Simple concept, yet very effective

I have always been someone that has been concerned with my overall health and body weight. This started long before I was in the military, however, the military truly made me understand how to eat better and what to do to control my weight and the weight of others while I was a personal trainer within the ranks.

Through the last 4-5 years I have learned so much about how to eat, what to eat, how to lose the weight, and what is necessary to maintain a healthy regular diet that provides great energy without the added health detriments.

With all of this background, I still find it interesting to read the different health books that come onto the market. This is partially because I'm always interested in the variety of different theories that are out there, but also because I really do like the knowledge as it allows me to help others in their own weight loss goals.

Eat This Not That!
Probably one of the best books that I have read over the last year is also one of the simplest of all weight loss concepts. This book of course is Eat This Not That by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding.

The concept of the book is that by simply changing where you eat or what brand you eat you can get the same items, with relatively similar tastes, but substantially reduce the number of calories or fat that you take in. While I didn't think at first this was as viable as simply eating better foods, I quickly began to realize as I read more and did my own research that you really can make a huge difference just by comparing labels and going with the better of the two evils.

Throughout the book, the authors talk about how bad many foods are for you. Some foods that people consume on a regular basis contain more calories than the average person should consume in a single day. This is because of all of the different flavorings, preservatives, and the like that are added to food in order to make it more appealing specifically to Americans, but more increasingly to other cultures who are adapting the American style of cooking.

Once it is established that many foods are just horrible for you, the authors go a different route, pointing out ways that you can eat the foods that you want, but by switching the company that you purchase them from or the brand that you buy, you could make a substantial difference on your overall intake. A good example of this was choosing a Swansons Turkey Pot Pie over a Pepperidege Farms one. This switch alone would save over 600 calories. When I went to the store I found numerous other swaps that you could do that would save you a great deal of calories as well without really sacrificing all that much flavor in the process and without having to result to the typical low calorie options which are virtually flavorless.

More than anything the book teaches you have to focus on your goals and realize that if you just change little processes and your mindset somewhat, you can lose weight or slow your weight gain by just doing little things. I for one started examining what I eat much more closely and now choose what beverages I drink based on this, my salad dressings, which I found have major differences from brand to brand. I found that if you buy Kraft brand dressings they typically have 50-100 calories less per serving than most other similar quality dressings and still have a great taste.

Just by comparing what I would have consumed and what I swapped for the month of January, I found that I saved myself from consuming nearly 6,000 calories. If you do the math, I stopped myself from gaining about 2-3 pounds. While this isn't a massive number, you must keep in mind that this is from simply changing brands and eating the same foods that I desire, when I desire them. This isn't from removing items from my diet.

Final Thoughts
This is an excellent book that really shows people how much of a difference they can make in their diet just by doing simple changes to their regular diet. Just by experimenting with it myself and doing my own research, it made a huge difference on how many calories I consumed over the month of January and I expect it to continue to make a major difference as I continue with the program.