The 4 Day Diet

The 4 Day Diet by Ian K. Smith is a bit of a misnomer. It is not actually a diet you do for only four days - and the book is primarily NOT a diet book. It is all about your mindset before you take on any diet. The audio version comes on three CDs that you can listen to in your car. I have to admit I've gotten really spoiled with my iPod, being able to always start and stop whenever I wish and restore in the exact same spot. I'd recommend people rip this to their iPod for that ease of use. The second thing to know here is the CD does not have all the information on it. In several places the reader says "refer to the PDFs for the rest of the information". You need to have access to a computer to print out those PDF charts, recipes and so on. I definitely feel this is better than trying to listen to him read out all the ingredients and instructions to a long recipe step by step, but it's good to know this is a requirement. While the title says diet, the information is really NOT about a specific way of eating. The vast majority of the book is about your mindset before you take on any lifestyle change. It talks about why people fall into patterns, why they turn to comfort food to solve problems, how lack of sleep and other issues can exacerbate weight problems. The book does a great job of providing study information, sports analogies and a number of other techniques for making the points. That way regardless of the background of the listener something is likely to "click". So many diet books just say "eat more fish" or "eat less sugar". That's nice advice but it doesn't tend to address the actual issues that cause most of us to be overweight. We KNOW what healthy eating is about. Why don't we do it? That is much more complicated. This book helps us figure that out and take steps to address those actual underlying issues. Yes, at the end of the book there are little mini-diets of four days, that you chain together one after another. I would consider this the weakest part of the book. If you have only four days worth of food choices, and then try it again, you're going to be bored very quickly. Yes he has a number of options, but it is really only a side-note to his main book. I would stick with a fully worked out diet for "what to eat" that provides a lot of options and structure and background. Even so, that's only a minor complaint. I think the book does a great job with its main mission, which is to help ensure the dieter has the proper mindset before beginning a diet. If you follow through the information for that aim alone, I find it time well spent. Highly recommended.

The most rewarding plan even within the first four days. I am less lethargic, more energetic and no more food coma! Follow the detox plan religiously, my husband and I lost 4 lbs in four days. This is not really a diet as much as a successful life style.

I've tried a ridiculous number of diets. Read a ton of books. Saw this on The View and after reading some reviews decided to pick it up. Easy to read. Very logical. I don't find it difficult at all to follow the diet. Anyone can follow any plan for 4 days so you just have to take it 4 days at a time. I have just only started the diet so I can't say how well it work when completed...but I can tell you that I'm on day 3, have not exercised AT ALL and I'm down 3 pounds. THREE POUNDS and it's only 3 days. Yes, I'm sure it's water weight, but I'm eating very healthy (detoxing my body), I'm sleeping SOOOO much better and I'm have more energy than I've had in a long time. So I'm very happy with this diet so far and right now I'm doing the hardest part! So I have to imagine the rest will be a breeze since it's not nearly as strict. I'll write another review when I finish my first 28 days, as I plan to do this again and again until I reach my goal.

I bought this book because I lost over 50 pounds on Dr. Smith's last book, the Fat Smash Diet. That book was so easy to follow and all of my girlfriends lost weight too. I still have about 25 pounds to go and I thought I would try something different for the New Year. I ran across the 4 Day Diet because another girlfriend bought it for her mother. I was not disappointed. This book is so easy. It also is friendly for families and vegetarians. You can make substitutions if you don't eat certain foods and you can switch up the order of the modules any way you want. The modules are part of the eating plan. The diet is broken down into 4-day modules. You change your cuisine every 4 days. The book calls this "modular eating." I've never heard of this before, but as I read more about it and what it does to help people lose weight, it made complete sense. I also like the snacks and recipes in the back of the book. I would buy the book just for them, because they give you great food that's healthy and tastes great and is easy to make. I watched Dr. Smith help celebrities on his show Celebrity Fit Club lose a lot of weight, especially Maureen McCormick who played Marcia on the Brady Bunch. Dr. Smith really turned her life around. He's done the same for me and I know the 4 Day Diet will help me get rid of these last 25 pounds.

I am someone who knows more about dieting than most diet experts. I have battled with weight problems all of my life and I've been on more diets than I can remember. I am a typically yo-yo dieter. My weight goes up and down every year. This year I decided that I had enough and I was going to get one book and stick to that book. A couple of days ago I was shopping for that book and found what I think is a message from above. I took a look at the 4 Day Diet and fell in love with it right away. The book starts out talking about the importance of getting your mind together. The chapters are very concise and make sense and give you exercises you can do at the end if you like. The style of writing is VERY accessible, unlike some of these books where you feel like you need a PhD in order to understand it. I found so many of my own problems in those first few chapters. I felt like I had gone to a shrink and got a diagnosis for free. Now I have such a better understanding of my emotional eating and stress eating and other stuff I've been doing wrong for so long. Then I read the actual 4 Day Diet plan and it blew my mind away. It is so simple to follow. It makes so much sense, because every 4 days you switch the type of food that you eat. The diet is broken up into 4-day modules. There are 7 modules in the book. Here are the modules and what they represent. Induction (detox/cleansing) Transition (to reintroduce all food groups) Protein Stretch (to avoid plateaus) Smooth (you can have some formerly forbidden foods like pizza and fries) Push (just before the final stretch, back to a stricter eating plan) Pace (a comfortable module for you to catch your breath) Vigorous (the final module to lose those last few pounds) These modules make SO much sense and they're laid out so perfectly. The food you can eat is spelled out very clearly and most importantly, you don't have to spend a lot of money on organic stuff like other diets make you spend. I went and got my food for the first week from a regular grocery store. The recipes are some of the best I've ever seen in a diet book. I couldn't believe they were actually in a diet book. Pesto-crusted chickent breast with eggplant caponata,spicy turkey-chipotle meatloaf with sweet potato puree and grilled vegetables, steamed clams with whole wheat linguine and basil-white wine sauce. You get the point. They are like meals you would get in a restaurant. I've already made 2 and my husband can't stop talking about how good they are. One of my children is a vegetarian and she can follow the 4 Day Diet too, because it has so many options and it allows you to make smart substitutions where necessary. I recommend this book to anyone who is serious about losing weight and like me is frustrated not being able to stick to a plan. I'll stick to this for the rest of my life because it doesn't feel like a diet. Thanks for this great book, Dr. Smith.