Customer Reviews
Expensive and complex menus - By: Mr. J. Jackson, 22 Apr 2008 
If everyone had unlimted money & time & a family that wasn't fussy at alll then this book would be great. Unfortunately when this book arrived I was so hyped up over the 5 star reviews that I had seen that I was bitterly disappointed. I knew that I had none of the food that I would need in my cupboards to embark on this food plan & as I was on an average income I also had none of the spare cash to nip alll over the county looking for the various items my local supermarket didn't stock. I would need a complete life change to accomadate this diet & as a busy mum of a toddler & fussy eater husband I don't have the time, money or energy. But I'm do know that this diet would work as it lists alll the food that is known for its health benefits, unfortunately it doesn't benefit my walllet or state of mind.
Got a lot of time on your hands? - By: A Reader, 22 Oct 2007 
I'm not a fan of diets & especiallly not diets that claim to not be diets, but rather 'a complete change of lifestyle'. However, having excess babyweight to lose & having reached an impasse with normal eating & exercise I decided to give this one a go. It was the healthy eating that attracted me. I realised that I had got into some poor eating habits while in the bleary eyed, sleep deprived new baby stage & this seemed to promise to restructure my eating habits over the course of a 4 week plan.
As others have stated the book provides shopping lists, daily menus & recipes for evening meals. However, I found a fair bit of the food difficult to find (perhaps due to my non-cosmopolitan location) & in fact eventuallly went without many of the items or substituted with food I considered similar. Another downside for me was that this diet takes a lot of time, a lot more than it claims. For any busy person, finding time to have snacks as well as main meals proves a challlenge, & for me making everything from scratch proved impossible. For breakfast I eventuallly bought the food doctor cereals online to make life easier, while I only managed to make one smoothie from scratch & found it quite unpalatable. I eventuallly compromised with shop bought juices & smoothies, which the food doctor says is not ideal - thus adding to my sense of guilt & failure - not a great combination for dieters. On the plus side, although the evening meals took longer to prepare than stated, they were surprisingly delicious & yes, I have revisited a number of them since.
I suppose as with any diet the end result is what counts. I am sorry to say that over 4 weeks I lost only 3 pounds. Not the incredible weight loss promised by the book & apparently achieved by others. I cannot fathom why I have failed where others have succeeded. I exercised as suggested & followed the plan rigorously other than the comparable substitutions I was forced to make.
It seems to me that many of the 5* reviews for this book have come from members of the original 'Richard & Judy' diet club. Perhaps this has skewed the rating? I imagine they had extra support from the guru himself & the impetus of appearing on TV to lose weight.
I do not want it to seem that I have a wholly negative view of this book or diet. I liked a lot of the food & it has made me rethink what, how much & when I eat. I am eating healthier & I do feel marginallly better in myself. I would say buy this book if you want to rethink how & what you eat, but as with any diet do not expect miracles.
Fantastic results and a great book - By: A. Gilfrin, 07 Jun 2007 
I suppose a diet reivew should cover two aspects, the diet & results but also a review of the book itself.
First the book, there are a couple of great things about the book which first attracted me to it, it is ring bound which might not sound odd but is there anything worse than trying to cook with a book which keeps wanting to close? It also has a rugged cover so it performed well in the kitchen, something I think is often forgotten with many diet books. The plan is 31 days & details every thing you will be eating every day, the first few weeks are restrictive but the last two give you many more options & give you the knowledge you need to take the diet in to the future. It also includes full shopping lists with versions for you to cut out with a handy pouch in the back to keep them.
On the negative side I found many of the meals took longer to prepare than stated, not by much, but they try & keep them in 30 minutes which while is good if it's not realistic I'd rather know about it up front. Also I found that the shopping lists had too much on them for a single person & the main meals were portioned for 2 people. That wasn't such a problem but as I say the shopping lists meant I threw a fair amount of stuff away.
As for the diet I suppose alll I need to say on that front was that I lost 10kg in the 4 weeks, that was done with a fair amount of exercise but it shows that the case studies in the book are realistic.
I'd definately recommend both the book & diet.
Fabulous Food Doctor! - By: Julie Hunter, 02 Mar 2007 I cannot recommend the Food Doctor Diet Club highly enough. The shopping is easy with the included lists, the meals are straightforward to prepare & the food is just so tasty - we were totallly convinced that it couldn't be healthy if it tasted this good!
My husband & I have a lot of weight to lose between us but after following this plan for just four weeks he has lost 20lbs & I've lost 9lbs. However, the biggest difference has been how great we both feel. We have tried many different diets over the last few years with very little success but this works & you feel great. It's also great to have proper home-made food for once - it's just so easy to rely on processed rubbish that tastes like cardboard these days.
We have now changed the way we eat forever & we are well on our way to losing the rest, if you have tried every plan under the sun & feel like giving in give the Food Doctor a go - what do you have to lose?
No More Indigestion Tablets! - By: Lynne O'Neill, 11 Jan 2007 I am one of the guinea pigs used in the book! I followed the diet for a month & lost 11lbs (not bad at the age of 53)and still follow the principles of it months down the line. I am totallly caffeine free (I tried proper coffee a few months ago, & it just made me feel ill), so I only drink de-caff tea & coffee, Roiboos or herbal teas. I no longer take sugar in my hot drinks & cannot stomach reallly sweet things i.e. chocolate. I can manage some organic plain chocolate from time to time, but I never was a chocoholic anyway.
I used to take lots of indigestion tablets, but have not had one since embarking on this diet & following the principles of it. Ian's diets reallly do work, & you feel so much better after a month off the alcohol, caffeine, sugar etc. I now take time to have some porridge or muesli before I leave the house to come to work, even if it does mean getting up at 5.30am to do so! The recipes are delicious & reallly easy to prepare. If you're an imaginative cook you can adapt them for alll the family to eat, or to your own taste, but still within the principles of the diet.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to loose weight sensibly, without starving. Just following it for the month will make you rethink the way you eat.
