Okay, my friends, I haven’t been ignoring you or slacking off with my healthy living task. On the contrary, my scales have been a stable 68.4 kilos this week and I did a lot of research in order to provide you with some valuable dieting material, just in case you were inspired by my posts.

The first read I want to bring to your attention is Anna Richardson’s Summer Body Blitz Diet. Wow, Anna is a girl after my own heart with her dieting book! She has only 5 rules to stick to: 1. NO WHEAT; 2. NO DAIRY; 3. NO SUGAR; 4. NO CARBS(after 6 p.m, that is!); 5. NO ALCHOHOL. Of all the dieting books I peeked at in the last few weeks, her philosophy is the closest to the way I have been trying to lose the weight(plus she mentions a summer body in the book title, the very thing I am aiming for :-). She also has a section made of simple-to-follow yet delicious recipes and a “Fast Food” section that includes yummy snack suggestions like Parma ham, olives, humorous and rye bread!! So if you’re not a by-the-letter sort of person and need a few simple rules and recipes to keep you going, then this is the book for you and I do recommend it warmly as it is my favourite so far!

Now, if you happen to be the sort of person who needs constant monitoring and encouragement but also a slow introduction to dieting then I would recommend Gillian McKeith’s Boot Camp Diet. I used to watch her You Are What You Eat TV programme and be amazed at the changes she brought about in a short space of time in people’s lives. Some would call Gillian extreme and she can be but hear me out. This book is actually a very carefully laid out plan aimed to assist you in losing weight. It sets goals for you, it does the positive talking, it presents you with chewable bits of information and motivation for the initial 14 days, the hardest of any life plan change. The book also includes a recipe section and a wee diary like section in which you ccan keep track of your progress. Handy for people who need a daily reminder and prompting to stay in track. I found the book informative even at a quick perusal, hands up if you knew the aduki beans can assist you in weight loss by reducing fluid from your body? Neither did I!!

Now, the next title I chose for you is George Carter’s 100 Health-Boosting Foods. This book is perfect for those of my readers who would love to start living more healthily and need a practical and alphabetised guide to assist them with the change. I love this book, it’s colourful, provides enough information(the most important bits are even highlighted!) for each of the featured foods to make the reader aware of its health benefits and as a bonus, has a very simple to follow recipe to incorporate the food into your diet. So next time you buy green beans, remember that they are good for maintaining bone strength, help lower high blood pressure and are richer in iron than spinach! The recipe provided is a very simple tomato and green bean salad that even a 10 year old can make. So no more excuses for eating biscuits, me thinks ;-)!

Now, for those of you who are considering a vegetarian diet, the next recommendation is bang on perfect. The F2 Cookbook by Audrey Eyton, is based on a fibre and fat-rich plan. The book includes 100 lovely and fresh almost exclusively vegetarian recipe ideas, like Lentil Lovers’ Bolognese(no meat there) or Spicy Chickpeas with Cauliflower and Spinach. Most recipes have a Slimmer’s Tip included at the end, always handy in assisting you in the calorie battle. Worth giving a try, definitely!

The last read I have for you tonight is The S Factor Diet, written by an American celebrity, Lori Turner. I hesitated including it here due to the celebrity factor but because it offers another view on dieting, I decided it would make an interesting point, at least. Turner bases her diet plans on balancing the S factor hormones and includes a few very simple tests that assess what type of hormone dictates your eating and what foods provide that needed balance. According to her questionnaires, based on my symptoms of snapping at loved ones, caffeine cravings and worrier habits, I am an Adrenal eater and the foods that would help me lose weight are artichokes, eggs, fish mussels and prawns, coconut milk and oil, eggs, lentils and barley drinks! Well, my body has been requesting all the food suggested in the last few weeks so that sort of validates my dieting approach and amazes me as to how accurate the book is in assessing your body needs through a couple of very simple questionnaires!

Well, hope this post has motivated you to start eating better, this is day 22 and I am off to watch a DVD and tuck into a very yummy salad of rocket, tuna, tomato, pine seeds and lemon drizzle which hubby kindly made for me while I was blogging!!