Diet Simple (Hardcover)

by Katherine Tallmadge (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Did you know that if you add salad to your lunch and dinner you could lose 36 pounds a year? Or that eating four frozen dinners a week could result in an 18-pound loss?

When it comes to dieting, time is on your side. Studies have shown that it's the small, easy changes you make in eating that have the most dramatic and lasting results. For instance, make one or two minor changes in your eating or life-style habits, and over the course of three months, you will begin to see significant weight drop.

Katherine Tallmadge, MA, RD, one of the country's leading nutritionists, has compiled 154 easy tips, substitutions, mental tricks, strategies, and inspirations that have helped her clients shed from 10 to 50 pounds a year-effortlessly and without feeling deprived. Including 26 Fast and Delicious "Batch Recipes" from world-renowned chefs such as Jacques Pépin and Roberto Donna, Diet Simple teaches you how to permanently lose weight and change your life for the better while balancing the needs of health, career and family.

During her twenty years as a weight-loss and nutrition counselor in Washington, D.C., Tallmadge has discovered that modifying small habits is easy and the most common way to lose weight without even trying. Over time, the extra calories saved or burned add up to staggering weight loss. This is the Diet Simple approach.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 324 pages
• Publisher: LifeLine Press (January 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895261855
• ISBN-13: 978-0895261854
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #780,643 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

107 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Simple tips to lose weight but....., April 14, 2002

By	Lee Mellott "www.mylilgolddress.com (Earn at ... (Frederick, Maryland) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

If you are a traditional dieter you may enjoy Tallmadge's book, "Diet Simple". In the book Tallmadge gives a number of tips on how to fit in exercise and eat less calories. However, most of the tips will be ones you already know. And many of the tips are repeated in the book in a slightly different manner.
For example one tip suggests you walk a dog, another tip says you lead a conga line at work for 5 minutes each hour of the business day, and yet another tip suggests you walk more.

Other Tallmadge tips include eating less calories by making substitutions. She suggests in one tip that you give up ice cream or at least eat less. And another tips suggests you eat fruit with chocolate syrup instead of ice cream - more repetition.

Very few of the ideas add anything new to what most women's magazines or diet books will tell you. Drink more water to feel fuller, eat salad so you don't eat something else, find less caloric substitutes for chocolate cravings.
The one twist Katherine adds to the book is she guesses at how many calories (and thus pounds) you might lose in a year if you follow the suggestion given.

As I stated earlier the book is geared to the traditional eat less, exercise more mode of weight loss. If you are following a low carb diet, for example, many of the suggestions will not work for you. In one tip she recommends coating your berries with chocolate syrup. 2 tablespoons of chocolate syrup contain 24 grams of carbs which would not be beneficial to a low carber!

At the back of the book she gives batch recipes. Many are geared to a batch for 4 or 6. So they not as suitable for families as they are for couples. The recipes involve wholesome foods and clear directions are given.

I think because of the duplication of the tips throughout the book and the fact that most are repeats of what we already know the book is more of a little kick in the pants to remind us to drink our water, eat more veggies etc.
To me though the lack of new information does not merit the price of the hardcover version.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Diet Simple, November 8, 2002

By	Philip Mudd (Bethesda MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Katherine Tallmadge's book, Diet Simple,to me is slightly reminiscent of the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonomous. Not that it recommends a 12 step program for people who overeat or who have spent a lifetime battling weight and eating disorders, rather it offers those of us who strugle with these issues some experiance, strength and hope.
In the introduction Ms. Tallmadge briefly touches on the behavioral patterns and problems related to eating of three generations of her own family. Fortunately this is up frount in the book because her discussion of her own struggle with over eating, and her cycle of gaining and loosing weight pulled me in and was something I could relate to, the classic "yo yo" pattern as she puts it.
Some of the information in this book is stuff that I have read somewhere maybe in a woman's magazine, drink more water, exercise, eat less, etc. However after doing a Google search under the authors name I found that she had written many of these articals. Ms Tallamdge approch has talked me down from the ledge of these carb addict diet books and has me eating oatmeal for breakfast! I have never had more energy for my morning work outs than I do with this suggestion. I was on a protein regime that I though was helping me but I was stuck. These Diet Simple suggestions are balanced and not harsh. In the two months since I picked up the book I have lost 15 lbs.
The author's experiance as a practicing nutritionist shows in the many suggestions, mental tricks, substitions, habits and inspirations she anecdotally atributes to from work she has done with her clients over the years. My suggestion is that you skip the nutritionist, come to a place where you are ready to change, use this book as a tool and spend the money you save on new clothes.
I should mention that the recipes in the back are tasty and easy for a bachelor with few culinary skills to prepair. It shows us how to make the food we eat health yet exciting. With all this said I have to admit that I bought the book because I saw the jacket photo of the author before I read the title. She is very cute. Sadly there are no pictures inside the book.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Common sense with results, January 16, 2002

By	Jennifer Elliott (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

Katherine Tallmadge's approach is simple and motivating--I've found it easy to follow and by making very small changes to my daily habits I have managed to lose 40 pounds. The best part of her method is that it's genuine lifestyle change --something I feel confident I can do forever.