Customer Reviews

The Vegetarian Low-Carb Diet: The Fast, No-Hunger Weightloss Diet for Vegetarians

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While I'm neither a vegetarian or a vegan, I did want to have more vegetables in my low carb high protein diet. Rose Elliot did a great job on this book. The book is well balanced with readable information, very useful quick reference charts, menus, recipes, a few encouraging testimonies along the way. She does provide vegan alternatives to the lacto-vegetarian choices. And, best of all, it is an easy inexpensive way to lose weight on a low carb diet.

Her commonsense approach to recipes means you can make them with food typically on hand and quickly. Typically, most of the prep work can be done in a few minutes. And, you can expand on them as you learn the basic techniques. As I've worked my way through the book, one of my favorite recipes is her spaghetti squash using cream cheese with spices.

It literally only takes ten minutes to steam the squash in the microwave then fold in the cheese with spices. You can use already prepared cheese with herbs and spice mixes from the store. Or, you can use Philadelphia cream cheese and have your own ethnic flavors from Mexican to Indian, to Italian Garlic-Parmesan etc. And, you can use almost any steamed vegetable that has been thin sliced. It is a nice break from tomato sauces and there are never any leftovers.

This book is definitely a keeper!

The concept behind the book is sound. A reduction of calories and carbs equals a reduction in weight. First the water goes and then over the 14 day period, fat. I lost 5 lbs in two weeks. This doesn't sound like much but it is the final 5 lb ceiling that I have never managed to shed despite trying long hours of exercising and any number of diets.

The recipes in this book are, sadly, incredibly bland and unimaginative with a heavy reliance on eggs and cheese (or tofu). I was so bound up that I was having painful intestinal cramps. The solution was to eat more fibre such as endive, celery, spinach or bran. But again, all consumed with little or no flavoring (the bran tasted like ground cardboard).

At the end of the 14 days, I was sick of the eggs and cheese. And there was an additional problem of what to do if you wanted to continue on a reduced carb diet. I felt I could not adapt the recipes if I wished to continue.

Many meat eaters think that vegetarians have an incredibly limited diet, lacking in variety. Most vegetarians know this is not true (although I am often amazed that some vegetarians themselves think that all they can eat is a salad). This book does not dispel that myth. There are other books available that are filled with inventive flavorful recipes(eg. Vegan Vengeance). Now all we need is one that has flavorful reduced carb recipes.

I bought this book 2 weeks ago and I've already lost 7 pounds and I haven't been hungry once. The recipes are great, the layout is easy to follow, and it's completely changed the way I eat. I've been looking for a good vegetarian diet book for a while and finally found it!

I've been a vegetarian for 17 years, but never paid much attention to how much protein I was getting in my diet...I figured it all worked itself out. After my second child I was having trouble losing the last few pounds of baby weight, so decided to give this diet a try. It took a few shopping trips to revamp my pantry, and some prep work baking/preparing low carb snacks for those binge moments...but I feel less bloated and after 2 weeks have lost 5 lbs (I don't really need to lose any more than that.) The Low Carb pizza is delicious, along with the Chocolate Almond Bark, Spinach Bread, Tomato Cheddar Soup. A few of the prep time estimates have been off (and I have small children distracting me in the kitchen) but overall the food has been tasty and easy to prepare. I wasn't so crazy about the Nut Loaf and the hot cereals are a bit glue-like...but there are so many other things to try, I think I might try to stick to this diet for a while. One warning re reducing carbs: the first week I did feel light-headed and dizzy, but after I made it past 7 days I've been fine (and added a few more low carb servings, which probably helped.)

I have been on the diet for a week and feel fantastic. As a vegetarian, I definitely packed on the pounds by eating lots of carbs and not enough veggies, protein, and natural foods. I am really enjoying my new way of eating and I do not feel deprived in any way and I am eating much less processed food. The recipes that I've tried have been quick and easy and delicious. I have been sleeping great and have had so much energy durng the day as well and I do not get nearly as hungry as I did when I was eating carbs. The carb counts are also extremely useful and there are tons of vegan recipes and modifications. I would recommend this diet and cookbook to any vegetarian who would like to eat more healthfully.

I bought this book as a bit of a last ditch attempt for vegetarian weight loss.
I found the food great and the diet very easy to follow.
I didn't feel hungry at all and found my carb-rich cravings disappeared very quickly.
I am not an overweight person - i more wanted it as a kick-start getting back into training.
I lost 4kg's in 9 days with minimal exercise.
This book is very educational and i feel i have a much better grasp on how and why low-carb dieting works.

My issue with this book isn't really with the book itself - which does what it says it does - so much as the fact that the diet sounds totally unworkable in the real world.

That said, I did have some quibbles with the book. In parts it seemed downright unscientific. For example, assertions that artificial sweeteners, dairy and wheat can stall weight loss in some people regardless of calorie intake/ouput left me scratching my head. The author's anti-GMO bias was never explained. Moreover, her constant assertions that low-carbing makes you feel so wonderful that you'll never want to go back, struck me as disingenous given that she constantly warns that you could fall off the wagon and into a "carb binge" if you go within spitting distance of a french fry. Vague references to "toxins" added to the quackish tone of the writing.

The author herself concedes that the diet is almost impossible to do when dining out. She suggests you ask your hostess at a dinner party to prepare you a low-carb vegetarian meal. "Most people have a repertoire of cheese-based dishes in any case". Really? I've not ever been served a low-carb cheese meal other than saganaki.

After finishing the book I wasn't at all tempted to try the diet. It struck me as extreme and distinctly unapetising. I have been vegetarian for years, but was repulsed by the idea of protein powder shakes with peanut butter in them, bowls of wheat bran for breakfast and fried tofu with mayonnaise. For me, no amount of weight loss would be worth a lifetime of joyless (and probably solitary!) eating.

Great book - lots of information on the low carb diet, how to's and recipes. I normally don't do dieting - this was a nice way to change my eating habits while losing weight. I've lost 10 lbs in 5 weeks, with a several percent decrease in my body fat. It's easy to follow, the recipes are easy to make and very tasty. I've been a vegetarian for over 15 years - the variety in recipes and ingrediants is great.

this is basically an Atkins diet but vegatarian, and low carb, high protien. I thought this book was very helpful.

I am so glad I bought this book. I receive emails about raw food diets and I read about this book. It is very interesting and easy to ready.