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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2012
Perfect Health Diet completes what Atkins began, and the so-called "Paleo diet" movement continues. If you are at all interested in improving your health with an approach based on solid science, you want this book.
Background: I was an Atkins dieter in the 1990's. Lost a lot of weight, but staying on it was difficult.
Last year I came off a bout of depression determined to beat it without drugs. I stopped eating sugar and (surprise!) started losing weight. Since exercise is also helpful to depression, I thought that it would be better if I kept losing weight to reduce my chance of injury while exercising. Along the way I found that many of the things that are recommended in the Perfect Health Diet greatly helped me in losing weight.
I lost a total of seventy pounds. As a man at fifty-five years old and 195 pounds, I am now in better physical condition than I was in my 20's. This is due in large part to the dietary recommendations in the Perfect Health Diet.
What is even better is that the recommendations in the Perfect Health Diet led to removing the last things that were contributing to my depression. I believe now that grains and omega-6 in vegetable oil was making me depressed. That's why adding omega-3 fish oil to your diet helps fight depression, something I had started doing without understanding why.
To go back to the beginning, the Atkins diet had two flaws which undermined long-term weight loss:
1) Atkins diet "phases" lead to the idea that somehow you lose your weight and then slowly phase back into eating "normal" food. Atkins didn't say this exactly, but it's implied.
2) When Atkins wrote the Diet Revolution book, he didn't have access to the research that we have now, and couldn't see that some fats (high omega-6 vegetable oils) are bad for you, while some carbs in moderation (rice, sweet potato) are okay. His blanket recommendation to get rid of all carbs would have been better focused on SUGAR, FRUCTOSE and GRAINS.
The Perfect Health Diet is written so that you can read to whatever depth of scientific detail you want to. I am about done with my third time through. My particular health issue is depression, and the Perfect Health Diet has many links to dietary causes of depression. The most helpful aspect is that it is written from the perspective that this way of eating is a PERMANENT change, and that this way of eating is based on sound science, including cultural and epidemiology studies, not just lab experiments.
This book is a good companion volume to "Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It" by Gary Taubes.
The only qualification that I would add is that the book recommends eating a lot of fish rather than using supplements for omega-3. This recommendation is based on the observation that most fish oil capsules are stored at room temperature and the oil may go rancid without you knowing it. My answer is to take fish oil as a liquid and KEEP IT REFRIGERATED. It's lemon or lime flavored and refrigeration keeps the the fishy taste down. No capsules needed, and it's actually cheaper than capsules.
Again, as a person who has lost seventy pounds and now enjoy a life free of depression. I wholeheartedly recommend the Perfect Health Diet.
Background: I was an Atkins dieter in the 1990's. Lost a lot of weight, but staying on it was difficult.
Last year I came off a bout of depression determined to beat it without drugs. I stopped eating sugar and (surprise!) started losing weight. Since exercise is also helpful to depression, I thought that it would be better if I kept losing weight to reduce my chance of injury while exercising. Along the way I found that many of the things that are recommended in the Perfect Health Diet greatly helped me in losing weight.
I lost a total of seventy pounds. As a man at fifty-five years old and 195 pounds, I am now in better physical condition than I was in my 20's. This is due in large part to the dietary recommendations in the Perfect Health Diet.
What is even better is that the recommendations in the Perfect Health Diet led to removing the last things that were contributing to my depression. I believe now that grains and omega-6 in vegetable oil was making me depressed. That's why adding omega-3 fish oil to your diet helps fight depression, something I had started doing without understanding why.
To go back to the beginning, the Atkins diet had two flaws which undermined long-term weight loss:
1) Atkins diet "phases" lead to the idea that somehow you lose your weight and then slowly phase back into eating "normal" food. Atkins didn't say this exactly, but it's implied.
2) When Atkins wrote the Diet Revolution book, he didn't have access to the research that we have now, and couldn't see that some fats (high omega-6 vegetable oils) are bad for you, while some carbs in moderation (rice, sweet potato) are okay. His blanket recommendation to get rid of all carbs would have been better focused on SUGAR, FRUCTOSE and GRAINS.
The Perfect Health Diet is written so that you can read to whatever depth of scientific detail you want to. I am about done with my third time through. My particular health issue is depression, and the Perfect Health Diet has many links to dietary causes of depression. The most helpful aspect is that it is written from the perspective that this way of eating is a PERMANENT change, and that this way of eating is based on sound science, including cultural and epidemiology studies, not just lab experiments.
This book is a good companion volume to "Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It" by Gary Taubes.
The only qualification that I would add is that the book recommends eating a lot of fish rather than using supplements for omega-3. This recommendation is based on the observation that most fish oil capsules are stored at room temperature and the oil may go rancid without you knowing it. My answer is to take fish oil as a liquid and KEEP IT REFRIGERATED. It's lemon or lime flavored and refrigeration keeps the the fishy taste down. No capsules needed, and it's actually cheaper than capsules.
Again, as a person who has lost seventy pounds and now enjoy a life free of depression. I wholeheartedly recommend the Perfect Health Diet.
