Customer Reviews

The Thin Commandments : The Ten No-Fail Strategies for Permanent Weight Loss

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Famed diet doctor,Stephen Gullo charges $1,000 an hour to advise clients on how they can lose weight. Now his tips and techniques can be yours for the price of this book.

The hardcover 318 page book is slim but it's definately quality content. The book is essentially two parts. The first section includes strategies to employ to keep yourself IN CONTROL and IN CHARGE when it comes to your food. Dr. Gullo describes 10 "Thin Commandments". These include tips such as; separate mood from food, structure gives control, slips should teach not defeat you etc.

The tips are pretty common knowledge but the twist is the techniques Gullo shares to master them. For example with his tip, "strategy is stronger than willpower", Gullo suggests you pop a sugar free cough drop or a breath strip to help you resist the bread basket in a restaurant. I tried this the other night when faced with a basket of crispy fried (read fattening) taco chips and voila..ate many less than I normally do.

Gullo also shares foods that he has found give enormous bang for your calorie buck. As another reviewer pointed out, these foods are hard to find. He recommends a 16 calorie crispbread that is an appetite suppresent due to the fiber and is a nice crunchy food item to eat instead of say chips. I hunted high and low in my area and came up emptyhanded. Ended up mail ordering the breads to the tune of $49.50 plus shipping. He pushes these crispbreads so hard in the book as such a wonder food I had to ask the company when I ordered if Dr. Gullo had ownership or derived any monetary gain from the sale. (He does not.) He also recommends a delicious waffle that was also hard to find. BUT its really not Gullo's fault that these foods are hard to find. They are unique in what they offer and they can be very beneficial. He has a resource section so you will be able to order them.

Mastering the strategies in the first section will help you get in control. In the second section Dr. Gullo shares his ABC turbocharged diet. This is definitely a low calorie diet with foods selected to help suppress appetite. He gives a choice of breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. A typical day might be 2 hard boiled eggs with high fiber crackers for breakfast, a cajun fish fillet with spinach and veggies for lunch, a frozen stouffers entree for dinner with a side salad and several snacks such as a class of V-8, grapefruit or bowl of soup. The diet is definitely a diet. Personally I would rather eat more and lose weight slower and include treats like chocolate and wine. BUT Gullo's plan is only intended for 10 days to "turbocharge" you and appears healthy for those who are inclined to follow such a plan. It does not eliminate protein or fat or carbs like other plans.

Once you have finished the 10 days you go into a maintenance plan which includes more goodies. Dr. Gullo also gives a list of his top 110 best low calorie foods on the market. Some of these items are "faux" foods that are not the best choice in my opinion such as fat free mayo. I would rather have a little of the real stuff that doesnt have all the chemicals in it free mayo does or just substitute mustard. But many of the foods are good and nutritious. The crispbreads have no sugar and may take some getting used to but with a little spread on them..are a very tasty snack. Other winners include Babybel Cheese Wedges, Thomas English Muffins and Starkist crabmeat. The list is really great.

Gullo includes recipes in his book. angel cakes, raspberry souffle, organic turkey breast, cheese crepes etc. I made the eggplant parmegiana recently and it was excellent!

Overall the book is a great resource of tips and techniques to help you achieve your weight loss goals!

I am the biggest fan of Dr. Gullo! Ten years ago I bought his first book, Thin Tastes Better. That book was so awesome I bought copies for all my fat friends, and I kept it by my bed to read every night for YEARS!

Using Dr. Gullo's methods, I lost 100 lbs and kept it off for ten years. About 6 months ago I started to gain weight because I slipped into old habits. Naturally I ordered this new book before it was even printed.

The Thin Commandments is basically a rehash of Thin Tastes Better with some updated information; but the message is one I needed to hear again.

Basically, Dr. Gullo teaches us to treat our food addiction as the illness that it really is. No one would ever tell an alcoholic to "go ahead and just have a little", and yet dieters are continually bombarded by this message. That old argument, "you can't deprive yourself" certainly would never be preached to other kinds of addicts.

I know now that I can never eat certain foods in moderation. I have chosen to do without those foods in exchange for a healthy body. I don't feel deprived. I feel liberated from my fat body!

As Dr. Gullo points out, "If food could make you happy, fat people would be the happiest in the world!"

I ordered "The Thin Commandments Diet" expecting to find most of the same diet advice that is contained in the 50+ other diet books that grace my bookshelf. Weight has been a life long struggle for me although many times I have managed to remain quite slim. However, I felt that if I managed to gain even ONE piece of advice to help with the weight battle - it would be worth Amazon's small price of $10 for a hardback book with over 300 pages in it.

