Last night (as we were stuffing ourselves with snacks, ironically), my friend who lives part-time in New York was telling me that the abs diet is all the rage up there. I looked it up and it sounded pretty good, although I am on the fence about buying whey protein powder as I am broke and it is expensive.

The foods allowed seem like stuff I like to eat anyway (just minus the junk food) and I think the idea of food combination is interesting. I also like the idea of making sure each meal has three of the "power foods" -- it leaves less room to fill up on junk. And it allows one "cheat meal" per week that you are supposed to plan in advance (like a friend's party, or "date night" with the hubby or something).

I am sick of counting calories and looking for a way to eat for life. I feel like allotting myself a particular number of calories sometimes encourages me to eat candy bar or a bag of chips from the vending machine at school when I am tempted, counting it as 210 or however many calories, but then I get really hungry later because it was all empty carbs and end up going over for the day anyway. Or I get too gung-ho and spend WAAAAY too much time on FitDay, planning specific meals I will eat according to calories. I have a bad, obsessive relationship with food.

So have any of you tried it? Is it satisfying? Difficult? Does it really work?

i follow the abs diet guidelines and i love it. i am recommitting myself to it this week actually. it keeps you full and i like the foods and the shakes. you should try it. if you go to women's health magazine they have had a couple of articles on it that helped with my transition into it without buying the book.

Thanks! I tried to do it today, and it seemed to work out pretty well. I was full enough to resist all the temptations that came my way, and just out of curiosity I put my stuff into FitDay and clocked in at around 1250. Pretty good for feeling so satisfied. Think I'll stick with it!