The Lose Your Belly Diet was a much anticipated book on Amazon at the start of this year and I just finished reading it. It was written by Dr. Travis Stork who is also known to be a celebrity Doctor as well as health and weight loss specialist.
Now I had read Dr. Stork’s previous book, called the Doctor’s Diet a few years ago and that book was very popular, provided a pretty great overall guide to a healthy lifestyle that combined both dieting and eating tips with exercise methods. That book almost felt “complete”.
But what could Dr. Stork’s new book possibly add to the old? Well he actually mentions that it’s an update to the other one in the first few pages, so let me share what’s inside this book and if it’s information can REALLY help you burn fat.
Contents
What is this book about and what is the actual strategy for losing belly fat that it uses?
Well this is the first book I’ve read where the supposed culprit of fat, diseases and health issues is the lack of having enough healthy bacteria in your body known as microbes, although I have personally been told this by various natural health practitioners so the content is something I personally know about.
Basically, healthy people, fit people are said to have a higher amount of healthy bacteria in their body. This bacteria, contrary to what you may think isn’t bad for you, but good. It helps in aiding your body in performing some of the most essential functions such as digestion.
A healthy amount of these microbes in the body, we’re talking trillions as mentioned in the book is a sign of good health and a great way to aid the body in optimizing it’s inside functions and thus giving you a healthier you.
A lack of it however, which Dr. Stork has cited several studies on which involved obese individuals pointed to a lower amount of healthy microbes.
So there’s living bacteria inside the body? Isn’t that dangerous?
No, it is a fact that there are microscopic organisms in our body besides cells that work with our body and against it. Microbes (called gut bacteria), the healthy kind are passed onto us apparently through birth from our mothers and then it is based on how we lead our lives, especially in how we eat and even exercise that determines if we will have a healthy amount of them or not and the amount we has is apparently directly proportional to how healthy we are.
Dr. Stork makes an interesting analogy in the book about how for example, a yard has much more living things within the it the closer we look and that is how we should look at our bodies.
There are also a number of different species of microbes inside the body all of which are important to keep alive and in healthy numbers.
So having healthy numbers of bacteria in the body means we can lose weight and fat correct?
Yes, as they help the body perform better, a healthier amount of these things help you burn fat more faster and maintain other healthy functions.
If that is the case, what is the diet plan laid out in the book that helps you have a healthy amount of bacteria?
Well what surprised me was that a diet that is high in fiber is the healthiest and best way to have a supportive and healthy microbe count. Dr. Stork points to several foods that while high in fiber should be eaten to help you maintain that count.
Foods such as legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains and certain vegetables.
Dr. Stork mentions that people who do not get a healthy amount of daily fiber in their daily life, can have unhealthy amounts of microbe counts which can affect many things in your body negatively. He suggest that men for example, eat anywhere from 30-40 grams daily, but it also age dependent, whereas women should eat 20 to under 30 grams a day.
There is also a chart provided in the book which lists the highest fiber foods available in the meal plan of this book. Flaxseeds for example, are something that I eat regularly had about 8-10 grams per serving!
Is there an actual meal plan to Dr.Stork’s diet?
Yes, there are essentially 5 points to The Lose Your Belly Diet and they are all meant to target and fuel the growth of the gut bacteria because as you know, doing so aids in weight loss.
1) You basically are told to eat the 2 most powerful dairy products…
That actually have what are known as probiotics (living organisms in the food that directly add to the growth of them inside the body).
These 2 things are Yogurt and Kefir.
Now not all of them are the same and to differentiate which ones have the healthy kind of probiotics you need, there are directions in the book for how to read the labels and make the right pick.
2) Eat high fiber fruits and vegetables.
Lima beans, blueberries for example provide good sources of fiber, among other foods listed in the book. When it comes to cooking, Dr. Stork suggests eating your vegetables raw. Out of the list provided, certain ones can be eaten in limitless amounts, while others, such as corn, beans, things with high starch for example, are recommended in limited amounts daily.
3) Proteins. Not the type you’d expect…
Although Dr. Stork does say it’s ok to eat meats in certain amounts, the biggest endorsements for protein in this book come in the form of fish (ex: Salmon, trout, herring, tuna), shellfish, legumes, nuts, eggs and basically vegetables and grains and seeds that are high in proteins. Things that are high in omega 3 content.
Veggie burgers are also recommended.
4) Grains. Yes grains.
One of the other surprising things I found is that Dr. Stork is not a hardcore opponent of eating grains. Recent weight loss books I’ve read have basically all but made me quit them entirely in saying anything with grain, even healthy types in even limited amount may be bad for your insulin and other things.
However, Dr. Stork I believe disagrees because he says healthy types of grains can be beneficial. Things like Quinoa, which I agree are grains that have high fiber and protein content.