Like many people, when I experience stress I have often turned to food. Unfortunately, the older I have become the more difficult it has been to get the weight off again.

Before I even opened this book, I jotted down the "10 Commandments" that I expected to find. I mean, after all, how different could his advice be? And yet I found, that while Dr. Stephen Gullo incorporated some of the dieting advice that I had encountered before - he presented it in such a way that it was as though I was reading it for the very first time.

How many times have you read a diet book that had lots of recipes, but you really didn't have a clue as to what to eat when you weren't following complicated recipes? The Thin Commandments IS DIFFERENT. Dr. Gullo has included a list of "110 Best Diet Foods" and lists specific brands! In my opinion, THIS BOOK IS WORTH BUYING FOR THE LIST ALONE! The list doesn't deal with "exotic, gourmet" foods at all. These items can be purchased at your local supermarket and Trader Joe's or if you live in a smaller town - he lists the websites as well.

He presents this approach because you can have the BEST INTENTIONS in the world, but if you are absolutely SICK of "diet food" or are eating the same things over and over again - how long are you going to stay on ANY diet? If you feel you are being deprived, technology in the last 10 years has made such an abundance of foods that taste even better, in some cases, than foods that are loaded with calories.

I had to smile at what was termed "expensive" food in one review because it's not. Eggs are used a lot as well as fruits and other items. NO! Expensive is buying a grocery cart full of sweets and snacks; expensive is having to buy wardrobes in three different sizes; expensive is health problems such as diabetes from weight gains; but most of all expensive is not living your life to its fullest because you are too embarrassed to go to a social event or a reunion; full of regret for letting life pass you by.

Dr. Gullo mentions that you can be the most successful person in the world (I thought of Oprah BEFORE she lost her weight) and if you are heavy - how happy are you going to be with yourself? But he also mentions the reverse: You can have the most overwhelming problem or the worst day of your life - and if you have conquered your weight, that is the one area at least that you can feel pleased about during that time.

As I mentioned above, this book is $10 (or a trip for two to McD's). I urge you to just take one more step and believe you can do this just one more time and order the "The Thin Commandments." I learned SO MUCH from this book (and remember I'm a diet book "expert")! It has my absolute HIGHEST recommendation!

This book can work alone or with your current weight loss regimen. Although Stephen Gullo includes a 10 day diet plan to get started, he advocates any nutritional weight loss program that is right for you. That means, unlike so many other books today, he doesn't bash other plans.

Gullo gives you 10 strategies to learn how to deal with food. I wonder if there is really anyone out there who records inspirational messages for themselves. I can't imagine doing this. However, if I had consistently failed at so many diets, maybe I would.

What I found most fascinating about this book was the idea of one's food history. That is, there are some of us that can NEVER have a chocolate chip cookie, NEVER have a piece of cake, etc. Our history is our behavior with a certain food. If we've always, in the past, wound up finishing the Pepperidge Farm Milano cookie sack, or always finish the bag of potato chips, Gullo makes the argument that we should learn to consistently make the choice to abstain from these foods. For some of us, he reminds us, one bite is never one bite. One bite leads either to two hundred bites or thinking about another bite until we cave in. I had never heard this spoken about and this, above all his other commandments, was worth the price of this book.

Gullo also gives sources for some of the foods he recommends that aren't likely to be found at your local grocery. This, too, is thorough and worthwhile. He talks about specific foods that I didn't necessarily know were even available. Having these foods available make watching what you're eating that much easier. Among these are walden farms' calorie free (yes, calorie free!) salad dressings, spaghetti sauces, and syrups, as well as vitamuffins-- 100 calorie delicious muffins that are as nutritious as whole wheat toast and peanut butter but tastes like the richest chocolate cake.

I completely recommend Stephen Gullo's book for absolutely anyone who is trying to either lose weight or learn about proper nutrition and health. It's really not your average weight loss book and has something useful for anyone.

Gullo has amassed an arsenal of information about the biological triggers that set so many of us off on binges. He has worked with so many overweight people that he knows the main issues that undermine our success at weightloss. I had so many ah-ha moments reading Thin Commandments. I'm not crazy about the title (too religious sounding), but they do represent the laws of food behavior that ultimately lead to success or failure. Gullo is clued into the fact that you have to know your weaknesses in order to find your strengths. In other words, we all need strategies for any success--no achievement happens by magic. The use of tapes/cds has been the most helpful and have gotten me over some low spots in staying motivated. Keep reading the thin commandments and keep listening to the tapes/cd and success becomes part of your thinking. I've lost over sixty pounds with Gullo's strategies, and consider him a General amongst the army of authors of weightloss books. I have read all of the most popular, and many of the others. Gullo gives you a plan for life, so you can win the war not just one battle.

