The Mediterranean Diet Weight Loss Solution: The 28-Day Kickstart Plan for Lasting Weight Loss

I am a family nurse practitioner and a I'm constantly encouraging my patients to eat healthier diet. All along I was trying to do the same but was failing. I finally decided to get serious about eating better myself. It also gave me the encouragement I needed to get more active. I have felt tired and fatigued from most of my life . After eating a Mediterranean diet for about a month I began to have more energy. Maybe I just was not getting enough healthy fat in my diet. Anyway, I am so grateful to this author for this amazing book! I know this is anecdotal because it is only one person and my response to eating this way, but this book has actually changed my life! Problems I found with this book. 1. The menu plan is created for a family or at least a couple. If you are buying this for one person the food will last much longer then is planned for in the 28-day plan. I just pick out a few recipes and trying to follow along and repeat the meals much more frequently then is indicated in the book. I still follow the plan as closely as possible but not exactly as written. I definitely do not use the grocery list because you can spend an outrageous amount of money and half of your produce will go rotten in the refrigerator because you just can't eat all that food. I have found that I actually have to shop for about 2-3 days worth of the 28-day plan and it usually lasts me about a week. 2. It's better to buy the book version than the Kindle version of this cookbook. It's just so hard to flip back and forth on a Kindle so the book is just much easier. Things I love! 1. I have more energy! Who knew that after following a Weight Watchers style diet for most of my life I was probably hurting myself! This is a much healthier way to eat. My mood has actually improved. I'm not trying to fall asleep throughout the whole day! I feel like I'm thinking better and I'm a much more productive person. 2. The food is good! It has opened my eyes to new ways to cook food and nothing is that difficult. A chocolate banana shake for breakfast? Love it! Brought a salad to a potluck dinner and it was the highlight of the evening. I wish all my patients would eat this way but it is a lot to ask and it is a pretty big commitment - but it is definitely worth it!

This book is great! My husband and I have been following it for 7 weeks and have lost a total of 36lbs. I lost 10.4 the first 4 weeks and of course he lost 15 lbs the first 4 weeks. We started the whole plan over at week 1 again after week 4. We currently are on week 7. I have lost a total of 14 lbs while he has lost a total of 22lbs. The recipes are great. My children even like them.(disclaimer- my children are not picky eaters). There is a lot of prep work for each meal but well worth it. I have found that my husband now helps in the kitchen and it has been great! I have always wanted to being the Mediterranean diet because It is supposed to be super healthy, and what is better than allowing wine and cheese on a diet! This has been a great resource for my family. Looking forward to having it guided me to my goal weight. I don’t see myself going off since I never feel deprived nor hungry.

I really enjoyed the food, rarely felt hungry, and was always satisfied enough after meals that I didn't have my typical sugar cravings. So the actual recipes and plan are fantastic. However, I was unable to keep up with all the cooking (and I am used to cooking almost all meals for my family of 4). So I made some adjustments and began eating out on Fridays and grilling simple meat and veggies for Sat-Sun, so that I only had to fully cook for the weekdays, which was much more doable for my family. Even with that model where I was only following the full plan for part of the week, I still lost 7 lbs in the first 3 weeks. It's now been 5 weeks and I've lost 11 lbs. (It's lasting me longer than 28 days since I'm only following the plan 4 days per week). I should also note that I didn't go "crazy" with what I ate on weekends, I was just a bit more relaxed on occasions. I also didn't have time to make my own snacks so when I was able to buy a substitute for one, I did. I also didn't need that many snacks because the meals typically satisfied me. By biggest complaint BY FAR (and the reason I didn't give 5 stars) is because the shopping list is a joke. Absolutely do not follow it! Many other reviewers are confused why the shopping list costs too much money or doesn't last the expected amount of time, and the reasoning is that each recipe is made to serve a different number of people. So you'll cook something for one day that serves 2, and the next recipe you'll make serves 8! As if the number of people I'm cooking for changes daily! So following the shopping list is assuming that sporadic recipe serving size actually applies to you. Since you can't follow the non-sensical shopping list, you can expect to spend several hours a week going through every single recipe and doing the math for your particular family. Which is harder than it sounds because you first have to examine the meal plan and how often each recipe is used, then look at each recipe's serving size and apply the appropriate math for each ingredient in each recipe that week, then write all of that out onto your own shopping list. All they had to do was make each recipe the same amount of servings so the math to make it appropriate sized for your family could be done ONCE from the shopping list... instead of going through all the time it takes to examine each recipe individually. Or just take out the shopping list entirely so we don't all feel so frustrated by it's uselessness! I almost returned the book because I was so angry about the senselessness of this. But I'm glad I didn't since I lost so much weight and like the food, so I figured it was worth writing about for people to go into it ready to accept this major flaw. It's also worth noting my young kids didn't love the food, but I think that's to be expected as I was introducing them to so many different kinds of new foods at once. I don't think it had to do with the actual quality of the recipes. Overall, I'm happy with the results, and now that I've written and saved my own shopping lists, I'm looking forward to repeating this plan once I've finished it!