Other foods like whole pasta, whole pasta, whole bread are allowed in small portions and there’s an abundance of choices here to mix in with the other foods from the other 4 guidelines.
5) Fats, healthy fats.
This was the only part of the 5 part plan which didn’t have in my opinion enough food choices other than olive oil, avocado, guacamole and a few other things.
As someone who has recently been on board with being on a high fat eating plan, I am a bit disappointed that Dr. Stork didn’t add more content in this area, because as I have tested it personally, a high fat diet can be very powerful when you eat it correctly.
Although you can count eggs, fish with oils, and nuts as healthy fats too.
This piece should have in my opinion been more developed and I do recommend 2 things (1 of them on it’s own is also good):
A) Read Eat Fat, Get Thin. It is one of the most comprehensive guides to healthy high fat eating that I have personally taken tips from to lose several pounds.
B) 10 fat loss cheats. It’s a free eBook I wrote from seeing the best ways to drop weight (via healthy methods).
The 5 guidelines put together make up a daily, weekly and long term plan for fat loss:
Each guideline above has it’s own list of foods. Your goal is to implement every guideline’s foods, at least some, every day for maximum probiotic gains and weight loss effects.
The book itself has a nice 4 week sample meal plan where everyday there is a chart provided with different foods that are friendly for this plan and will help you get used to eating the way you should to accommodate your gut bacteria and in turn accommodate your weight and fat loss, around the belly.
The Lose Your Belly Diet Score:
4 out of 5 stars. This score actually matches the average Amazon score this book got from people. My reasoning for this rating however is different and here is how I broke down the plan’s value:
Conclusions:
Dr. Stork has from what I’ve read always had a very rounded opinion of weight loss issues meaning he was never hardcore to one type of eating style vs another, but more about changing and eating from a broad spectrum of foods that are good for you to maintain an overall healthy life.
The tips themselves aren’t in my opinion directly weight loss oriented, but you will lose weight by following The Lose Your Belly Diet Plan. One thing that is also mentioned is the importance of exercise, and there are exercise plans provided to perform in accordance with this eating plan.
If this is your first time hearing about healthy bacteria or gut bacteria, don’t let the word “bacteria” frighten you. This is a well known concept and part of the human anatomy that has been accepted.
Read the labels on things like acidophilus, a popular probiotic supplement (also recommended) or consider that many good doctors who prescribe antibiotics (notice the term is ANTI-BIOTICS) to people also recommend probiotics to be eaten while you’re on the antibiotic to help maintain a healthy number of gut bacteria.
These things are truly important for our health and things that aid our health naturally aid our body, hence the fat loss.
Why this plan is not so special.
While I did enjoy the book and learned about foods that are good for our “gut bacteria”, a normal, healthy diet will also have these types of foods in it, so even if you know nothing about gut bacteria or even try to focus on it, just eating in healthy ways that is common sense is enough to lose weight and maintain a healthy number of them.
Basically The Lose Your Belly Diet comes to the same conclusion about eating healthy, but it’s thesis is on the gut bacteria, that’s all.
Recommended eating plans if your focus is more on weight loss results…
As I said, there’s 2 supplemental books/plans you may want to take a look at the Eat Fat, Get Thin book if you wish to get a higher understanding of high fat eating plans so you get more out of guideline 5 above and the more powerful, 10 fat loss cheats which also has many probiotic food recommendations, but is the type of plan that I’d recommend for people interested more in weight loss.
I think it’s more flexible and powerful than The Lose Your Belly Diet.
Hey vitaly,
This was a very interesting book Review.
I have to admit I’ve never really heard of travis stork, I’m not one for diet hopping.
I’ve always believed making sensible food choices most of the time while leading an active lifestyle (I.e. Exercise) is the way to go, basically lead a generally healthier lifestyle.
I did enjoy your piece and it seems Travis is basically suggesting eat healthier foods like many diet books but he is backing it up with science as well which is good.
Cheers
This is great review of the book and it will save me time having to read it. I agree with your conclusions in that exercised plus a habit of eating a well-balanced range of food.
I have tried many diets over the my 63 years and given up on most. I came to the conclusion that diets don’t work. They can be used to kick-start a weight loss but what worked for me was the realisation that to be healthy I had to make a permanent change to my lifestyle for weight loss to work long term otherwise I finished the diet, successfully or not, then returned to my old ways to put back the weight I had lost.
So, changing my habits permanently was the way to go. That’s a challenge until I read about making 1 change at a time. Now, when I want to make a change, diet related or otherwise, I do it 1 step at time usually allowing a week between a list of changes I want to make. Research has shown it takes around 21-28 days of continuous change to make it permanent. So in any 1 month I can take on around 4 changes to my lifestyle, by doing one new one every week.
