I’m not normally in the habit of reading cookbooks, but I picked this one up on the cheap after one of the blogs I follow reviewed it with a decent review. And, it’s that time of year where I can ramp the exercise back up again (yay snow free sidewalks!), and so am thinking about what I eat.
The cover screams “Lose up to 10 pounds in Just 2 WEEKS eating 6 meals day!”, and once you read a bit, it really is just another version of the eat small meals to rev up your metabolism diet, with a bit of calorie counting thrown in at the beginning. So no real astounding breakthroughs here.
What I did like is how passionately he writes about how important it is to love the food you’re eating, and while you should be thinking about what you’re eating, you should also be thinking about enjoying it. He’s also an advocate for learning to cook, so you’re not constantly running out and subjecting yourself to the high calorie count of prepared foods and restaurant food. Coming from a chef, I was impressed to read that sentiment.
To reach this goal, he’s gone ahead and tweaked a number of recipes to try to give you regular food, but in calorie counts that will work within the plan. I have to applaud his efforts in the snack food and main dish/side dish arena. There are many recipes there that I could happily make, and probably enjoy.
Where the recipes fall apart for me is where there are sweet things involved – smoothies, baked goods and breakfast. He turns to agave nectar and stevia here, and while I understand the sentiment behind this, any kind of cooking that requires going out of your way to find the ingredients just doesn’t cut it in my book. There are plenty of ways to make desserts that are calorie friendly, you just have to figure out what kind of recipes are naturally lower in calories, and seek those out. It’s really not rocket science, just requires a little bit of paying attention.
What I mainly took away from my read of this book was some food for thought – some things to reframe some of my food choices. And I will probably try some recipes from the book, though probably nothing that involves a sugar substitute.