Book review - You: On A Diet

I recently finished You: On A Diet by Mehmet C. Oz & Michael F. Roizen. This book doesn't just lay out a diet plan, but addresses what goes on when we eat and the various chemicals in our bodies that effect our behaviors and body shape.

Part 1 is a sort of introduction to your body.

Part 2 is about appetite, your digestive system, inflammation, body fat, metabolism, and exercise. If you have ever wondered how food acts in your body and how food can effect how you feel and whether you store fat or burn it, this is the section for you.

Part 3 focuses on how your mind effects your diet - emotions and psychology.

Part 4 outlines the actual You diet and exercise plan and has a whole chapter about staying on plan by making "YOU-Turns" whenever you fall off the plan (and who sticks 100% to any diet 100% of the time?).

The appendices cover medical intervention - drugs that cane help you lose weight, plastic surgery for saggy skin, and various bariatric procedures (stomach stapling, etc.).

Throughout the book are little cartoons that illustrate the points made in the text. I found these helpful even though I am not a visual person.

My main criticism is that they trot out the same old low-fat advice that hasn't helped America yet, and that they promote unhealthy vegetable oils. Neither do I believe that saturated fat is the enemy, though Mehmet and Oz do.

This book is a good start, but I urge people to go beyond this and read more about vegetable oils and saturated fat and see if Mehmet and Oz are right in their views or not. Personally, the only oils I allow in my house are olive and coconut. Yes, coconut oil is a saturated fat.

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