INTRODUCTION Quick show of hands: How many people have rapidly lost a significant amount of weight on the 17 Day Diet? Let''s see, that''s one, two, three . uh, looks like a lot of people. Now, I''m happy to say that you''re going to be able lose even more weight and enjoy it even more with this brand-new cookbook. Introducing The 17 Day Diet Cookbook . Before you start to panic, rest assured that you don''t need to shout and jump and spin knives, make meals that look like a major work of art, or get a degree from Le Cordon Bleu. All you need are some easy-to-follow, easy-to-prepare recipes that are extraordinarily delicious. This cookbook gives you all that and more. Most of the recipes can be prepared in 30 minutes or less.

There are no long lists of ingredients, complicated cooking methods, or hard-to-understand directions. All the recipes are built around the foods you eat on the 17 Day Diet. The 17 Day Diet is a 4-cycle nutrition program that makes it fast and easy to lose weight, without feeling deprived or hungry all the time. With this companion cookbook, you''ll have delectable recipes at your fingertips so you can lose even more weight without giving up delicious foods. It''s the perfect way for people with refined palates to lose weight and get healthy. As a family practice physician and an advocate of preventive health, I believe healthy food can still be wonderful. I refuse to accept that a diet has to involve going to extremes or that diet food has to taste like cardboard. It doesn''t! It just has to be thoughtfully prepared, in a reasonable amount of time, and taste incredibly good.

That''s the kind of food you''ll find in this book. I encourage you to try several of these recipes each week to reap the benefits. Broken record, I know, but if you''re going to eat healthily and lose more weight, you need to cook more at home. When you do, you have control over what you eat and more control over how much weight you ultimately lose. My nutrition team has developed recipes that taste good and are high in nutrition. We use ingredients that are mainly found in your average grocery store. Use these recipes, and you may never feel like you''re on a diet, either! What I enjoyed most about putting this cookbook together was that I got to sample and test new recipes before they appeared in this book. Some of my favorites are Polynesian London Broil, Tuscan Pork Tenderloin, Crab Cakes, Open-Faced Reuben, Spiced Edamame, Microwaved Mashed Potatoes, Mexican Chocolate Pudding, Chocolaty Frozen Yogurt .

well, I could go on and on. They''re all my favorites! I''d like to emphasize, too, that cooking at home can also save you a bundle, because you''ll likely spend less buying groceries than eating out, and it even can make dating cheaper. After all, who isn''t impressed by a partner who knows how to cook? Restaurants must charge high prices in order to pay their employees and other bills. If you cook at home, you design the menu and keep the tips yourself! For health and wealth, there''s just no match for a good home-cooked meal, so please start serving more of them. Home cooking isn''t rocket science, either. Lots of us cook and eat. And lots of us love to talk about cooking and eating. We''re obsessed with food.

With all due respect to baseball, eating is America''s real national pastime. Personally, I just love food. Food and I go way back, more than 43 years now. One of my favorite ways to relax from a day at my office is to come home, roll up my sleeves, and fire up the oven. I''m quite satisfied in the kitchen, experimenting with new recipes, sipping a glass of wine, and enjoying what I''ve created. And you''ll get to enjoy some of these creations right here in this book. So, if you''re in a dietary rut, want to lose even more weight, or are in need of a little inspiration, The 17 Day Diet Cookbook is for you! Refresher Course: The 17 Day Diet The 17 Day Diet is a 4-cycle program designed to take weight off rapidly. Isn''t that what you want? Hardly anyone I know likes to endure depressingly slow weight loss.

We want to be trim now, look great now, and feel great now. The 17 Day Diet gets you to where you want to be quickly, without a lot of sacrifice, hunger pangs, or cravings. The diet is nutritionally sound, easy to follow, and it works. I call it the best thing since the sliced bread you''ll give up (but only for the first 2 cycles). Trust me, this is a phenomenal diet. I''ve had people lose 10 to 12 pounds over the first 17 days, and kept losing steadily right down to their goals. Of course, individuals do vary in their results. The beauty of this program is that you won''t get discouraged or bored by the prospect of staying on a diet for what seems like forever because you''re shedding fat so quickly.

