Customer Reviews

You: On a Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management (Book and DVD)

5 star:		(461)
4 star:		(128)
3 star:		(61)
2 star:		(48)
1 star:		(47)

 

 

This book taught me that you aren't really eating "normally" on most diets. Your body confuses a diet with a time of famine and is trying to keep you alive. Your body doesn't know that you can afford to lose the weight, and that the "famine" is self-imposed. It explains the role that chronic low-grade stress (work, relationships, etc.) plays on weight gain.

The book explains how to eat well for your body so that you are satisfied, not hungry, and in a way that your body knows it is OK to shed pounds. Your goal is to remain satisfied or pleasantly full throughout the day. The other part of the book that resonated with me is that variety is what is killing us. The authors suggest that you automate your breakfast and lunch, eating the same thing or from a small group of things every day. This takes the guesswork out of things. Then you should eat a handful of nuts before dinner, so that you do not overeat. It also explains the effect that "bad foods" have on your hormones and brain chemistry vs. the effect that "good foods" have - other than just the extra calories that you are intaking. This was most interesting, and what sets it apart from other diet books or plans.

The difference between the You Diet and any other that I have tried is that there was no 2-3 day period of feeling terrible or having to adjust. Just a clean-out of highly processed foods from our kitchen and a trip to Trader Joes for some healthy foods and lots of label reading. Now I just feel better and better the longer I do it. It is amazing how tasty whole grain foods can be and how much more they fill you up than processed carbohydrates. My husband is even enjoying the foods I am making!

I get tired of people saying this is the same old information. It is not. When has any other diet book gone into such detail about digestion and how our bodies store and use fat? When have you ever heard the word Omentum before? This book really makes you realize what you are doing to your body with fat and sugar. It makes you WANT to eat better. It tells you WHY you should eat certain foods and what happens when you eat food. It's great. I have been following this plan, and it really works. You can eat, be satisfied, and not starve yourself. It has recipes, tells you what to order when you eat out, and puts you in control. I can't even consider eating a cookie after reading this book. If I look at one, I get images in my head of what my body will do with that cookie, and it's not pretty. This book has a scared straight appeal, and it really made me change my life.

As a registered dietitian, I often approach diet books with some skepticism, as I have found many popular ones to be too gimmicky, too extreme, nutritionally imbalanced, or too unrealistic to be followed over the long-haul. Imagine my surprise when I read You on a Diet. As Drs. Roizen and Oz have done in the past, here they have managed to simplify science and draw attention to the health perils of having too much body fat (especially in the abdominal region) in a witty, warm, encouraging, positive, and entertaining way. They explain in simple, easy to understand language how to reprogram your body to support healthful weight loss. Along the way, they encourage people to consume more protein, fiber, and healthful unsaturated fats, and less saturated fats, trans fats, and sugar, all of which can certainly support weight management efforts and have heart-health and other benefits as well.

Too many diet books preach quick fixes and ask you to forego too many foods in pursuit of a thinner physique; instead, this book takes a very positive approach, shows people what to consume more of, supports regular physical activity, and encourages people to set realistic goals--instead of striving for model-thinness, it asks people to aim simply to lose some inches from their guts which can improve not only their physical appearance but their health as well. Perhaps the greatest strength of this book is its light and encouraging tone, not to mention the illustrations which make it an easy and enjoyable read.

Having lost more than 25 pounds myself, and having maintained a healthy body weight for more than 10 years, I know first hand how tough it is to lose weight. For me it was a slow, gradual process that took years. I would have found this book quite useful about 15 years ago (before I became a registered dietitian) when I started to change my eating and fitness habits, and now am happy to have a popular diet book to recommend to clients and the lay public.

Although calorie counting is not emphasized in the book, my experience shows that when you embark on weight loss, you need to first know where you're starting from in terms of calories; also, knowing something about the calorie content of the foods and beverages you consume can help you when you hit a plateau and your weight seems to stall at a certain level despite your continued efforts to lose weight. And while the menu plans and recipes in this book seem sound and do-able, they include few low-fat dairy foods and other non-dairy sources of calcium which may make it tough for many to meet their calcium and/or vitamin D needs without supplementation. Also, because the menu plans do not include many of the foods people in America commonly consume, such as refined foods including pizza and pasta, and snack/dessert type foods (many of which are admittedly low in nutrients and high in calories), following these plans to the letter may make people feel that they are in fact on a "diet" and that they have to eat very differently than they normally do to lose weight. This can make following the program a challenge over the long-term.

