Rating: 
Summary: Finally, a diet system that makes sense!
Review: Diabetes is rampant in my family. I've been lucky so far, but recently discovered that my blood sugar was slightly elevated. My doctor said to "cut back" on sugar, but I decided to do away with it altogether. A friend told me about Sugar Busters and I bought the book. Read it from cover to cover and was both amazed and enlightened!
Sugar does terrible things to your body. For example, if you're insulin resistant (which I am), it will cause you to gain weight and also hold on to excess weight you're already carrying, even if you're "dieting". This was extremely frustrating for me. I was always hungry and super careful about what I ate 99% of the time. Yet I could never lose weight. And I was concerned that I was developing diabetes.
After reading Sugar Busters I understood the physiology of what was happening. The book explains everything in detail and in easy to understand language. You'd be AMAZED at the foods that contain sugar that you'd never think contained any!
I also bought the cookbook and the shopping guide. Now I know what does and doesn't have sugar and what I can and can't eat. The amazing thing is I'm eating more than I ever have before and I'm losing weight! My doctor says I'm doing great and I feel great.
This is the only intelligent diet I have ever come across! I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: This is not a rehash of the Atkins diet
Review: There is a lot of misinformation about this diet going around, being peddled by people who have never even looked at the book but just assume that it is a rehash of the high-protein, high-fat, low-carbohydrate Atkins diet. It is not. Sugar Busters is a low-sugar diet and, other than some superficial similarities, it has nothing to do with Atkins or any of the other high-protein regimens.Sugar Busters explains in a way that is easy to understand why sugar is harmful and why eating foods containing sugar will prevent you from losing weight, no matter what diets you try. Sugar Busters is concerned with cutting as much sugar out of the diet as possible. It is not a high-protein, high-fat diet, and in fact the authors specifically advise against a high-fat diet on page 240 and several other places in the book. They don't advise that you eat a lot of fat, but rather, that in addition to cutting the fat you eat, you also cut the amount of sugar. They advise that protein, and indeed all other "allowed" foods, be consumed only in moderate amounts, not in the "all you can eat" amounts that the high-protein fad diets advise. It is also not a low-carb diet. It is a low-sugar diet, and as such also advises you to cut out the refined carbs which quickly break down into sugar once they are inside your body, but other carbs are allowed. (Also, even one sugar - fructose - is allowed in moderation because of its low glycemic effects.) The advice of this book regarding sugar is just plain common sense, and should help with not only weight loss and cholesterol, but also with mood swings, low energy, heartburn, and other problems caused by excessive sugar and junk food consumption. The medical community has known about the effects of sugar for decades, and it is a wonder that anybody could seriously dispute that the Sugar Busters plan would be a helpful one. A personal testimony: I started Sugar Busters after trying another plan, "The Junk Food Withdrawal Manual" by Monte Kline. That plan was a good start, as it presented a step-by-step plan to replace the major refined foods with unrefined (replacing white rice with brown rice, white flour and bread with whole-grain, etc.), but it doesn't cut sugar out entirely, advising that white sugar be replaced with honey and blackstrap molasses instead. I was mainly concerned with healthy eating and correcting years of poor eating habits and junk food consumption, not with losing weight since my weight was only borderline. I found the Monte Kline booklet to be a good start but often hard to follow, because eating any sugar at all (even natural honey or molasses) would just stimulate my appetite and send me back to eating junk food. I then discovered Sugar Busters, which gives much of the same advice (replacing white bread and rice with brown and whole-grain, etc.) but takes it further, with the main point being to cut out as much sugar as possible. Following Sugar Busters, I managed to clear up a long-time craving for junk food, as well as a gastrointestinal reflux problem, and as an added bonus I lost 25 pounds during the first two months on the diet. This diet works for many things, not just weight loss, and is easy to follow once you get the hang of it. The main tricks are to learn which foods are on the off-limits list, including potatoes, corn, bananas, beets, refined wheat products, and anything with added sugars; learn to read labels when shopping (hint: take a quick look at the "sugars" entry in the nutrition information box, and look for those items with 2g or less per serving); and finally remember the rule about consuming fruits and fruit juices either a half hour before or two hours after your main meal. That's really not all that much to remember, and I find it hard to believe that anybody would say that this diet is hard to follow. I'd recommend it to anybody.
Rating:
Summary: I can see clearly now!
Review: I can see clearly, now that I have read this book, how my body absorbs and reacts to the food I eat. The writing gets a little technical now and then because it's intended to be read by both lay and medical professional people, but it's never to the point that one gets lost in the jargon, of which there is a minimum (and always explained). Humour keeps a dry subject interesting. Reading Sugar-Busters has made it easy for me to modify my lifestyle in the kitchen and at the dinner table, wherever that might be, and it has definetely paid off! My purpose in acting on it was to control my cholesterol in a natural way. As a bonus, I have dropped 18 lbs in 7 months and am down to half a dosage on my BP meds as well, and my physician thinks it is entirely possible that I'll be off the medication altogether in the near future. Understanding how beneficial a low glycemic diet benefits the human body was the best birthday gift I received from Sugar-Busters, with a new lease on life. I highly recommend it every day to co-workers, friends and acquaintances.
Rating: 
Summary: Much More Forgiving than the Atkins Diet
Review: Similar concept--low carb, high protein--but not as draconian with regard to things like non-white bread, fruit and some natural sugars. If you actually read the whole thing, you'll have a good understanding of why a) massive carb intake is making you fat and b) how absurd our accepted dietary thinking has been for a long time. If you were thinking Atkins but either a) couldn't stay on it or b) could not fathom sticking to those menu choices for an extended period of time, I'd suggest this. Not as an easy way out--if you're going to do this, you have to do it right--but as perhaps less of a shock to the system. I've been on a pretty faithful Atkins routine for two weeks now and it really has worked as promised. And you do feel better with regard to energy swings (no more post-lunch food comas). But one week in, I new there was no way I continually eat this way for any extended period of time. Hence this book. After you've read this, you will never look at, say, white bread or potatoes the same way again!
