The Game On Diet
By Krista Vernoff and Az Ferguson
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Pub. Date: June 2009
ISBN-13: 9780061718892
291pp

The Short of It:

A fun, competitive way to take off a few pounds.

My Thoughts:

When I first agreed to join a Game On Diet team, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Dawn made it sound like so much fun and I had read Book Club Girl’s posts about Game On and I was intrigued with her success on the program. However, when the book came, I was a bit overwhelmed.

You see, there are points to be made and penalties to be had. A good choice could get you points for your team but a BAD choice could cost your team points and who wants to be the one bad egg in a group of Grade AA’s? Not me!!

Here’s the gist of it:

• You need to eat 5 mini meals a day.
• You must avoid F.L.A.B.B foods (basically, anything that tastes good)
• You must get at least 20 minutes of exercise in every day unless it’s your day off.
• No diet sodas, no artificial sweeteners, no white flour, no alcohol…
• You must give up a bad habit and replace it with a healthy habit.
• You must drink 3 liters of water a day (except for day off)

There’s more, but you get the idea. Basically all that was lovely and good in the way of food goes bye-bye and gets replaced with Greek yogurt (and lots of it!), low-fat string cheese, low-fat cottage cheese, veggies, nuts and palm sized portions of protein. Now there are other foods out there that fit the program but because most of the foods I picked had to be easy and quick to grab, I ended up with a lot of dairy in my diet. When I incorporate what I’ve learned into my everyday diet, I plan to balance it out a bit more.

What I’ve Learned:

• I really can live on 5 small meals and not be hungry.
• Food played a big a role in my life. I ate out a lot and it was actually a form of entertainment. How sad! I now know to balance it out a bit more. I plan to enjoy the people I am with and not focus on the food so much.
• I’ve learned that I like exercise. Having a routine has really helped me feel a lot better.
• That my previous diet was filled with processed foods. Eating whole foods has actually killed all my cravings for the bad stuff.

Now a bit about the book itself. I feel that the book is broken down into logical, very readable sections. However, it is missing an index which I could have really used since I had to refer to the book often while playing the game. I appreciate the humor to a degree, but during week 3, which I felt was the toughest week, I found the humor to be a bit irritating. It could be that the lack of fried foods in my diet sucked my sense of humor dry. That’s always a possibility.

Overall, I found the team concept to be very effective and in the end, I lost a total of 10 lbs. I had a slight gain one week (damn that week 3) which slowed me down but I am happy with losing what I did and I feel as if I can follow this program on a regular basis. Four weeks was just enough time for things to become habit for me.

Here are the teams. They should all be given a huge round of applause:

Ti of Book Chatter and Other Stuff
Jill of Rhapsody in Books
Julie of Booking Mama
Amy of My Friend Amy
Jill of Fizzy Thoughts