Excerpt Of 'The Sonoma Diet'

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Your New Lifestyle

The Sonoma Diet is like no other.

You will lose every ounce of excess weight that you need to. But at the same time, you will enjoy eating more than you ever have in your life. It is a way of eating where meals are a celebration, not deprivation.

That's because on The Sonoma Diet, you don't lose weight by avoiding food. Instead, you lose weight by enjoying satisfying amounts of the best foods on the planet. Perhaps for the first time in your life, you will truly cherish your meals. The Sonoma Diet celebrates the food and flavor renaissance that is happening across America today.

There's no "diet food" on The Sonoma Diet. No specialty foods. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just wholesome, fresh, and delicious everyday foods that are easy to find and even easier to prepare.

The results are phenomenal. You'll shed pounds quickly at first, then steadily until your weight is right where you always wanted it to be (and maybe never dared to hope it could be!). And it's weight loss that lasts a lifetime.

Every step of your journey from overweight to perfect weight will be comfortable, pleasant, and simple. Enjoy the same food with everyone else at the table. You won't have to track calories, keep score of any "points," or constantly weigh and measure your food. Forget about eating different foods than everybody else around you. You'll barely remember you're on a diet.
We've done all the science for you, down to the last nutritional detail. So you don't have to count, plan, analyze, or worry. All you have to do is select from a huge variety of food choices, then follow our guidelines. Use the recipes we give you if you like. But the main thing is, enjoy your meals.

The Sonoma Diet also offers what other diets tend to ignore-a healthier and more energetic you. Sure, if you're overweight, weight loss itself will help your health. But The Sonoma Diet offers much more than that. With this plan, improved health isn't just a side effect of weight loss. It is the very route to weight loss. You will feel your new health and energy well before you lose that last pound.

Too good to be true? On the contrary, The Sonoma Diet is based on the very latest discoveries about nutrition, health, and weight loss. Behind every meal plan and food recommendation is cutting-edge research that goes beyond the now-dated notions of low-carb or low-fat. You will fill up on "power foods" that deliver maximum disease-fighting nutrients with a minimum of calories. You'll be eating meals in carefully planned combinations that not only bring out hidden flavors but also maximize your body's absorption of essential nutrients.

These power combos are at the heart of The Sonoma Diet. They're a big reason you'll be discovering a new vibrant health as well as a slimmer shape. Think about it. Shouldn't a diet give you both of those things? Nothing else makes sense.

In fact, you'll be emulating the Mediterranean way of eating, famous for limiting heart disease and prolonging life among the southern Europeans-as well as keeping them trim. A Mediterranean meal is a feast for the senses and a boon for health and longevity. That's exactly how you're going to eat on The Sonoma Diet.

Most important for your success, you'll feel pleased and satisfied all day long. The Sonoma Diet does not invite frustration by artificially limiting any category of food. That makes it the perfect "next-step" diet for everyone who's tried and failed to stick to a "low-carb" or "low-fat" diet. The Sonoma Diet is not "low" anything. It is a balanced meal plan that provides your body everything it needs.

The Sonoma Diet is not a deprivation diet. Meat, fish, beans, eggs-they're all there for you. Snacks? Of course. Wine? Sure, if you like. In moderation, it's good for you.

Instead of banning whole categories of foods, The Sonoma Diet helps you eat reasonable amounts of the leanest, healthiest foods in each category. You'll learn to satisfy your hunger without overeating. You'll learn to eat slowly and savor every bite. And you'll learn how to finish a meal feeling content, never deprived.

The Sonoma Diet is not a low-carb diet. On the contrary, it stresses a huge variety of plant-based, carbohydrate-rich energy food. Do you like rice or other grains with your main course? Enjoy them, as long as they're the best-tasting, whole grain, fiber-rich version. Bread? You bet, and from Day 1 of your diet. Cereals? Every day if you like. Fruits and vegetables? In abundance.

The Sonoma Diet is not a low-fat diet, either. Heart-healthy and flavor-enhancing olive oil can be an everyday feature of your meals, bringing out nutrients and flavors in many of the foods you eat.
You'll be encouraged to take advantage of other healthy dietary fats as well. A variety of nuts and avocados, for example, and the heart-protective natural oils in fish will help you lose weight and keep you satisfied as you do it.

