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Stop Counting Calories and Start Losing Weight

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1.1 billion people are overweight worldwide. The more we tell people to 'eat less', the fatter they get...What if your body stores fat the minute you 'eat less'? What if you have 1 of 3 very common medical conditions, which cause insatiable food cravings? What if eating less causes these conditions? What if insulin makes you fat and not calories? Stop Counting Calories" & "Start Losing Weight"

363 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

106 people are currently reading
85 people want to read

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Zoe Harcombe

46 books5 followers

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5 stars
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45 (19%)
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30 (12%)
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
Profile Image for Emi.
32 reviews
May 21, 2012
This book is confusing and full of low carb science but the author is a vegetarian but says nutritionally speaking you shouldn't be a vegetarian. She praises Atkins and uses studies he used often. In the end this is a confusing carb shifting diet. Have one vegetarian meal with carbs and the next a low carb high meat meal. She talked up atkins so much i eventually went and read his and understood more about what she was talking about after reading DANDR. Really not worth your time and not worth following on the social networks
Profile Image for Pamela Jamieson-smith.
13 reviews
August 13, 2012
a must for anyone who hates the commercial weightloss industry and wants to eat real, natural food, with no counting/weighing etc. Paleo-esq.
Profile Image for Jodi.
Author 5 books85 followers
June 14, 2014
I was shocked at how bad this book was. I got this book after listening to the author do a brilliant interview about diet on Sean Croxton's Underground Wellness radio show in 2013/14.

It seems like the author has probably come a very long way in learning about health and diet in the 5 years since this book was written. The author is no longer a vegetarian, as she was when she wrote this book, and she now explains that her health improved enormously when she started eating meat again.

This book was horribly written and presented and very hard to read. It was like reading a brain washing infomercial. So much repetition and bullet points being made that seemed to be drumming in nothing much but the idea that this book is wonderful and works.

The facts given are all over the place and vary hugely in reliability. Many very highly allergenic foods were included on the elimination diet. I think it's the worst elimination diet list I've ever seen. Elimination diets are not really that hard to describe well.

Foods like brown rice and brown rice pasta are very highly recommended and said to be very important to eat due to their high nutrient content! It's claimed these foods wont make you hungry afterwards and trigger hypoglycemia. What utter nonsense. Lots of unhealthy foods are recommended and instead of a healthy high fat, moderate protein and lower carb diet being recommended a mega-meat-fest diet is recommended that isn't very low carb. More protein than we need is not that helpful, and can be converted to glucose in the body anyway - as will all that brown pasta! Many people would find his diet too high carb and sugar to lose any weight, myself included.

It's explained that how you know if a food has fat in or not is if it has a face, with the exception of olive oil etc. That part was just bizarre. Much of the writing was very poor. The book focuses far more on weight loss than health.

About 5% of the information scattered throughout the book is good, but that's not really enough.

This book is not good and there are so many better books and diets out there. Avoid! Newer books by this author many or may not be of better quality.

Jodi Bassett, The Hummingbirds' Foundation for M.E. (HFME) and Health, Healing & Hummingbirds (HHH)
Profile Image for Sam.
540 reviews9 followers
May 5, 2022
I'm not going to lie to you, phase 1 is brutal, really brutal, but it does seem to be working. I haven't finished the first five days yet and I'm 3kg down already.

Not sure how I'll get on with phase 2, but it's a good kick start.
Profile Image for Elaine White.
Author 43 books258 followers
August 24, 2011
I stopped reading around p. 150. My mum and i were all set to start Phase 1, despite the restrictions on our usual diet. We figured 5 disturbed days were nothing to a life of weight loss and healthy eating.

Unfortunately, the real life interrupted our plans. My mum works shifts and i have medical problems that inhibit the amount of restrictions that Phases 1 and 2 require. Going without dairy/processed foods is neigh on impossible for us. We drink lots of milk, i eat cheese and with varying work hours, we find that frozen foods are a convenience that we can't do without. There just isn't time for all the meal prep and cooking times when we know we could put something in the oven and leave it to cook over an hour when we're doing something else.

For us, our new routine is going to be watching what we eat a lot more carefully, still cutting out cakes, sweets etc and switching from white rice/pasta/bread to wholewheat. Combined with sensible living and exercise, we're hoping to make an impact on our weight loss.
Profile Image for Cath Thorley.
7 reviews2 followers
April 28, 2012


In my opinion it is another take on Atkins. I think what she says about candida and hypoglycaemia is probably true. I have always been lead to believe that your body craves food that have the vitamins and nutrients that your body is lacking, so her take on cravings was very interesting.

I have been living on just over a 1,000 calories a day for years and my weight has either stayed the same or went up if my calories was full of fattening food so I may give this diet a go to see if it makes any difference to my weightless.

Overall a very interesting and informative book
Profile Image for Rose Whitewater.
2 reviews
June 11, 2015
I absolutely love, love, love this book! I was gifted this book by my Aunt and it has been a life changer. I have followed this book, to the letter, and have lost & kept off 100 lbs! Even after being in a car accident and being off of my feet for a year by sticking with the maintenance phase 3 rules I did not gain a single lb! Would whole heartedly recommend this book to anyone that is willing to put in the work!
2 reviews
August 21, 2016
One of my favorite weight loss food books. A wonderful easy read with many great tips. For example why one crave certain foodstuffs. I found it helpful in understanding why I have chosen certain food and that it is mostly my body that wants it. It is not about having a strong mind!
Profile Image for Stephanie.
Author 16 books124 followers
November 6, 2014
Some interesting ideas about weight loss, but I wonder how sustainable it would be in the long term.
Profile Image for Sue.
23 reviews
May 28, 2013
Great advice for anyone who has yo-yo'ed with their eating and/or weight.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews

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