The idea of reviewing a diet book has always seemed to me to be something of an enigma. Are you reviewing the book, or the diet itself? I mean, the book could be ingeniously written, hilarious, entertaining, or whatever, but the diet itself about as much use as a big mac. Or vice-versa, of course. So what would your product rating be then?
I guess really you need to actually review the book and diet in one go, treating it as an homogenous whole. I got this particular book along with an issue of the magazine Men’s Health, the editor of which,
David Zinczenko, wrote the
Abs Diet book. After many issues and editing the magazine which contains articles about health, diet, and fitness, he decided to distil the best information into The Abs Diet – which I haven’t seen – and followed it up with this book,
The Abs Diet – Eat Right Every Time Guide. Don’t worry though, this isn’t merely a list of recipes.
The book doesn’t look impressive, it has to be said. The bright orange cover doesn’t even attempt to hide the fact that this was printed on the cheap, with that
marginally better than toilet paper quality paper with readable but not particularly distinct print. (This may of course be due to the fact that this edition was bundled with the magazine, it may not be true of the normal full price edition.) Strangely I found this made me more inclined to read it – I’ve seen too many flashy but pointless self-help or reference books, diet or otherwise, to be taken in by a stylish design. Here is a book that is ready to stand up on its merits alone without trying to impress anyone with apparent quality. It’s also small enough that you could keep it with you for reference if you wanted.
Onto the book itself, I found Zinczanko’s writing style always readable, often amusing though occasionally annoying. His witticisms sometimes just seemed like space fillers but overall the book is refreshingly straightforward. The book is divided into 11 chapters, preceded by an introduction and a “cheat sheet”, which condenses the whole diet plan into a single page. In fact right at the beginning he criticises the whole idea of a “diet” and insists on calling the abs diet an “eating plan” – which, once you’ve looked at it, is a fair description. He explains the theory of this eating plan, lists the primary components of it, and lists several recipes of different kinds which contain the components of the abs diet. There are also “Lesser of Two Evils” lists, which break down different restaurant or take away foods against each other and show which one is better. This is sometimes quite enlightening, because dishes you would think to be quite similar can in fact be vastly different in terms of, for example, saturated fat and sodium content. He even talks about vending machine snacks at one point, though I found this particular section to be rather unrealistic – maybe it’s different in the States but I’ve never in my life seen a vending machine that has low-fat chocolate milk, plain popcorn, or unsalted peanuts! Other than that though the information seems to be pretty good.
What I really liked about the book, apart from the fact that this is an eating plan that actually seems to work, is that the author doesn’t rely on his own authority to make his points. There are plenty of case studies referred to throughout the book which make interesting reading. It’s fair to say that you could probably find a study to back up any theory, I mean there’s probably a study somewhere which shows that Epinions members with usernames starting with the letters G-J earn more Income Share than members starting P-S, or that members starting A-C weigh 8% more than members D-F, but it’s still good to have the information about the studies he mentions. The real beauty of the Abs Diet plan is that it’s designed to be self-limiting – the foods you eat contain more protein and fibre, which fill you up for longer so you don’t actually feel inclined to over-eat. You also have a cheat day that where you can have whatever you want in a meal (within reason!), though to be honest I didn’t always feel like doing this anyway.
Another thing about the book is that he emphasises the need for regular exercise, which is something I feel other diet books often skip over. He comes up with an exercise plan including workouts that you can do at home if you don’t have ready access to a gym. While this is good, however, it doesn’t take into account those who through no fault of their own would be unable to do high-impact exercise. Even for them however the abs diet would do a lot of good.
As GrandGram mentions in
her review, the number of success stories is rather excessive. (Maybe inspirational for the first two but after that just plain repetitive! ;-D)
Of the many recipes in the book, it must be said that most do sound rather appealing (and the ones I’ve actually tried out have been nice). A distinct advantage over some other diet books!
Overall, I guess what I like most about the diet plan is that it really isn’t a diet at all. It’s not limiting in any substantial way, but even though I didn’t follow the plan to the letter it has helped me to lose weight and made me think more carefully about what I eat. When I look at food labelling now, I know exactly what I need to look for. Which has to be a good thing!
See Also:
Reebok Body Trec Elliptical Trainer
Reebok Body Peak Elliptical Trainer
Life Fitness 9500 HR Cross Trainer
Top Ten Reasons to Join a Gym
And for your cheat meal…
Old Orleans - to date my one and only restaurant review!!