The Sonoma Diet's secret to weight loss is rediscovering the "right way to eat." It's about the sensual joy of savoring a variety of fresh, wholesome, and delicious foods. In other words, you'll be adopting a new eating lifestyle. You'll find it far more pleasurable and satisfying than the one you'll be leaving behind. The Sonoma Diet lifestyle will be a part of you long after you've reached your target weight. It will keep you slim, healthy, and enjoying every meal for the rest of your life.

It's a diet you can live with.

The Sonoma Region

How did the diet get its name? That's an excellent question, because the name "Sonoma" is synonymous with the spirit of the diet you'll be following. To understand it, we need to do a little elementary geography work.

Pull out a world map and find the Mediterranean Sea. Trace your finger along the sea's perimeter and notice what you cross-among other places, you'll pass through coastal Spain, southern France, Italy, Greece.

What are these lands known for? Ideal climates, fresh fruits and vegetables, fine wines, lean meats, abundant fish, and heart-friendly olive oil. In fact, the eating habits and the active lifestyle in this part of the world are so beneficial to human health that science has a name for it-the Mediterranean diet.

Now stick your finger in the middle of Italy and follow the line straight westward across the Atlantic and the United States until you come to the California coast. You're in Sonoma County, north of the San Francisco Bay.
Here the waves break on rocky coasts that give way to majestic redwood forests covering coastal mountains. Further inland, rolling hills are dotted with olive trees and apple groves.

On countless slopes lie some of the most lauded vineyards in the world, the grapes gleaming green and purple in the California sun. Along Sonoma's rustic trails and rural back roads, hikers and cyclists exercise as they take in the beauty of the surroundings.

This breathtakingly scenic region shares more in common with the Mediterranean than latitude and climate. Its fruits and vegetables are just as fresh and delicious, its wine as fine, its meat as lean, its fish and other seafood as abundant, its homegrown olive oil just as heart-friendly. The lifestyle? Even healthier.

Out of the farms and restaurants and kitchens of this idyllic home of healthy, sensuous eating comes The Sonoma Diet.
It is a Western Hemisphere version of the Mediterranean diet. Therefore, it lowers your risk of heart disease and certain cancers and offers you a longer, more active, more rewarding life.

The people of southern Europe and Sonoma contributed the element of pleasure to the diet. We've added another benefit: safe, permanent weight loss.

Weight Loss Plus Delicious Foods

The emphasis of The Sonoma Diet, to repeat, is not to avoid good food but to eat the best foods on the planet.

Here are some of them:

Lots of the best fresh fruits and vegetables instead of processed foods and sugary sweets. Generous allotments of whole grain bread and cereals instead of refined white flour products. Skinless white meat poultry, lean red meats, lamb, pork, veal, eggs, non-fat dairy, soybeans, and plenty of fish for your protein. Olive oil and nuts as your main dietary fat sources. Unlimited herbs and spices. A little wine. It doesn't matter if you live in Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, Seattle, or Denver. The Sonoma Diet can be your "way of eating."

Sound appealing? Then you're already in the spirit of The Sonoma Diet.
The chapters that follow will take you through the diet step-by-step. The first thing you'll notice is how simple everything is. There's no rule that says good eating has to be complicated.

After a summary of the major points of the diet, you'll be introduced to the huge variety of foods you'll be eating. The emphasis will be on the power foods that deliver the most health-imparting nutrients with the fewest calories.

Then you'll be guided through the diet itself, with specific instructions on choosing foods, preparing them, and eating them in the right proportions and amounts. You'll find recipes, specific meals to prepare, and specific tips for making things easy and for getting the most from your diet.

There are also chapters dedicated to helping you through the inevitable rough spots-the cravings, the hurdles, the frustrations that pop up from time to time on any diet. We'll tell you exactly how to deal with any problem, so you can leave it behind and move on to your weight loss goal.
Within days of starting The Sonoma Diet, you'll already notice a change for the better in the way you feel and the way your clothes fit. You will begin losing weight immediately.

You'll also notice a difference in the way you think about food. As you leave the old bad ways behind and adopt the new good ways, you'll discover an amazing thing. The new way tastes better! You're feeling better, you're losing weight-and you're enjoying your meals more than you ever thought possible.

That's what The Sonoma Diet is all about. Let's get started.

Copyright 2005, Meredith Books, All rights reserved