The ABS Diet Eat Right Every Time Guide

I live in Boulder, Colorado, the center of the fitness universe, where body fat is considered a physical disability. I hike, run, cycle, spin, do yoga, and work out daily. Six months ago, I started the "Abs Diet" with the objective of losing weight and trimming my stomach. I also adding moderate weightlifting to my workout routine. Although it really hasn't seemed that I'm "dieting," has it worked? Abs-olutely. Ninety-five percent of all diets to fail. The Abs Diet (as set forth in "The Abs Diet: The Six-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life") is not a fad. It doesn't require calorie counting or eliminating whole food groups from your diet. It is about achieving abs-olute fitness through sensible nutrition, powering up the metabolism (the body's natural fat burner) by eating six meals a day of twelve Superfoods that include almonds and other nuts, beans and legumes, spinach and other green vegatables, low-fat dairy, oatmeal, eggs, turkey and other lean meats, peanut butter, olive oil, whole grains, extra protein (whey), raspberries and other berries, avoiding processed foods, sugars and trans fats, while getting into the habit of working out. The "diet" not only allows for two or three alcoholic drinks a week (for me, red wine), but also cheating once a week by eating anything you want (yes, that even means pizza, buffalo wings, or ice cream). Other recommendations include eating smaller meals without starving yourself, drinking smoothies, and drinking water instead of high-fructose sodas. By increasing the body's metabolism and gaining some muscle, the Abs Diet promises to burn that fat away, resulting in a longer, healthier life, better sex, and a stronger back. The Abs Diet is not so much a "diet" as a common-sense nutritional approach to achieving total fitness. This guide is a portable companion to the "Abs Diet: The Six-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life." It details the "power foods" recommended by The Diet, and includes "Abs Diet Endorsements" for proper food choices and recipes for wraps, snacks and smoothies. The guide is a smart, entertaining, and useful supplement to the "Abs Diet: The Six-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life" that promises to keep its reader lean for life. G. Merritt

I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically recommend this book. If you are overweight, and want to do something about it, this book has the information you need to change your life for good. Know though that this is not a "diet" - it is a dietary strategy. A way of life. One which - if you embrace it, will change your life forever in very positive ways. My personal testimony: I am 6' 2" tall and 35 years old. My weight has been over 250lbs for the last few years. But I have a large frame, and my body type is primarily mesomorphic, with a strong endomorphic influence. This means I have a good deal of muscle mass and definition, but have also always carried a significant amount of fat. Anyway, my BMI was about 31 and my body fat was over 30%. That is technically obese, though I neither felt nor looked it. I would tell people how much I weighed, and they never would believe me. So I carried the fat well, thus I didn't particularly care. I idly thought about doing something about it. I bought the main book of this series (to which this book is a supplement) last year, but it sat on my shelf collecting dust. Until two months ago. On March 2nd 2006, I went to the doctor's for my checkup. I got on the scale. It tipped. 263lbs. Then my blood pressure: 200/100. That's right. 200/100. Nice round numbers. I've had slightly high blood pressure for years. Always 140/80 or less. Nothing too dramatic. This new reading blew my mind. I wasn't scared, just astonished. I had it taken again that afternoon, and it came out at 169/90. I was officially suffering from hypertension. The old clich?d wake-up call. I had been eating a lot. Not poorly, I hardly ever eat junk or processed food. But richly. Lots of cheese, desserts, bread, salt, sugar, second and third portions... no breakfasts. And wine. And gin & tonic. And bourbon. All very yummy stuff. I was - to put it bluntly - a fat gluttonous hypertensive lush. I went home that evening and resolved to change. I took the main book of this series off the shelf, and read it. I went out and bought a small notebook, which I christened my food journal. I recorded everything I put in my mouth for about a month. I began simultaneously phasing the principles in this book into my life. I eat five small meals a day, 3 or at the most 4 hours apart. Each & every food choice is a deliberate one. I make the best possible choices I can, every time, knowing that each thing I put in my mouth is making me healthier and leaner. I've stopped drinking alcohol & most other caloried drinks all together. I bought a blender and have begun drinking smoothies. I eat loads of good, substantive food. Tasty food. Whole grains. Vegetables, berries & fruit. Nuts. Lean proteins- fish, chicken & beef jerky. Healthy fats like olive oil and avocado paste. And my bodyfat has simply melted - metabolized - inexorably away. Very gracefully. I counted calories, protein, carb

There are a few things that all my patients who lose weight and KEEP IT OFF have in common (all made pracitcal by following the instructions in this book). I'll list a few of them below (I specialize in metabolism, endocrinology (hormones), and sexual function and have treated several thousand patients for weight loss): 1. They don't count calories for very long. Maybe as an educational exercise but eventually the maintenance plan must be easier. 2. They spread their calories out over the day (most American's eat most of their food after about 2pm...a recipe for obesity) 3. They don't go hungry. they may experience hunger but usually eat as much as they want when they do feel hunger (not whatever they want). Most people don't do well with daily, persistent, hunger. 4. They eat at least 5 times a day (small, frequent meals avoid hunger and fat storage by keeping insulin levels low). 5. They get adequate exercise. This is more important than the diet. If you follow the instructions in this hand guide (better I think than the hardback book version of the diet) you'd be walking somewhere between 20 to 25 miles per week. Unfortunately, that's about what's required for most people (not starting but working up to). That's about 30 to 60 minutes per day depending on whether you walk or jog or something in between. Most won't make time...hence 70% obesity in this country. You'll find a few more tips listed on my review of the original hard-back version of the book. This is the diet of choice for now. No one does it perfectly. But, persist with increasing walking about 10% per week and keep learning more about application of the diet and you will eventually find your best weight. --Charles Runels, MD Author of "Anytime...for as Long as You Want: Strength, Genius, Libido, & Erection by Integrative Sex Transmutation (A 15-Day Course for Men to Improve Life and Sex)

I almost did not buy this book because the reviews I read said it didn't have much info in it. I totally disagree - it has more info on exactly what food to eat while doing this way of eating. I certainly recommend it!

I read the first Abs Diet and had good success with it, so I got this one for the recipes since I wanted more meal options than they had in the first one. So far, I've tried 6 or 7 of them and so far they're all great. Lots of recipes (all easy) for meals, smoothies, snacks, restaurants, with good nutritional advice. Tons of info about eating, especially for the price!