Men's Health The MetaShred Diet: Your 28-Day Rapid Fat-Loss Plan. Simple. Effective. Amazing.

While I bought this book directly from Rodale Press rather than Amazon, there was no place to review it at Rodale and I thought it was worth a review.A little background. I am a 57 year old male who has maintained an above average fitness level my entire life. However, due to travel and sloppy eating habits, I had picked up 25 pounds that I wanted to lose. I have never been a big fan of diets because I find myself battling hunger as well as bonking during workouts when dieting. I did a fair amount of research to try and figure out what looked like it might help me attain my goal, and settled on The MetaShred Diet.Did it work? Yes. Since the beginning of December 2017, I have lost 17 pounds following the 28 day plan. (There is a 56 day plan as well; I chose not to do it that way. Rather, I'll start the 28 day cycle again in January.) I probably would have lost more had I not splurged on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I did maintain my normal workout schedule which is a mix of cardio, weight lifting, and HIIT.The recipes that are provided are surprisingly tasty. I am a 'food is fuel' kind of guy, but my wife is a definite foodie, but she liked most of the dinners that I prepared for us. Further, I rarely battled hunger. The caveat to that is that I found that on the mornings that I worked out before breakfast, I struggled with being light headed during the work out. I had to nix the early morning work outs, and the problem went away.While one may not want to keep making the same recipes over and over, I have learned what seems to work for me in terms of both portion size and meal composition. However, if you are looking for a maintenance plan, you will have to put that together for yourself. If you are committed to changing your eating (and drinking) habits, you should be able to figure out how to do that based on what you learn while following the diet.If you do not know the basics of cooking, this book is probably not for you. There is very little prepared food on this diet, so you must be able to use a knife well. Many of the recipes require the ability to sautee, and if you can't do that, you'll be limited in your recipe selection. That being said, if you can do these basic kitchen skills, there are some great recipes, especially the baked sweet potato fries!

Full Transparency. I wrote one of the workout programs for this version of The Meta Shred Diet (I'm Bill from the Lean Effects Program).However, I also used this diet program to drop 37 pounds and get in shape for my Men's Health Magazine photo shoot. We also use this program at my gym as the foundation of our client transformation promotions with great success.Dr. Mike has made the program incredibly easy to follow and the meal plans are outstanding. The best part is how well Dr. Mike explains the key elements of nutrition and makes it meaningful. You'll understand the why, he gives you the what and the how. You just execute.Having been in the fitness industry for 30 years, there's no one I trust more than Dr. Mike with my health. It's the best diet book you can buy.

follow up comments a year after first doing the recommended 28-day plan. I continue to appreciate the in-depth explanations of food chemistry and body responses to different foods and eating practices. By normalizing key aspects of the MetaShred approach I have stayed right around the target weight I achieved in the 28 day start. If my exercise routine increases, I’ll drop 3 or 4 lbs below that 180# set point. There is so much variety in the recepie choices offered in the book I am surprised to read other reviewers say “there is nothing I want to eat”. I’ve adapted a number of the recepies to the way I like to cook and family members don’t find anything ‘diet like’ about many of the dinners. The protein smoothies are a little bit ‘out there’ but actually work quite well in the ‘get me through the day’ department since they are filling and you know they are the right thing to have after a couple hours at the gym or on the bike.The discussion of the body’s and brain’s chemical reactions to nutritional inputs is useful to understanding the diet itself. However as other reviewers have suggested, this connection is not completely linear nor obvious. Part of the ‘charm’ of Roussell’s pitch is the panache and variety of the recipies. However, many are challenging, include unusual ingrediants, require significant planning, shopping and preparation time and are more complicated than necessary to accomplish the diet’s goals. The protein smoothies are practical, portable and work well for snacks or even meal replacements. The 28-day idea is good to get you focused for a significant but do-able time period. It establishes and rewards the requisite discipline and is thus self-reinforcing. I followed the plan closely for the 28 days loosing the desired 10# in the first 2 weeks and then basically maintaining my desired weight of 180# since.My suggestions would be to read the book, then take the week before you start the 28-day plan to identify preferred meals and recipes, shop carefully, practice up on your smoothie technique, make a double or triple batch of a main course or two that you know you will like—say a gallon of turkey chili—and freeze some of it. This will give you a plan B for when you come home starved and don’t feel like cooking for an hour and eating late.I’m 71, very active and have good life-time core eating habits so the 28-day plan for me involved a shift to more protein-dense, lower-carb meals and healthy snacks on a more regular schedule while eliminating indescriminent snacking, beer and wine on weeknights and replacing ice cream and high calorie deserts with fruits with low-fat dairy choices such as yougurt or cottage cheese.ultimately you have to have a long-term food approach that matches with your activity level. The 28-day regimen was long enough for me to re-enforce good, sustainable eating habits. I make my own version of several of the book’s meals and have found acceptable take-out versions from my local ‘health food’ stores of some metashred meals (try the chicken vindaloo at whole foods for example). I have continued to minimize consumption of bread and pasta. I snack on air-popped pop corn, almonds, some dark chocolate and continue to avoid week-day alcohol and don’t really miss the ice cream. good luck, you can do it.

Great read and all makes sense, I haven't yet done the diet but fully intend on doing it. Only reason I haven't give it 5 stars is being an American book, all the recipe measurements are in American values and not UK values so a little extra work in converting the measurments. But great book so get it if you're thinking about it!

Updated look on existing concepts, "broisms" explained and moved asided, all of the content are well put together

Overall quite good. It would be nicer if he explained and guided the reader how to select the nutrient if he wanted the reader do their own reserches.How to quantify the nutrients, and be able on grounds in food planning. Most of the book is well documented. Many part are well guided, Thank you.

Wish that this book has some pictures but overall a great diet plan. Felt like I had too much food to eat at times but some of the recipes have become family favorites

Very logical, and well thought out diet plan, takes out the guesswork and gives you a plan without calorie counting. Recommended.