"The Ultimate Weight Solution Food Guide" by Dr. Phil McGraw came out to capitalize on Dr. Phil's bestselling "The Ultimate Weight Solution." The bulk of the book, from page 149 through page 707 consists of charts regarding nutritional content of food. The first 148 pages contain some common sense guides for losing weight and maintaining that weight loss. It's a handy reference for those who want to know the basics in the foods they are eating.
While the book is normal trade paper back size, it's not so compact as to easily fit inside a pocket, a purse, or another way to carry along with you. At a little over 700 pages, it's not something you'll carry around with you, even though there are numerous fast food entries. It's a book to keep handy near the kitchen.
After a quick introduction where Dr. Phil encourages you to get excited and then outlines the scope of the book, he launches into chapter one where he has you put your weight on project status. This is where you determine where you are at, create an environment to help you achieve your goals, prioritize exercise into your life, and create accountability. It's a good basic plan toward weight goals. Chapter two contains a three stage plan to what Dr. Phil calls weight loss freedom. There is a 14-day rapid start plan, the continuation plan, and then maintenance. Chapter three has menus for the stages. The menus are contain pretty basic dishes and guidelines.
Chapter four has some behavioral, nutritional restaurant, travel, vacation, social, and stress-eating strategies to help you with your weight loss and healthy eating. Finally, chapter five teaches you how to use the food guide that takes up the rest of the book. Besides telling you what you'll find in the guide, there are some good tips on healthy eating in this chapter.
The guide itself is basically a huge chart of thousands of entries Each entry lists the following: Serving, Calories, Protein, Carbohydrates, Fat/Saturated Fat, Cholesterol, Fiber, Sugars, and Sodium. Essentials the main things most dieters want to know about their foods. For example, the entry for a frozen, ready to bake, apple turnover lists: 1 serving would be one turnover, 284 calories, 4 g Protein, 31 g carbohydrates, 16 grams fat with 4 of those grams saturated fat, na for cholesterol, 2 grams fiber, 11 grams sugars, and 176 mg sodium.
Again, there are a lot of entries here. However, they are not as easy to find as I'd like. Part of this is because foods are divided into what are called high-response cost, high-yield foods and low-response cost, low-yield foods. So you can find beef entries on page 150 and the following pages and on page 418 and the pages that follow. So first you need to look in the contents and determine where your desired food is, and then go look through the food guide sections to find it. So there is a lot of information here, but it is not the easiest to find. Additionally, there are entries where you might have to guess what you have and how it compares to the entries in the book.
Bottom line, for the price, this book has a lot of listings and information, but you do have to work a bit to find it. I'd say a five star book for the amount of listings, but three stars for organization, so that's how I came up with the four star rating. It you have a collection of health eating books, this is not a bad addition. If you want a food guide in your kitchen, this is not bad either. You'll just have to get used to how to find the listings you need and then make the choices that best suit you. And of course, there is some good general information on diet, losing weight, and healthy eating in the first five chapters.