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The De-Stress Diet: The Revolutionary Lifestyle Plan for a Calmer, Slimmer You by Charlotte Watts and Anna Magee (view source)
Revision as of 14:24, 19 February 2012
, 14:24, 19 February 2012no edit summary
The science behind the diet is all there, complete with references in the end notes and it seemed convincing to me although I will readily admit to not being in the least scientifically minded. I would have ''murdered'' for a glossary - something I could have put a bookmark in and used when scientific terms - or their abbreviations were used. The authors were meticulous about explaining the terms - but a few pages and a few scientific terms later it would be lost to me. It's not just scientific terms either: the word 'grains' might not include 'beer' in a lot of minds, but might include 'oats'.
Although this is called a 'diet' - suggesting something you do for a period of time to get your weight down before you resume the old way of life and start piling the calories on again. This is - it's more of an encouragement to change the way that you live and the way that you think about food. To begin with the promises are realistic: ''lose up to 10lb in 6 weeks'' is going to make you feel better about yourself and encourage you to continue but it's not a weight-loss regime such as many I've seen ('no pain, no gain') which mean that you lose muscle rather than fat - and set yourself up for long-term failure.
There's a lot to think about. I began by thinking that this would be a book I could read fairly quickly and then review, but I've actually read it over a period of about three weeks. The six-week diet envisages three weeks of transition before you move into the 'full-on' diet. This is sensible as you need to establish just how stress is affecting you (there's quiz and it got me spot on right) and you'll need to adjust accordingly. This isn't a 'one-size fits all diet' - you're encouraged to listen to your body and increase, decrease, include or exclude foods accordingly. There's excellent advice about how to bridge the gap between such problems as having a sweet tooth and not having the cravings for sugar.