Dr. Gullo has quite a few good ideas here. My problem is, #1, most of them are already in "Thin Tastes Better"; and #2, the book is blatantly padded, which drives me nuts. The useful material could be condensed down to about 30 pages -- so, to make the book long enough, he repeats every idea about 30 times. He mentions the GG Bran Crispbread on literally every page... which brings me to annoyance #3: as other reviewers have suggested, most of his recommended foods are nearly impossible to find. Absolutely NO ONE in my area carries the bran crispbread; I finally mail-ordered some, only to discover that it's barely edible -- it tastes like thin sheets of wood. It's bearable if topped with something, but really awful eaten plain. Take my advice and forget about it -- just get yourself some Ry-Krisp, Finn Crisp or even reduced-fat Triscuits (my staple!). I finally found Fage yogurt, and it's very expensive ($1.99 for an individual 7-8 oz. cup) -- AND it's only available in either fat-free (which I don't like) or very high fat (250 calories per 8 oz). I did find Walden Farms salad dressings, but when I saw that they're labeled "Calorie Free," I decided they would probably be vile-tasting and put them back on the shelf. I also found Vitamuffins, but if you read the ingredient lists, they are NOT particularly healthy: the top three ingredients in their "Cran-Bran Muffins" are water, sugar, and white flour! Bran is way down the list, and the fiber content is not high. So I didn't buy those either. I was glad to know that Alba shakes are still being made, although again, you have to mail-order them.
Dr. G. does have good behavior modification suggestions. I think he's absolutely on the money about "trigger foods" and always carrying a snack pack with you. But again, I believe all of that is in "Thin Tastes Better."

Dr. Stephen Gullo's book "The Thin Commandments Diet" teaches healthy eating strategies - not "dieting." Applying his strategies, I dropped 25 pounds in three months. Now, I'm continuing to lose the last 15 pounds and plan to reach my target weight within the next few months. For the first time ever (using his maintenance plan) I fully expect the weight loss to be permanent! I have purchased 5 copies of his book to give to friends. Simply put, this is the best "diet book" ever written.

The author asks that we identify trigger foods, behavioral situations which make us eat and motivational strategies to handlen binge eating. Food deprivation often leads to greater food intake as a compensating factor. Things to avoid include eating while cooking, eating while watching television and the stacked kitchen counter.

A simple pinch of saccharine on the tongue can produce
enough bitter taste to counter the eating urges. Reduced sleep can lead to increased eating at night. A protein snack at 5:00PM is suggested to protect against binge eating in the evening. The author asks that we take a protein snack on the road enroute to
shopping or to a party. The Halls sugar free menthol lyptus drops can help to tame the taste buds to avoid excessive eating.
Carbonate also kills hunger pangs, as does tomato juice. Tea drinking is another strategy to promote weight loss. All kinds of fish are nutrient dense with Omega 3 fatty acids and other vitamins. Coffee, tea and tomato juice are the "free foods" .

The author provides model meals including eggs, yogurt, salads,
cottage cheese, turkey salad and Chinese seafood for major meals.
This book will be very helpful in identifying healthy foods requisite to maintaining weight at the proper levels.

What I like most about this book is that it shows you strategic ways of how to maintain the weight after you've lost from your program/diet of choice.......whether that be low-carb, low-fat, or whatever. He gives you an extensive list of food brands to choose from (which is the best part), and teaches about the "mental" component of weight management......something that most diet books don't even touch on. My weight loss program of choice was Denise Austin's "Shrink Your Female Fat Zone". It's a diet that allows an endless variety of foods and demonstrates a workout program that is targeted to fit your specific body structure. I used that program along with the tips from this Thin Commandments book and have lost a great deal of weight (which is a blessing coming from someone who has tried every diet known to man).

I accidentally came across this book at the library while I was doing an 1800 cal day diet (using a PDA program to keep track) to drop some weight. This book showed me how to eat better, and feel fuller on what amounts to be around a 1000 calories per day (of the correct calories). The updated information was very helpful and informative. Needless to say I am dropping the weight faster and have more energy. As soon as I reach my target I will up the calories again. I also appreciated his experience in identifying what substitute foods/products are recommended and available now that cut out lots and lots of calories.