You''ll love the fact that in 7, 10, or 17 days, you''ll be slimmer. And if your results are like so many others, you''ll feel a lot lighter and have an absurd amount of energy. Overview of the 4 Cycles The beauty of the 17 Day Diet is that it works in 4 cycles, depending on how much weight you''d like to lose. Cycle 1 is the initial 17 day period during which you give up all bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, baked goods, fruit, candy, cake, ice cream, and alcohol. It''s the strictest period, but also when the most rapid weight loss occurs. And it''s easier than you think. You won''t even miss carbs after a few days, because your body gets used to not relying on them. You get to eat unlimited amounts of certain proteins and vegetables.

And you''ll supplement your daily diet with probiotics like yogurt and kefir, foods shown in research to help the body burn fat. The great thing about Cycle 1 is that you can use it anytime: when you need to break a plateau, get back to your goal weight, fit into a smaller dress size for the weekend or a swimsuit for a cruise, anytime you want to accelerate your weight loss and do it safely. Cycle 1 is one of your best quick-weight loss resources. During Cycle 2, you slowly begin to reintroduce certain carbs, such as legumes, whole grains, and starchy vegetables, along with lots of other foods. Weight loss continues, and still fairly rapidly. And now, you can drink a little wine, something most diets forbid. On Cycle 3, you get to eat a huge of array of healthy foods: breads, more meats, more starches, and fun foods like low-carb frozen dessert treats. You ease off some of the strictness of the first 2 cycles, while still continuing to knock off pounds.

Every 17 days you''re changing things up, so you never get bored. Every day is exciting, because you see the results on your scale or in your more loosely fitting clothes. Cycle 4 is the maintenance period that, ideally, you stay on the rest of your life. It lets you stay at your new weight as long as you do two things: enjoy yourself on the weekend, and use your favorite cycle during the week. So, once you''re happy with your new svelte self, continue to enjoy occasional forbidden foods. Just do so carefully or you''ll find yourself back on a slippery slope to your prediet weight. If you fall off the wagon for a weekend or, say, on a vacation, don''t panic. Just jump back to Cycle 1 to quickly shave off any weight you gain.

Why the 17 Day Diet Works So Well Eliminating unhealthy foods from your system keeps them from making a beeline to your belly and elsewhere. Healthy foods do the opposite. The higher amounts of lean protein you eat on this diet, for example, boost your metabolism in a number of physiologically active ways. This diet is high in fiber, too, which is an appetite suppressant, a detoxifier, and a food component that ushers bad calories out of your system before they have time to camp out on your thighs. Then there is the addition of probiotics, now believed to keep fat formation in check. Another reason that the 17 Day Diet works is because you''re changing your calorie count and the foods you eat. By varying these things, you keep your body and metabolism guessing. I call this body confusion .

The scale is less likely to get stuck. The added bonus: You''ll never get bored. And it''s fun watching those pounds melt off. So, confusion is good! But, more important, the 17 Day Diet works because it''s realistic and sustainable. Nothing derails a diet faster than distressing round-the-clock hunger pangs, or boredom. But the 17 Day Diet isn''t about depriving yourself of food or variety. I encourage you to eat until you are no longer hungry, even snack between meals, as long as you''re eating the right foods. That doesn''t mean just broccoli, either.

Nuts, cheeses, and other delicious foods are permitted as you progress through the cycles. There are so many choices, too, that you''ll never get bored. Let''s Start Cooking and Losing You''ve read this and you''re a believer, and you can''t wait to get started. To learn all the intricacies of how and why the diet works, you need to get the book, The 17 Day Diet , and its other companion book, The 17 Day Diet Workbook . If you can''t get to the bookstore right away, here''s an overview of the diet: Quick and Easy Overview of the 17 Day Diet Cycle Purpose Cycle 1: Accelerate (17 days) To promote rapid weight loss by improving digestive health. This cycle helps clear sugar from the blood to boost fat-burning and discourage fat storage. Cycle 2: Activate (17 days) To reset your metabolism through a strategy that involves increasing and decreasing your caloric consumption to stimulate fat-burning, and to help preve.