It would nice to hear more about the antibiotics effects on the diet and to see if those people who are on long term antibiotic plans end up putting on weight.
Thanks for the review. Alan
Antibiotics can destroy the natural flora/good bacteria so if the lost numbers aren’t made up for, it’s logical to assume that weight can be gained.
This is really a new spin on the weight loss issue. I never would have thought that increasing the amount of good bacteria in the body would play any role in weight loss.
I will be paying extra special attention to my fiber in my diet. Time to up my raw food intake. Not necessarily in a major way. I don’t intend to go on a raw food diet or anything that drastic. I just need to eat more raw veggies.
It’s good to know that delicious yogurt can add to the production or increase of the bacteria because I actually like yogurt so that won’t be a problem. As you suggested we need to pay attention to the type that we purchase and buy the one that says “Active culture” on the label.
This has certainly been an eye opener. Thanks for a very informative review.
Yeah “Active culture” labels indicate that. I would also recommend Kefir in addition to yogurt for more healthy bacteria production Anne.
As someone who studied Microbiology and has a science degree, it’s true that gut bacteria is responsible for metabolizing proteins and fats. In terms of dieting, it means that people who have a healthy level of those bacteria will retain less saturated fats.
Also, there fiber contains no sugars nor any fats but manages to be filling so you end up eating smaller quantities. Great review on the Lose Your Belly Diet book. It’s a shame that whole grains and protein rich foods are harder to come by.
This book seems to be a little more aimed at “healthy eating” than a weight loss plan. On the other hand healthy eating will eventually lead to weight loss and I find it important to create eating habits you can stick to. Diet plans that make you loose a lot of weight quickly will not work in the long run unless they are replaced with a more long term diet plan when you have lost the desired kilos.
Thank you for a great review.
This seems like a good book, the problem with diets is that people rarely stick with them after the initial time they put into it. This seems like it’s advocating for healthy, clean foods that we should be eating normally. There’s no reason to go back to unhealthy foods if we permanently change our diet to clean eating, and adequate portion sizes.
Being someone who advocates eating healthy fats, it’s great to know that diets nowadays are starting to get out of that stigma that having fat in your meal is and will never be healthy for you. Little did most people know that they should eat the healthy kind of fats that can be found in some food like salmon because it has certain vitamins that you can’t find anywhere else.
This type of diet plan make us more aware of the products we buy so that we can check if we really do need this sort of stuff in our body.
It’s great that Dr.Stork found a way to make a plan for people to lose weight and not lose the needed nutrients at the same time. I think that some people will get intimidated or even scared of it but if they read this book, I’m sure their perceptions will change in the end
My perceptions about fat changed right after reading eat fat, get thin, another wonderful book as well as the 3 week diet.
Nice weight loss plan right there. I have a friend who lived his whole life in a foreign country. He always emphasizes one thing. If you want to live a long life then always eat yogurt and honey. It’s very interesting that the book you mentioned pointed that out. Our gut has to have healthy good bacteria in order for us to thrive and fight against any kind of infections. It helps with weight loss too. How cool is that. I love grains too. I don’t think I can give up on my grains since I grew up with them. I will check out this book. I am sure it will help me a lot. Thank you.
Thank you for this great review.
I agree with most of the points here.
For my personal view, I think consuming red meat in moderation is not a big problem when trying to lose body fat, yes, white meat especially fish is an excellent choice.
But sometimes, I do include in some red meat in my diet to offer more variety, especially being a meat lover.
Wish that everyone will be successful in the journey to get ripped.
Hi, it’s nice to see a diet where fats aren’t completely banned. I’ve found lots of diets out there ban fats, and this leads to many vitamin deficiencies since we need certain fats to absorb different vitamins.
I guess one of the things we all must learn from this type of diet planning is to read the labels of the products we buy. So many manufacturer’s add ingredients that are bad for our bodies, and we don’t even check before consuming.
I take my health and fitness very seriously. I joined a gym last year and combined with a proper diet of fruits, nuts, high fibre diet, I feel fitter and healthier than I was twenty years ago. I will be 70 years old this year and look forward to the next twenty years of sparkling health and vitality
It sounds like Dr. Stork has come up with a well balanced plan to lose weight in his second book.
I like that it includes a wide variety of foods from each category like fruits, veggies, etc.
In the book does he tell you how many servings of each type of food from the 5 categories?
Yes he offers serving and portion sizes.
I enjoyed your review of the book. I would agree with your conclusion. His recommendations are simply ones that make common sense. In a lot of ways it is similar to the Mediterranean diet. Fish, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. The key is also on keeping the calories down. By avoiding high calorie carbohydrates and red meat, one is lowering the total amount of calories eaten which will lead to weight loss. Another key is exercise. Clearly exercise works synergistically with diet. Either one alone is not as effective as both of them together.