This book is Bitter Sweet

My headline is a perfect description to the contents of this book. If you are experienced, and know how to pick and choose, you can modify the recipes in these book to be truly healthy. However, if you are like the typical person, doing so is very hard and you'll end up eating exactly what is written.

I've been into health and fitness for 15 years. Ultra healthy, I speak from experience when I say these things.

First let me first review the positive then the negative points:

Positive:
1. The book is well designed. Clean, and great photographs.
2. The visual meal charts in the back are clever and functional.
3. Noteworthy motivational advice and "some" good nutritional advice and "some" correct scientific information in the beginning from Bill.
4. Structured meal plans make you responsible about your eating.

Negative:
1) Good tasting but "questionable" nutritional advice. The meals are way too heavy with dairy, like cream cheese and sour cream, and cheddar cheese and fried foods. One meal is fried eggs and toast. Fried omelets with cheese, Another is turkey bacon, Another is pumpkin cheesecake with sugar-free substitute, fake maple syrup, Keebler pie crust (don't they make cookies and junk food?) Cool Whip! Miracle Whip! (it's a "miracle" they can call that food) Wishbone Fat-free ranch dressing! (Do you know how many chemicals, preservatives are in that crud?) and the list goes on and on. Come on! to me this is food from the Standard American Diet (SAD) that people have been eating for years just polished a little different.

2) The use of too many packaged products with some known to be down right dangerous. Like Splenda. I tried splenda for a while and got horribly sick for a week. Just do a Google search for "dangers of splenda" and you'll see for yourself. And what in the heck are "Butter buds"? Fake butter I suppose. Why not just eat real, organic butter they way nature intended?!

3) Not enough fresh, raw foods. To be really healthy, you need to eat at least 5 raw fruits and 5 raw vegetables every day! Not cooked, RAW. Organic if you can but not completely necessary. This will give you the raw, vitamins, phyto nutrients, healthy fiber and nutrition to feed your cells. (yes it's true our soil is depleted and that effects the nutritional value of the vegetable and fruits, and blah, blah, blah, I've heard that song and dance for 15 years. It's just a way for people to avoid eating ENOUGH raw foods in their diet. But Let me tell you something...If you have any type of poor, or sluggish digestion, or ill health, you incorporate into your diet a raw salad once a day with 5, chopped, raw, cruciferous vegetables, and in 2 weeks you will be regular and back to normal. I'm living proof of that. Bill states that Bodybuilders have extended guts because of drug induced, hypertrophy. That may very well be part of the cause. But another major reason is many bodybuilders eat large amounts of protein and large quantities of food. Their colons are so jammed packed with this crud, that it extends their gut. You ask any bodybuilder and they will usually tell you, even though they get hungry, they always feel sort of "full". I also believe in fresh, raw, vegetable juices which is a power house of fuel for the cells. Carrot, beet, spinach, parsley, celery, ginger, is absolutely delicious and is like a blood transfusion! You drink that fresh, right from your own juicer and you'll feel it! Amazing!

4) very limited on the diversity of whole grains... their are super grains available, much better than brown rice (although that's great too) such as quinoa, amaranth, millet, and such. Do a Google search for these and you'll see.

5) lastly but not least. NO nutritional information. How many calories, bad fats, cholesterol, protein, carbs and such are in these meals? Everybody's calorie needs are different. One size fits all? I don't think so. We'd probably be shocked if we saw it!

In conclusion, most of the "body builders" out there eat this way, or eat even more! A good majority of them have a "basic" fundamental understanding of nutrition.. i.e. protein, carb, and vegetable with each meal. Small meals throughout the day. But most if not all, error on the side of mainstream, everyday, questionable, products, with no care or concern about their contents, their origin, and how that crud can affect the body in the long term.

This book does one thing well. It appeals to the huge, mass audience of average people who were raised on the Standard American Diet (SAD). I think it was made this way so it could sell. That's why so many people praise and endorse it on here. No doubt about it, the meals are tasty, but not all of them are 100% "clean" nutritionally.

If you are an experienced health and fitness enthusiast, and know how to modify these menu's, use them as a guide. Some are great as is.. like fish, rice and vegetables. Chicken noodle soup and such, But many need tweaking to get them to be totally healthy.

Bill, my word to you. Seeing your physical achievements, and dedication and obviously you are in great physical shape. You could have done a much better job with the "nutritional" information in this book. I think you failed when you gave people what you thought they would buy, and eat, rather than what you know deep in your heart they should hear. I've never in my life eaten a "butter bud", because I know better. I never will.

excellent book

great book highly recommended for anyone whether in good health or not, sure to help.

This Is THE BEST "Diet" Cookbook Out There!

Although I haven't really cooked much in recent years, I have collected cookbooks since I was young. I own at least 200 of them. In recent years, many of them have been "Diet Cookbooks." In virtually all of them, I have only liked maybe 1/10th of the recipes.

That said, this is one of the VERY BEST COOKBOOKS out there! I almost didn't purchase this, because so many of the diet plans out there always do a half-hearted cookbook following their best sellers...almost like an afterthought. Also, I had been so disappointed with what I felt I would be able to eat while on the BFL program. WRONG!

If you are looking for nutritious (but GOOD!) recipes that your WHOLE family can eat or you need to lose a few pounds or are even on another diet program, or if you are even THINKING of going on the BFL Challenge, I URGE you to buy this book!

"Eating for Life" is AMAZING! It is a quality hardcover book and each recipe features a full page picture. But what floored me was that ALL of the recipes are GREAT! Most do not take a great deal of time to prepare either! (I have actually started COOKING again!)

The ONE feature that could have been included was that the nutritional info is not included with the recipes. I have an online program that quickly converts this information for me, but it would have been nice to have this included.

However, something that was included that I thought was so terrific - and am surprised that most cookbooks haven't done this before - is that for most of the recipes, it includes a little "cameo" picture of the specific brands of products that they used to make the recipe! I loved this feature because I have made many recipes before that because I used a different brand -- just didn't quite taste like the original. Most cookbooks don't feature this because I guess it is like "free advertising" for these products...but hey, if they are good enough to use, they deserve the exposure.

Bill Phillips: You outdid yourself with this terrific cookbook!