Overall, You on a Diet can be a useful resource and motivator, and can be quite helpful resource for those who are tired of extreme dieting and want to start living as they pursue a healthier weight. This book makes a great bookshelf addition for anyone who is willing to take the time to learn how the body works to improve their overall eating habits, get more fit, and lose weight for life.

Loading a book with humorous caricatures, myths, and factoids is a risky undertaking, when readers expect doctors to remain "formal". But, the authors have opted to present hard science in simple artistic format and succeeded in rendering it palatable, at least for the segment of readers interested in the mechanics of disease. The gamble with caricatures added a legendary aura to the book that will endure for future generations.

The main contribution in the book, beside its educational style, is emphasizing the "waist size" as a reliable index for healthy living. The authors advanced their argument through physiological reasoning. They focused on the omental and skin fats and intestinal infection and inflammation in relation to waist size. Thus, the smaller is the waist size, the lesser the inflammation and the depot of fat that hinders health.

The book falls into an introduction, 12 chapters, and three appendices that could be summarized as follows.

Introduction: "You: On a Diet. Work Smarter, Not Harder" introduces the reader to the main idea of the book. That is management of waist size through understanding the biology of eating. It tests the reader's common knowledge through a multiple choice test that targets the various aspects of the history and science of eating

Chapter 1:" The Ideal Body: What Your body Is supposed to Look Like" discusses the interplay of genetics and environment in shaping our physique.

Chapter 2: "Can't Get No satisfaction: the Science of Appetite" describes the rule of the central nervous system in controlling satiety through hormonal feedback from the stomach, intestine, and fat. It simplifies matters through two hormones: Leptin for satisfaction and Ghrelin for hunger.

Chapter 3: "Eater's Digest: How Food travels through Your Body" describes, in an educational style, the journey of food from mouth, tongue, stomach, intestine, colon, to liver, heart, muscles. Its humorous caricatures make it invaluable and entertaining.

Chapter 4: "Gut Check: The Dangerous Battles of Inflammation in Your Belly" describes the first battle of digestion between the body and food intake within the intestine. The outcome of digestion affects the liver, skin, and general health. Its main hostile participants are inflammation and infection. Omental, skin, and liver fat replete from the ingested food. It considers the intestine as the second brain by virtue of its millions of neurons and 95% of whole body serotonin.

Chapter 5: "Taking a fat Chance: How Fat Ruins Your Health" dwells on the omentum fat, described in chapter 4, and extends its effects to arterial narrowing and mechanical hindrance of breathing and mobility. Arterial narrowing deprives the whole body of its health causing cancer, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Omental fat is claimed to be more ominous than subcutaneous fat because the omentum lies on the solid vital organs while the subcutaneous fat is peripheral and remote.

Chapter 6: "Metabolic Motors: Your Body's Hormonal fat Burners" describes how metabolism is managed by hormonal signals from the adrenals, thyroids, and gonads.

Chapter 7: "Make the Move: How You Can Burn Fat Faster" discusses the effect of exercise, weight lifting (strength) and aerobics (stamina) on developing the energy management system by: increasing metabolism, burn energy, release endorphins (pleasure stimulants), and unclog blood vessels.

Chapter 8: "The Chemistry of Emotions: The Connection between Feelings and Food" discusses the relationship between behavior and neurotransmitters: norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, gamma aminobutyric acid, and nitric oxide. It thus relates eating to emotions such as anger, depression, anxiety, stress, jealousy, and loneliness.

Chapter 9: "Shame on Who? The Psychology of failed Diet" deals with the thought process of dieting versus the action process. It describes three areas of personality tests: eating pattern, exercise pattern, and coping pattern.

