Friday, June 1, 2018

Friday Book Report: The Virgin Diet



As I have said more than once, I don’t love diet books.  I am immune/mildly averse to the hyperbolic prose interspersed with amazing success stories.  Apparently, I am not the target audience despite being both female and a fitness professional.  My other disclaimer:  I am not a nutritionist and so I do not make professional recommendations about what anyone should be eating.  (This does not prevent me from suggesting common sense as a guide.)

Given all that, I didn’t hate The Virgin Diet: Why Food Intolerance is the Real Cause of Weight Gain by JJ Virgin.  She recommends eating actual food, with an emphasis on vegetables and clean protein.  Some people may benefit from her 21 day elimination diet, either by discovering previously unknown food sensitivities or simply by eating non-junk food for three weeks.  Unlike some diets, this one isn’t actually bad for anyone and there is no reliance on weird bars or prepackaged meals.

The thrust of the book is that there are seven foods that tend to cause problems for people:  gluten, soy, dairy, eggs, corn, peanuts, and sugar.  Truly wiping them out of anyone’s diet is challenging unless all processed food is avoided.  After three weeks, there are four weeks of testing whether an individual can tolerate gluten, soy, dairy, and eggs.  (Corn, peanuts, and sugar get to live forever in the Avoid If Possible realm.)

It may be worth a try.

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