The Coconut Diet: The Secret Ingredient That Helps You Lose Weight While You Eat Your Favorite Foods - Hardcover

Cherie Calbom; John Calbom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446577162 ISBN 13: 9780446577168

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2005

Synopsis

Offers information about the nature of saturated and tropical fats and the health benefits of coconut oil, and presents a twenty-one day weight loss diet plan and recipes incorporating coconut oil.

About this title

Review

A slight variation on the standard low carb theme, The Coconut Diet's biggest strength is the recipes. Author Cherie Calbom (The Ultimate Smoothie Book) includes a wide range of easy, deeply flavorful sauces, soups and condiments that will keep the interest of the pickiest palate while still following the fairly strict limitations of the accompanying diet.

While the ostensible goal is weight loss, many of the chapters concern themselves with the varied symptoms of poor health--low energy, general aches and pains and digestive troubles particularly. Suggestions for feeling better center around cleansing juice fasts, supplements, and colonics, along with a recommendation of adding virgin coconut oil (a saturated fat created with medium-chain triglycerides) to each meal, for a total of two to three tablespoons every day. A healthy fat with a bad reputation, it does have the benefit of helping you feel full during a limited-calorie diet--and if you find that it lives up to the somewhat miraculous claims outlined in the book, so much the better.

Aimed more at folks trying to achieve a point of basic health rather than already active people working towards optimum fitness, many of the chapters shun allopathic health care, claiming that many standard tests aren't up to scratch and that proper diagnosis can be achieved by attending to your symptoms. For readers who are open to looking at a range of possible solutions to their health issues, the naturopathic ideas offered here may well provide assistance--but whether a single tropical oil can measure up to all the claims is something lab scientists and natural nutritionists will argue about for some time to come. Jill Lightner

About the Author

JOHN CALBOM, MA, is director of Trinity Retreat House and vice president of Trinity Wellness Institute. He is a behavioral medicine specialist, organizational development consultant, Eastern Orthodox priest, and coauthor of The Complete Cancer Cleanse.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0446577162
• ISBN 13: 9780446577168
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336