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The Sonoma Diet was inspired by California's Sonoma County with its bounty, and offers up a weight loss plan based on flavorful meals. Yes, there are plenty of diet options in the market for the latest fads of low-carb and low-fat diets: The Sonoma Diet emphasizes whole grains and smarter combinations and also pairs dieting with a busy lifestyle - so there's no calorie counting, points systems, or measuring or weighing. An excellent choice which includes plenty of unusual recipes such as a Spicy Fruit Salsa or a Latin Spiced Pork Tenderloin.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
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I really like the concept of this diet, it is easy to follow and doesn't exclude food groups like other diets do, with the exception of garbage foodsl like chips, candy and cookies. The statements in the book are based in recent research, however I wish the author would give citations for those of us who like to read the actual study. But, this is common practice in these books.
Anyway, the plan is based on grouping fruits and vegetables into food you can eat unlimited quantities of (that would be tier 1 vegetables like zucchini, celery, onions, greens etc), foods you can have allot of (tier 2 fruits and vegetables) and foods you should have on occassion because of their sugar and glycemic content (tier three). The meats and protien are all lean meats, and she encourages eating grains, as long as they are whole grain. She then has this really creative way of managing portions, which is to take standard size plates and bowls and dividing up the dining ware into grain sections, protien sections, fruit sections (wave 2) and vege sections. I think that is genius, does away with measuring and weighing (as long as you don't pile). The diet itself is in three waves, wave one being a 10 day jump start that is pretty useful (I actually did a three week detox instead of this, but the process of getting you off sweets and salty snacks is the same, you simply don't like them as much after you have been forcing healthy choices); wave 2 which is steady weight loss, and wave three which is maintenance.
The book is a fast read, really easy to follow and is really a healthy diet, I can't think of anything wrong about it. The only down side is that the recipes she offers in the back are labor intensive, so I've had to come up with less time intensive versions and strategies, which is mostly following the food group suggestions and the portion control strategy she created. I've been losing weight pretty steadily on the diet (10 pounds so far) and haven't really had to struggle. I recommend it!
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Any diet where they encourage you to have a glass of wine with dinner and eat real, unprocessed foods in a relaxing manner certainly piques my interest. Plus, my husband and I had a delightful vacation in the Sonoma wine country about eight years ago. So I was excited to find this sitting on the shelf at the library.
You start the diet with 10 days of "Wave 1", where you attempt in that short amount of time to break any lifelong sugar and white flour habits by eliminating these items from your kitchen and your life. Then you move onto Waves 2 (continued weight loss) and 3 (maintenance). There are extensive lists of "Wave appropriate" foods, with vegetables divided into tiers based on (essentially) how low calorie they are.
The author spends a bit of time denigrating other "fad" diets, the low carb and low fat ones, the diets that leave out huge groups of foods. But when it boils right down to it, this is just the same sort of thing. The author bases her diet on the Mediterranean diet, as far as the emphasis on whole grains, vegetables, and lean meat and fish are concerned, but she still vilifies all the usual dietary suspects like white flour, butter, sugar, etc. Now, obviously you aren't going to lose weight if you eat a pan of brownies every day. But eating a brownie every week...or a small piece of baguette with your dinner...or a teaspoon of sugar in your tea is not going to doom you. It's just not. I was particularly irked to find that once you reach Wave 3, it's okay to put some ARTIFICIAL sweetener in your morning cup of joe, but not, as I mentioned before, a 16-calorie teaspoon of sugar. That seems quite wrong to me, unless there's a Splenda farm in California that I hadn't heard about.
I have been a Weight Watchers Lifetime member for almost two years. My sandwich bread is 100% whole wheat, I eat lots and lots of fruits and vegetables, and I serve our dinner on salad plates (all Sonoma Diet ideas as well). But, I also don't hesitate to dot my microwaved peas with a few slivers of real butter, I have sugar in my coffee every day, and if that "Hot Doughnuts Now" sign is lit up at Krispy Kreme, occasionally I pull in that drive-thru.
Now, that's a diet I can live with for the rest of my life.
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Yes this book has recipes. Yes, this book has tips. But at its heart, it is just a re-telling of the Mediterranean diet...with a few new tips here and there. It's like buying a 100-room mansion when all you need is 5 or 6 rooms. My suggestion is to get a few books on the Mediterranean diet (including this one), from the library -- and save your money for high-quality organic vegetables!
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I found this book to be an easy guide to better health. The food is fresh, easy to prepare, very tasty and the ingredients easy to find. It's very colorful on the plate and reminds me of gourmet meals pictured in magazines or served in fine restaurants. In four weeks my husband and I lost a total of 31 lbs., were never hungry, rarely ate the daily snacks, and his cholesterol fell within the normal range. I wish they would title it a "way of life" rather than a "diet" book.
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