1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Turn Off Fat Genes, 2007-09-30
The book contains some classic theories on how to lose weight. I have
experienced some of them. For instance, eating bulk/fiber will help to
reduce the appetite. Decreases in leptin increases appetite . Examples
of bulk fiber are apples, all bran and baked beans. Some foods have very
minimal amounts of fat; namely, bagels, veggies, sherbet and pretzels.
The book contains some delicious recipes for lentils. Insulin decreases
the fat-burning mechanism in the body. Spaghetti has a lower blood sugar
impact than white bread. Brown bread also has a lower blood sugar impact
than white bread. The same applies to brown rice v. white rice.
A strength of the book is that the body metabolism is explained in
a detailed pie chart. The rest metabolism burns from 60-75% of calories.
Exercise burns 15-30% of calories and food digestion causes
approximately 10% body metabolism. Much of the information contained
in this book is valuable; however, I don't know how scientific the inferences were derived. i.e. via controlled group studies or experientially.
The book is a good value for the price charged. A strength of the work
is that the author covers areas of the metabolism which aren't well
known by the public. The actual operation of the metabolism varies in
the individual based upon diet, the time of day you eat, internal
inflammation and exercise. The author does a good job of integrating
some but not all of these factors.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Good, 2007-02-19
A more accurate title for this book would have been "How not to give your Fat Genes raw material to make body fat with while still being happy with the food you eat".
This is done by eating high fiber, low processed, and low fat foods. Note the conjunction. In order for the diet to work the food you eat has to have all 3 qualities at the same time. Calories still count, but according to the book if you eat high fiber,low processed,low fat food you will feel full on fewer calories.
Hence, you lose weight and control your weight without losing your sanity.
The book gives a decent enough introduction to the scientific details of why all of this works.
Half of the book is filled with recipes by Jennifer Raymond. The recipes are vegan and come with nutrition information ( calories, protein, etc ). The recipes are good and fairly easy to make.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
This is the Most Effective Weight Loss Book I've Ever Bought, 2003-09-22
I've been trying to lose weight for about seven years and have read many other books including Diet for a new america (vegetarianism), and The Zone (protein-food combining), none of which have made any long term difference for me. This book is light years ahead of anything I have read before because it references the most current research to design a program that allows you to avoid the pitfalls of other systems and is sustainable and enjoyable as a lifestyle. Even better, your health will greatly improve as you eliminate many risk factors of disease from your diet.This book is 1/2 explanation and 1/2 cookbook. I really love it because it allows people to do something great for themselves (lose weight and get healthy) while improving the world at the same time (not causing animals to suffer and be slaughtered unnecessarily).
Like the book says, give it 3 weeks and if you don't like what you see you can always go back. As for me, by following the book + some light weight training and aerobics I've lost 7 lbs in three weeks!
Thank you Dr. Barnard! You are the best.
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
Arguments in Favor of a Vegan Diet Combined with Recipes, 2001-08-30
I avoided this book for some time because the title seemed misleading to me. However, when I found it featured in the library displays this week, I felt it was time to dig in. The good news is that I found the title less misleading after reading the book. The bad news is that I still found it misleading.
Dr. Barnard describes the workings of typical body functions that can influence the amount of fat you store and burn. There is some genetic influence involved in these functions, and you can influence the way the functions work. However, I don't think many people would argue that genes that affect the way we taste, experience hunger, build and burn fat, and oxygenate our muscles are all "fat genes."
I was disappointed that in a book about dealing with fat that there was nothing said about drinking water. Studies have shown that not drinking enough water contributes to higher cholesterol levels. However, if you eat as many fruits and vegetables as are suggested here, your body's fluid sources should improve.
I did find it interesting that there were identified different ways that people taste based on genetics, which can be verified through testing. I suspect that it is really more complicated than that. Having been a consultant to food companies for many years, it seems clear that there are an incredible number of taste preference variations in any population.
