Book Review: The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet

The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet: Smart, Simple, Science-Based Strategies for Losing Weight and Keeping It Off by Barbara Rolls
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet by Barbara Rolls, Ph.D is a comprehensive book about how to transition to the Volumetrics Diet. The books is broken down into a 12 week plan to gradually switch from your old style of eating to the Volumetrics Diet. This book is an excellent resource if you are looking to lose weight without feeling starved.

The book begins with a section on evaluating where you are right now with you eating habits. The chapter discusses your current weight and BMI values, and what they mean. This comprehensive chapter includes a food record form so you can record your daily food intake. This section also teaches you how to rate how hungry or full you are, how to set realistic goals, and how to overcome challenges. This is an excellent section and the base for the rest of the chapters. The book is worth buying just for this chapter.

The rest of the chapters continue through the 12 week plan and explain various concepts each week including:

• Calorie density 
• Portion sizes
• Creating satisfying meals 
• How to plan your meals around fruits and vegetables
• Protein and fiber 
• Fat and sugar
• Snacking 
• What is the best things to drink 
• Restaurant eating 
• How your environment influences you eating
• How to maintain the new lifestyle you have learned 

Each chapter ends with a review of the key points you just learned and a to do list for the week. While some of the To Do lists can be a bit overwhelming when first starting out, they are sensible and even one of them will move you forward towards a healthy lifestyle. The diet is also quite filling since most of the recommended foods are filled with water but not calories. This is an excellent diet since is it very nutritionally adequate and exactly what most experts recommend.

The second part of the book is filled with Volumetrics recipes. The recipes are accompanied by a before and after photo showing the ordinary portion size and then the Volumetrics portion size. There is a considerable difference in portion size. Most of the increased comes from an increased amount of vegetables or fruit in the recipes. The recipes have easy to find ingredients and do not contain items that most of us would not eat. She also has a section on how to stock your kitchen with healthy Volumetrics ingredients and a small section on how to modify your own recipes.



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Book Review: The Flexitarian Diet

The Flexitarian Diet: The Mostly Vegetarian Way to Lose Weight, Be Healthier, Prevent Disease, and Add Years to Your Life by Dawn Jackson Blatner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Flexitarian Diet by Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, LDN is an easy to understand book about how to get the health benefits of a vegetarian diet while still eating the foods you love. The key to all of this is moderation, and not feeling guilty about the occasional indulgences in meat and sweets. This message resonates throughout the book and really helps to make a vegetarian diet more accessible for most people.


This book is very simple and straightforward, perfect if you are just beginning to think about changing to a vegetarian diet. The book offers a 5 flex food group plan to get you started. Each section describes the important food groups that make up the bulk of a healthy vegetarian diet, such as beans, fruits and vegetables, dairy, grains, and sweets. Each chapter gives a run down of the foods included in each category, how to cook them, and how to get more of them into your diet. There are also menu plans to help guide you toward healthy eating plus lists of foods to keep in your pantry. The information is very basic so is great for beginners. If you are someone with more knowledge of vegetarian eating or already a vegetarian, this book will give you very little new information.

The second half of the book is filled with recipes. There are recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They are very easy to understand and quick to make. Some are so easy that they could not be considered actual recipes, but more like ideas of foods you could through together that are nutritionally adequate. The recipes only make one serving so if you want to make a meal for four or more people you would need to quadruple the ingredients. When quadrupled some of the recipes become cumbersome and do not work out well. Most of the recipes are a good base for creating healthy vegetarian meals and you can add your own twist to them.

The last chapter is an explanation of getting more physical activity in your life. It is a decent chapter with good information on how to get started with exercise, how to stay motivated, and various tools you need to accomplish your goals. There is also a very good section on beating exercise barriers. This section addresses the most common barriers and give tips on how to overcome them. The tips are sensible and are things anyone can try.



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Book Review: The Insulin Resistance Diet

The Insulin-Resistance Diet by Cheryle R. Hart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Insulin Resistance Diet by Cheryle R. Hart, MD and Mary Kay Grossman, RD is an easy to understand guide for eating healthy when you have insulin resistance. This book outlines the method the authors have taught to many of their patients to help them control their insulin levels and lose weight. This book is for anyone who has tried numerous diets with little to no success. It is also for anyone who wants to eat more healthfully to prevent diabetes.

The book first outlines how insulin works in a healthy person and then describes how insulin resistance occurs. The explanations are kept very simple and straightforward. Next, the authors go through the signs of insulin resistance and how it is typically diagnosed. Some of these signs are waist circumference, fasting glucose level and body mass index level. At the end of this explanation, there is a self test that can determine how many of these symptoms you have. The self-test is a good resource for talking to your doctor about your health.

Next, the book explains how to control insulin resistance with the link and balance method. This method was developed by the authors to use with their patients in the various workshops they teach. The method links protein with carbohydrates in an equal balance. The method is very simple and easy for anyone to master. There is no measuring or counting calories. You do need to be aware of how to read the Nutrition Facts panel on packaged foods for the total carbohydrate and protein amounts when you are linking and balancing. The book explains this clearly. You also need to know which foods have protein and which ones contain carbohydrates and the book also explains this adequately. The authors do not talk extensively about vegetarian sources of protein. This could be a turnoff to many vegetarians who want to stabilize insulin levels.

The explanation of link and balance also includes visual diagrams of how to balance your meals. This helps you see the concept, however, I found the diagrams confusing to understand and so I didn't really use them much. I found the written explanations clear enough. Visual learners might find the pictures helpful.  There are also many lists of foods with protein and carbohydrates along with their standard portion sizes. At the end of the full explanation there is another self-test of the concepts you just learned. This helps you see if you are understanding what you are reading.

There is a considerable section of recipes from appetizers to desserts. These recipes are already linked and balanced for you. Many recipes use packaged and processed ingredients such as fat free cheese, liquid spray margarine and canned fruit. There are some simple recipes that use natural ingredients but there are only a few of them. If you are trying to stay away from processed foods, these recipes do not fit the bill. You can use the recipes for ideas on foods to eat and modify them to suit you eating style. There is also a section on fast food restaurant meals and frozen dinner choices that the authors have deemed to be linked and balanced though not as healthy has cooking for yourself

The book has a short chapter on fitness that reviews the basics of exercise such as defining aerobic and weight training exercises  It is quite short and feels as though it was placed there as filler. There are much better books on fitness.

The end of the book has an intriguing chapter the difference between appetite and true hunger. It discusses what true hunger is and how to identify if what you are feeling. The sections helps you develop strategies for dealing with cravings and emotional eating. These chapters are very good and is an important concept of healthy eating.



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