Rating: 
Summary: Did Not Work For Me--But it does work for others--WHY?
Review: As a resident of the metro-New Orleans area, I am inundated with sightings of Sugar-Busters marketed products from whole wheat pasta to ice cream. Believe me going to the supermarket is one big marketing hype especially in the smaller New Orleans based stores, since this slim volume was written by one CEO and a group of local physicians---a pretty tough group to contradict. As the products are easy for me to find, I lived the diet---Guess what? In spite of the hype, it didn't work for me. It didn't change my weight one way or the other.
This leads me to believe that everybody is as different as we are told we are and one diet does not fit all. Eating ice cream--tasteless ice cream at that--does not work for me whether it has sugar in it or not. Neither does eating whole wheat spirals marketed with the SUGAR-BUSTERS logo.
Like the Zone, Atkins and other low-carb diets, this diet's main concentration is on using protein consumption to trigger glucagon rather than insulin production in the pancreas. I have no problem with this premise as it obviously works for so many people--myself included--- even though the idea has been panned by dieticians for as long as they have been touted by their creators. Fat does not seem to matter---but eating bacon? With all those nitrates? Please! The usual suspects of sugar, white flour products, pre-packaged meals in a box, and high glycemic index carbohydrates are rounded up and eliminated. But the book fails to mention that certain people do not process dairy well, or crustaceans, or red meat etc. After all there are millions of folks out there who have eaten vegetarian style whole foods -- heavy on the whole grains and carbs and low on the fat---with SUPER results. Bottom line? Everyone is different. Once the principles of horomone balance are understood, there is a need for some sort of nutritional discipline that aids us in tracking food results on a food by food basis.
Another problem with this diet is its lack of portion control. No matter what anyone says, MD. CEO or not, eating too much good, sugarless food and not burning it off,will put on weight--or keep it on. Simple mathematical fact of life.
This diet does seem to work for a certain percentage of people--we need to figure out just what "type" this percentage represents, then find appropriate diets for the rest of the us.
Rating:
Summary: EASY, SAFE and QUICK
Review: I lost 20 pounds in two months and hardly changed my diet. I have kept it off for 6 months and continued to lose weight more gradually. (I am now at my ideal weight) My doctor recommended this diet to me because I was geting sick so often. It is simple common sense rules for eating. It doesn't require exercise. You don't count calories or fat grams just follow a few simple words of wisdom regarding how sugar and carbohydrates effect your body. It is not as strict as Atkins diet and much safer. This is not a "NO CARB" diet. I was so encouraged with the results that I decided to really "Challenge" myself and I bought the book "Body for Life". Now that's a program!!! It is difficult but very good, ...
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: Sugar Busters worked great for me. The book was easy to read,although it did sound like it was written by salesman in some areas. Most importantly, it explained how the body processes carbohydrates and converts them to insulin, which triggers fat storage. I didn't bother with most of the recipes. Grocery shopping for this program is easy, just think "No sugar, No starchy vegetables, No white or 'enriched' flour or bread. Whole-grain only." I started the program to control my hypoglycemic reactions, not necessarily to lose weight. But in just a matter of weeks, I went for 128lbs to 116 and kept it off. What an added bonus!
Rating:
Summary: good nutrition advice, not enough "how to"
Review: The premise of this book is the glycemic index (GI). The main concept is that the lower the GI of a specific food, the better it is for weight loss and energy. In order to comply with this way of eating one must be willing to cut back on bread (2 slices a day for weight loss, 3 for maintnence), and give up white flour products, corn, white potatoes and white rice. The book provides a lengthy description of why GI is important for weight loss which helps one understand the logic behind this diet. Also included is a 14 day meal plan and a "subsitutions" list to help the reader replace foods they regularly eat with healthier, lower glycemic foods. One problem I had with this book is that the authors make many claims that they do not provide research to back. I strongly suggest anyone purchasing this book also purchase the "Shoppers Guide", as it can be tricky figuring out which foods are allowed and which are not. I have been on this "diet" for a couple days and so far feel more energetic and less hungry. I am interested to see, however, if I am able to maintain this way of eatting. I would recomend this book to individuals who are able to have restraint regarding what they eat (the "how to") and are in need of nutritional advice.
Rating:
Summary: Not practicle for the average person
Review: I bought this book on the advise of my sister-in-law who swears by it, and frankly I find it terribly inconvenient. First of all, its so detailed that it bored me to [tears]. Second, I had to purchase the companion book and take it shopping with me because its just too hard to remember what you can and cannot eat on this program. I found that my local grocery store didn't carry alot of the products on the suggested eating lists, so I was forced to search the health food stores, which was very expensive. After a few weeks it became so impracticle that I gave up.
Rating:
Summary: Great WOL (way of life) for people w/insulin inbalances
Review: This book is actually easy to comprehend! Believe me, I have read my share of diet books! I found this one to be precise & to the point. Basically, it explains how insulin inbalances make it difficult to lose weight & affects your cholesterol levels. Reduction of sugar & specific carbs reduces insulin making weight loss & better cholesterol levels easier to obtain & manage.
There are 'legal' & 'illegal' foods listed with reasons why they are labeled as such. There are recipes & a 14 day sample menu included. The only thing I would have added is the shopper's guide. I think that should have been included instead of printed seperately because shopping for this WOL is quite a task for the first few times until you get a handle on exactly what wonderful foods you can eat.
|
