[ryzmom]

The online bookstores (Amazon, B&N, Borders...) have excellent albeit few, reviews.

I think I have tried EVERY diet under the sun. Dr. Aziz was on Fox&Friends this morning, & the diet looks intriguing.

Any thoughts?

[beakster]

This is a great diet! I've tried almost every diet but always fall of the wagon, except this time. Ususally there are too many restrictions or "special food " that you have to buy and eat leaving you wanting other things.
I decided at the end of last year that I was just going to start really eating healthy and to heck with everything else. I started out at 206 in December. Just before Easter I saw Dr Aziz on TV and for some reason it made sense so I bought the book and started the plan the day after Easter at 200. I made it through phase one with no problems and now I'm in phase 2. I'm at 179 and feel great. I don't feel like I'm on a diet.I just feel like I'm eating way healthier than I ever have and it feels right.I try to get organic food and free range meat and eggs. I'm even saving money doing it because I don't buy garbage at the grocery store any more. Plus shopping is quicker because I don't need to cruise any of the center isles at the grocery store.
I'm eating so many yummy things that I'm always afraid to step on the scale in the morning for fear that I've gained like it was all a dream, but I'm always pleasently surprised when I see I've lost a little more.
This diet busts a lot of myths that I had bought into which contributed to my weight gain and inablility to lose on other diets. This is something I feel I can easily and healthfully follow for my lifetime.
By the way agave is the best sugar replacement. It tastes just like sugar with no weird flavor you have to get used to and you can have it on this diet. If you think you could never give up sugar now you don't have to!

[suzyjb]

I just ordered the book... Does anyone know if this can work well in conjunction with Weight Watchers? I figured I would follow WW because basically you are not told what to eat, and I already ate pretty healthy, but reading the summary of the Dr Aziz book, maybe I shouldnt have switched to the low fat everythings!? I think I gained weight mostly from eating too much chocolate, cookies, and full fat yoghurts (my weakness has got to be dairy). I hope this book can help! I dont eat the sweet stuff now much at all, and on stopping that I lost quite a bit of weight, but nowhere near my goal, now I am kinda stalled even though I am within my points allowance each week and have increased my exercise, I figured there must be something more to this! I hope Dr Aziz's diet can work with WW which I am used to now and still convinced must work eventually...

Is it really not as simple as calories in and calories burned?

[suzyjb]

Hi All. I bought the book and wanted to share some thoughts on it, would appreciate knowing what everyone else thinks.

It seems to me, that with his 'three stage plan', the first stage of 3 weeks is a very very low calorie and no carbs 'diet'. From what I have seen on blogs (what I could find) there are a number of people that of course lose weight in stage one, start stage two, in which carbs, in the form of only whole grains and beans etc, ('good carbs') are added to one meal a day, well they are asking if they should go back to stage one again, because they stopped losing weight.
My conclusion is that he is effectively only offering a pretty strict diet - no grains, no starchie veg, no sugars, a lot of fish, and in the first three weeks on very limited calories. For example: Breakfast: strawberries mixed with one cup of almond milk, Optional snack, 3 slices of turkey on lettuce leaf, Lunch, chinese sticky chicken wings with a side salad, snack, cherry tomatos and a tbsp almond butter, and Dinner, Shrimp with Mushrooms.

Seems to me that with this number of calories you have to lose weight - theres no rocket science involved and nothing really new, its just low carbs to reduce calories, isnt it?

Then the second and third phases add whole wheat grains and rice and a bit extra of everything else. Isnt this just sensible eating of anything in moderation?

He spends lot of time criticising other (fad) diets because of what they deprive your body of, and he spends a lot of time talking about the badness of low fat diets (which I agree with actually when people get obsessive about it). I dont know if low fat foods in the USA are different from low fat foods here in Europe - I will have a look - he says they all have extra bad stuff in, particularly sugars, and also cause us to eat too much of the wrong things (sugars) and not enough of the right things (good fats). I agree with this, however seems to me that with my current WW programe, well I am eating a good quantity of virgin olive oil, some meat fats, and light cheeses - and I cant find anything to suggest the lite cheeses have added sugars. Does anyone know if there is something country specific to these low fat products?

Anyway I am still unconvinced. I know if I make myself follow his first phase I WILL lose a good amount of weight, but I am not convinced it will stay off once I move onto the next phase, as some others have already found.

I also cant afford all the fish he suggests, as here in Europe its expensive (and thats even without the lobster and oysters he suggests) and compared to the fish I used to buy in my home country (New Zealand) I find the fish here just isnt fresh enough for me to enjoy the flavour. Maybe there are other things I can eat in place of the fresh fish options. But before I try it I would like to hear more from people who have done it and gotten to the final phase sucessfully...

My 2 cents worth anyway

[RN5476]

I became Dr. Aziz's patient a few days ago. Sought him out because of his emphasis on the relationship between nutrition and health. He gave me his Perfect 10 book, which I'm reading now.

The funny thing is that I pretty much did what he is advocating on my own before I ever heard of his diet. Less than a year ago, I weighed over 160 lbs. Now I weigh 115. I lost 50 lbs by eating 3 balanced meals a day, no processed food, cutting amounts (e.g., protein about the size of a pack of cards, 1/2 cup of grain, lots of vegetables), eating only whole grains, cooking everything from scratch, and going to the gym every other day. I even have snacks some days (nuts, fruit) and a small sweet of some kind on a daily basis, just to avoid feeling deprived.

I now hope to pick up a few more health and eating tips from his book. I would say: go for it! What he advocates worked for me. I enjoy eating this way now and it felt almost effortless to me after the first week or so. I think it was easier for me because this was all motivated by a health crisis and I was scared to death. I kind of felt that it was lose weight or die. I agree with Dr. Aziz that a lot of the food we typically consume in America is actually poisoning us.

Anyway, I'm 53, so one needn't be young to have this work. I went from a size 12 in pants to 0. Don't stint on the exercise either. I feel great. I've never been so fit: I can run up 5 flights of stairs without getting out of breath.

And I have no desire whatsoever to "break" this "diet." It just seems like something I would be very happy to do forever and I don't miss eating the way I used to.