I am a 38 year old obese female. I received lab work showing I had elevated cholesterol. I decided it was time to get serious and make some changes. I ordered this book, because although I can find anything online I really enjoy having the book in front of me. This book was enlightening, helped to break things down. I liked the weekly meal plan, along with your grocery list. Just remember to add in your snacks to your grocery list, they are not included in the break down. I did not 100% stick to her plan. The nightly meals were large enough that a lot of times my husband and I would eat it for 2 nights. So I didn’t have the leftovers for lunch. I would usually just eat salads. Also sometimes I would improvise a meal. I live in a small town in the South, so I don’t always have access to some of the ingredients. We have enjoyed the dishes, packed with flavor. The only thing is I wish that the recipes had pictures, not a big deal I just enjoy the look of the end results. I started my new lifestyle as of 6/7/24, as of date I am down 30 pounds. And my cholesterol has improved drastically, only a little bit more to go before I am in normal range. I feel better, and within days my feet didn’t hurt as bad. Obviously they were quite inflamed. My blood pressure (although not terrible) has improved. In my short time I am already a big advocate for the Mediterranean Diet, and this book is a good starting point.

Some of the recipes in this book are really good. However I started trying to buy the ingredients for the first week of meal plans and my walmart online shopping cart quickly racked up to over $200. And I wasn't even done yet! And that was only for the first week! I mean I love that the shopping lists are included, and that the lists are broken up into easy-to-read categories (produce/dairy/meat/etc) but seriously? There are a LOT of groceries to buy every week and even though I've got a pretty healthy finances I can't spend that much on groceries! You could never do this plan on a tight budget or if you're someone who struggles to make ends meat. It's not realistic and that was disappointing. That being said, some of the recipes really are pretty delicious, so I'm still giving three stars. I had to pick and choose some recipes a la carte from the book since the meal plans weren't realistic budget-wise. There are better meditteranean diet cookbooks out there that I've found since.

Wait, what??? You're telling me I can eat whole wheat bread, potatoes, frozen yogurt and drink red wine AND lose weight??? Absolutely!! It feels so good to have the freedom from a restrictive "diet!" In 30 days I've lost 6 lbs!! It may be bit slower, but not only did I lose the 6 pounds, the energy I have gotten back is unreal!! At first I felt a little intimidated by the recipes because there are no pictures, but once I learned to get past that and trust the process, I was not disappointed, but pleasantly surprised and satisfied!! Hands down, this is a 10/10!!

The food is easy to prepare, although the recipes are often 6 or 8 servings and you may need to scale down. But, this diet sure doesn't feel like a diet. Follow the recipes THEY'RE DELICIOUS! Lost weight the first week and continuing to lose!

This book is well written, easy to follow. Recipes are easy and taste so good! If you follow this the weight comes off so fast. I love to cook but even if you don't the way this works is your dinner is always your lunch c h the next day! It's brilliant! I have purchased a few of these to give to relatives and recommend to friends.

I bought this book along with a slow cooker recipe book for the mediterranean diet and I am just as happy with this one too! Great recipes, I have tried many already and have been pleased with the results. I am writing down the day I've tried the recipe and the results so I can refer to it when I'm looking for recipes. The 28 day diet plan is also great with the grocery list you'll need every week. Helps you get prepared. Very happy and looking forward to continuing to try more of the recipies. I would recommend this book.

Pretty good quality some of the recipes not great

great information

Be careful if you are outside the US. It is an US book with US measures such as cups. Recipes good otherwise.

I purchased this book 3 weeks ago, and we love the meals! Not going to lie; it is a lot of cooking and prep. You can make some things in advance - I've been using Sunday for that but you will have to cook every night. This is something you will have to plan out in advance and budget for - the weekly shopping is not cheap...warning in advance. However, I am down 13lbs in 3 weeks so it is worth it, not to mention how much better I feel eating really healthy.