Chapter 10: "Make a You-Turn" describes strategies for accomplishing healthy body through eating, exercising, and coping with failure and recovery. It makes the waist size its critical index for success. Here where academic reasoning addresses the universal suffering from distended bellies in contemporary subjects.

Chapter 11: "The You activity Plan: Physical Strategies for Waist Management" is where the authors default. They suggest three-20-minute sessions per week of strengthening and stretching exercises. Those range from shoulder rolling, crossing, clapping, forward bend, push up, yoga poses, crunches, to dumbbell squats, lunges, and rowing. Here, the reader senses the detachment of academics from real advancement in workout experience.

Chapter 12: "The You Diet; The Waist-Management Eating Plan" recommends three meals plus snacks daily and dessert every other day. It prohibits sugars, simple carbohydrates, fructose, trans fat, saturated fat, and flour. It also has extensive menu and advices on how to choose among fast food if you have to. The forty pages of menu is a total waste, as people do not trust medical books in preparing their meals (personal opinion).

The three appendices deal with drugs, plastic surgery, and digestive surgery for overweight people.

The major drawback in the book is the exercise recommendation and meals menu. Those show the aloofness of the authors from modern America. The web is rich in better ideas on exercise and nutrition that work and get results. The book should have limited its scope to what the authors know best: applied physiology.

Mohamed F. El-Hewie
Author of
Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training

If you, like me, are the type of person who questions everything, wants to understand everything, then this is a good book for you. If you just want to "turn the light on", as an earlier reviewer mentioned, instead of understanding why the light switch works, this book may not be your best choice. Most of it is devoted to understanding the physiological reactions your body has to the types of food you eat, instead of heavily emphasizing exactly what to eat.

I, like most everyone else in the US, have heard that trans fats and high fructose corn syrup are bad for you. In one ear and out the other, to tell you the truth. But when Drs. Rozen and Oz explained that those "bad for you" ingredients turn off the receptors in your brain that tell you you're full, you can bet I sat up and took notice. So *that's* why I can eat a whole bag of potato chips, and still not feel full! No more trans fats and corn syrup for me, thank you.

By far the most useful aspect of the book was how it explained that processed foods are not only calorie-laden and unhealthy, but that they wreak havoc with our brain chemicals, making us crave even more unhealthy foods and makes us eat way more than our bodies need to feel satiated.

I did find the humor gratuitous and completely overdone. I enjoy a light-hearted approach as much as most people, and love a good analogy, but it was poured on so thickly that, not only was it annoying, but at times even detracted from my concentration and understanding of the principles they were explaining. Still, I highly recommend this book for a "thinking man's" diet.

Dr. Roizen and Dr. Oz are highly accomplished physicians and do not seem to have a profit motive. Individuals keep buying their books because of their accessibility. Everyone knows why individuals gain weight - you eat more calories than you expend, with the exception of thyroid diseases. This book is a well-informed plan that will teach individuals how to live, what to do when you go "off" (which the authors acknowledge as an inevitable human action) as well as explains how your digestive system works both physicall and emotionally. The "YOU" Books should be required reading...

As a healthcare professional, I have read (and tried) many of the diet books out there. This book is an amalgam of the very latest knowledge on weight and waist management. It provides an integrated approach - diet, exercise, supplements, behavior modification,etc. - which is essential for long-lasting success. It is easy to read, easy to understand and easy to follow. And the humor, denigrated by some, is immensely appealing to me, adding a breath of fresh air and wit to a topic that can be ponderous and confusing...I was laughing out loud last night while re-reading a particular section. I highly recommend buying your own copy as you will want to keep referring to it.

Not my intent to flame previous posts, or to presume too much, but reading the previous posts who gave this a 1 or 2 star rating, the most common complaint is clearly the use of a a few cartoon characters in the book (in fact, it does read much like a "For Dummies" Book).
Unfortunately the fact they find that so irritating truly overlooks some solid health advice.