The arguments about setting your metabolism by how many calories you take in seemed generally right. You can create a sense of starvation and your body will burn fewer calories. However, I suspect that this level is different for different people. All of my life, I have been able to lose four pounds a week by going to 1000 calories a day. Dr. Barnard would say that I could not lose that much on under 1500 calories a day. He would also say that my metabolism would stay low for weeks thereafter. I don't think my metabolism goes down at all. Well, Dr. Barnard, maybe for you . . . but not for me. He also argues that only dietary fat builds body fat. The argument is based on being able to identify the sources of fats consumed from the fat stored in the body. I don't think that clinches the case. I could go on with places where my own experience is different from what he describes in the book, but that might only establish that I am not average.
But I do think that that is an important point. None of us are average. Our own bodies are unique combinations of genes, preferences, and habits. I don't think this book takes that point seriously enough.
Now, what he describes is exactly the kind of diet that makes my Mother feel terrific. Coincidentally, she has a B blood type. When I read Live Right 4 Your Type, this sort of a diet was suggested for B blood type people. I wonder what blood type Dr. Barnard has.
I do agree that most diets push people to eat too much fat. I also think that the type of fat ingested matters from the books I have read (which this book doesn't take seriously enough). I also agree that almost everyone eats too little fiber and complex carbohydrates. So many of the book's directions are helpful to reinforce those points. I also appreciated the tables on glycemic index values, fiber, and fat for various foods (including popular fast foods).
The book's recipes will make you think differently about whether vegetarian food has to be boring. These are extremely imaginative recipes. For many people, the process of eating this type of food will take a little getting used to. I suggest that you try the ones that have higher sugar levels first.
After you finish reading this book, I suggest that you think about your own experiences with various kinds of foods, calorie levels, weight gain, and weight loss. Where have you succeeded? Where have you had problems? What haven't you yet tried? What blood type are you? How does the recommended diet for your blood type match with your experiences?
Let your own experience help guide you to better eating and exercise habits!
34 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
Bad science. Oversimplified. Diet impossible to live on, 2001-08-11
The title is misleading. There is nothing in this book that truly connects diet and differing genomes or which helps you manage yours if you have problem ones like the one in our family that makes for skinny type II diabetics. There is almost no real science in this book, just the usual diet doctor selection of a couple studies that support his argument.
The book champions the extreme Ornish diet. The author bashes low carb diets citing a single study that supposedly discredits them claiming that protein, not carbs, raised insulin. I looked the study up and found that, in fact, it supported the argument of low carbers that fat and carbohydrate together boost insulin the most.
Years ago I lived with a group of several hundred people who followed an extreme vegetarian, whole food diet of brown rice and fibrous vegetables and fruit that matched that in this book. What we found was that most men lost weight and most women ballooned up on that regimen. Most of the women stopped menstruating because of the extreme loss of fat. We all were starving all the time no matter how much rice we ate. I gained 30 lbs over two years which dropped off and stayed off for decades when I went back to a lower carb, meat-based diet.
The author also suggests that it is foolish for people to eat a low carbohydrate diet because it involves eliminating one whole food type and then tells his readers to adopt a diet that is less that 5% fat. Please explain how this is different?
The book also insists that eating fat makes you fat. Having eaten a low carb diet for 3 years that is 80% fat and having maintained a 20 lb weight loss throughout that period, I know this is simply not true. There can be problems with low carb diets too for long term users, but unfortunately nothing in this book gives you the tools to solve them and there is no science cited in the book that helps the educated reader understand anything new about metabolism. The author claims that eating 10x goal weight in calories will prevent metabolic slowdown, which I have personally done for many months--ending up with a very slow metabolism.
The diet described in this book requires that you live on beans, greens, and whole grains with a tiny amount of fat. All meat and dairy must be eliminated. A lot of studies have shown recently that healthy fats are very important to everything from cancer prevention to mental health. The only people I personally know who have died of cancer recently were vegans and there's some evidence that cutting fats and cholesterol too low may correlate with cancer risk.
Beyond that, I don't think very many people can realistically expect to sustain this diet for any long period of time because of the monotony and the constant hunger that attends living without fat in the diet.
There was nothing new in this book. It's just another diet doctor huckster trying to make a buck using "genes" as a hook.