested all the money in groceries to do it. Unfortunately, though, I think this will end up more as a cookbook, because I have enjoyed what I've made so far, than an actual manner of eating that I can stick to day in and day out.

I bought this book with great anticipation, I love carbs and Atkins, although it worked very well, left me feeling very deprived. The recipes in this book are quite good, but very time consuming. There is a lot of cooking. I work two jobs so trying to find the time to prep and cook was pretty difficult. I am surprised no one mentioned the cost. I have a pretty well stocked pantry, but to buy the ingredients for the first 3 days of the diet ran us $174. Really. It was a real challenge to find all the ingredients, since it is winter and a lot of this stuff isn't in season. Items like a pound of shrimp, a pound of asparagus, pork loin, etc. these are not cheap! And the claim you can find the Hi-Maize within an 80 mile radius? Nope. We have 8 health food stores within that radius. Not a single one carried it, and not a single one had even heard of it. All carried King Arthur products. These stores also don't shy away from exotic items or ingredients - you can buy emu, bison and every kind of grain imaginable, and their staff is extremely knowledgeable. I ended up ordering it online. I am quitting the diet for a couple of reasons. 1 - it is very expensive, we just can't afford to continue, this is the most expensive diet I've ever done and it blew half our food budget just in a couple of days, and 2 - I gained weight. That was the most disappointing part. No, I didn't cheat and yes I followed the diet to the letter. I weighed and measured everything, made no substitutions and managed to still put on weight. We will probably still throw some of the recipes in to our next diet because they are good. But over all, this diet was an exceptional disappointment. It is time consuming, expensive and for me, didn't work.

Lots of information and recipes in this book to help you look and feel great, while still getting to enjoy your favorite dishes.

I bought this book and have not really read the entire thing. Kinda of a hard read. Needless to say I am still addicted to carbs. Good book if you can follow the book first and the diet second.