The other main complaint is that this is "rehashed" material...and that too is a somewhat misleading. Case in point; we caught ourselves building a "personalized" diet plan based on the numerous foods that show up in multiple "diets".... i.e Broccoli shows up in most "diets", so we figure it more than likely is a decent choice etc. Even with this appraoch you have to be careful (about half rate bananas as bad, the other half rate them high)
Point being, yes, a rehash of 18 different methods from 18 different books...but rarely do you ever see them all in the same place (not that YOU is perfect, but it certainly covers MOST of the bases - and without too much bogus science or by adding something weird or extreme just to standout)

Personally, we've tried pretty much everything; Low fat, Low Cal, Low Carb, NO Carb, Mediteranean, GL and Anti-inflammatory,...blah, blah, blah.

Truthfully, I Lost the most weight with low Carb variations, but always questioned a lifestyle that avoided Fruits and Veggies, AND as a result of Low Carb I (like many) ended up with severe hemorrhoids. In my case, that meant a trip to the hospital to have them surgically removed, an experience which I will NEVER forget.

Bottom line is that rarely does anything replace a decent understanding of the subject (education) combined with applied common sense, and (sigh) disicpline.

For "us" it pretty much boils down to just that; Common sense about eating "habits", combined with some exercise and some decent advice about foods in general. In fact, the only thing that works over the long haul is pretty much what this books covers (albeit with a few cartoons), that being; Eat sensible foods, eat smaller meals more often, Exercise, don't eat just before bedtime (duh) and yes, avoid sugars

Rehash? perhaps...kinda...sorta...maybe.
But for us it's a lot of the information we have found to be the most solid, and for the most part, in one place. Having tried most everything out there, if someone were asking either the spouse or I for a suggestion of just ONE book and what had worked "for us", I'd have to say either buy this book, or something very, very similar, and stop looking for a Silver Bullet - cuz there ain't one.
(There IS however some really bad, and perhaps dangerous advice out there. Caveat Emptor).

Side note; I did not rate this a "5" as that to me that implies perfect - and there is no such thing

My husband and I got this book from my mother in law and while my husband does need to lose weight, I do not, but the weight I do carry (I have PCOS) is in my midsection. I eat terribly and am constantly feeling extreme guilt about it, but am too lazy to do anything about it. What's worse, whenever my husband is on a diet I tend to completely pig out. I wanted to read this so that I could help my husband with a diet, but it's helping me even more! Once I started reading this book it was like a light bulb going on in my head. I finally knew WHY I needed a change.

Some have found the scientific information to be a negative, but this is EXACTLY what I needed to turn my eating habits around. I already knew what foods were bad for me, but didn't know exactly why. I knew when I would drink soda with a meal I could eat a lot more, but didn't realize it was because the high fructose corn syrup was affecting my brain chemicals and telling me I was still hungry. Yeah, the YOU-reka moments are corny, but I have seriously had so many of my own Eureka moments reading this book.

I would like to stress that many of the negative reviewers have stated that all the book says is to eat less and exercise more. That's not what it's saying at all. It actually says it's important not to deprive yourself because that makes negative chemical changes that work against you. It also says not to jog, but to do moderate exercise. Also, I'm not sure why people think the ingredients in the recipes are hard to find. I got mine at Kroger. I absolutely despise cooking and I think they are easy recipes. I think a lot of the negative views are coming from people who want a quick fix, which doesn't exist.

I have only just started to implement these changes so I don't have any results to report, but I can say that never has there been anything that has made it so easy for me to make these changes. I think very black and white...no gray...so being able to finally understand what is going on in my body has been exactly what I needed.

I could go on and on because I just think this book is great. I hope many, many lives are changed because of it!

EDIT: I wanted to add that after 4 weeks on this life plan my husband has lost 15lbs and I have lost 4lbs. and 4" from my waist! Not to mention we feel wonderful!

This is good, common sense, weight management. Also, it is a plan that has these MAJOR advantages:

1. It is easy to understand and follow and doesn't require a lot of time (although, as with most diet and exercise plans, you'll benefit from going a bit beyond the minimum requirements).

2. It allows for slow but steady weight loss. Of course, if you exercise more and eat less, you may lose more quickly but...what's the rush?

3. It is a lifetime plan, not a short-term fix.

4. It takes advantage of the newest research out there. Dr. Oz and his associate really do stay on top of the newest info.

5. Well written, easy to understand. You can hit the ground running (excuse the pun) with this one!