The Juice Diet by Christine Bailey: Lose Weight, Detox, Tone Up & Stay Healthy - Paperback (2010) | Perfect for Weight Loss, Cleansing & Healthy Lifestyle

This book has revolutionized my life. Seriously.I tried the "Reboot with Joe" juice diet as well as a few others, but I was always hungry no matter what. This diet, which allows you to choose from three types and durations of programs (or to do them consecutively), includes the kinds of meals and snacks I would naturally have anyway (salads loaded with vegetables, hummus and crudités, herbal teas, nuts and seeds, olives and artichoke hearts), so it's not in any way the kind of departure from the norm that the occasionally very strange meal recipes of RWJ represent (which also require lots of planning, preparation and acclimatization to incorporate). Also, whereas RWJ requires often drinking the same kind of juice two days in a row, this one includes an incredible variety of juices with no overlap—and I have yet to try one that isn't delicious. The juices are not only tasty and (many of them) atypical, they also include such things as small amounts of plain yogurt, flax seed meal and green superfood powders (no specific brand, so it's easier). I found I wasn't really losing weight doing the food and juice together because it's such a nutrient-dense diet, but cutting out much of the food solved the problem. The juices by themselves are very substantial and surprisingly energizing; I really feel like I'm getting a wide and plentiful variety of nutrients each day. It was new to me to be adding anything at all to my juice, but the additions really do help make the juices a true meal replacement while meeting your needs for such things as essential fatty acids (EFAs).I also completely love the way this book is laid out. It includes a complete shopping list for each program as well as a thorough rundown of everything you're to consume each day, broken down in order by meal and snack (e.g., breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, and so on). The juices are in bold type and include recipe page numbers for each listing. Any homemade foods (like bean and veggie soup) include simple recipes right there in the text so you don't have to keep flipping to other pages to find and make them. The covers have page-marker flaps so it literally could not be easier to go back and forth from the daily lists to the juice recipes. I also found it much easier to adjust the diet to exclude or replace items as needed than I've found it with any other book. It just has a really intuitive layout. Thought and care have been given to making the book and each plan as user-friendly as possible. Even the suggestions included, especially for selecting a plan(s), are valuable—not the kind of basic advice that anyone with an ounce of common sense would already know or that would be immediately self-evident.I've been juicing a long time and have many books and a Word document I made of favorite recipes, but this book contains many items and combinations that I had never tried, and that have turned out to be both delicious and surprisingly filling. Major bonus: I've been trying to replicate Whole Foods' fabulous "Belly Rub" juice for ages and there's a recipe in this book that tastes almost the same. Score! This book is a winner in every way. Even if you're juicing for health and not to lose weight, it's worth getting this one just for the recipes.