The Sonoma Diet - Eating in California Wine Country Everyday
Written: Feb 01 '06 (Updated Feb 03 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Healthy balanced eating plan
Cons: Complicated recipes that simply don't taste good
The Bottom Line: A sensible eating plan if you have lots of time to shop for, prepare and cook fresh foods.
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| mmcphee's Full Review: The Sonoma Diet: Trimmer Waist, Better Health in J... |
It was an impulse purchase. I was in the grocery, unable to decide what to cook, so I went down the book aisle and spotted the The Sonoma Diet on sale. Even though I was not interested in a new diet plan the recipes looked pretty good I bought the book.
The Basics
This book covers all you need to know about the Sonoma Diet and includes recipes. These eating plan is inspired by California wine country cuisine and the Mediterranean. There is an on emphasizes low fat protein and dairy, whole grains, vegetables and fruit. That author, Dr. Connie Guttersen, is a registered dietitian.
The Diet
Although I bought this book mostly for the recipes I did put some effort into following the diet as well. The diet is based on the idea of dividing your plate into portions of various food categories, eliminating the need for weighing or measuring food. You do however need a 7” and 9” diameter plate. The diet relies on eating foods in the right combinations at specific times of the day.
There are 3 waves to the diet. Wave one is the first 10 days and is designed to purge your body its desire for processed foods. While you do get to eat whole grains, there is no white flour, sugar, fruit or starchy vegetables. You can still enjoy black coffee or tea.
There is a complete menu guide for the 10-days, as well as instructions for designing your own meals. Breakfasts are generally egg based while lunches and dinners feature mostly fish and chicken with vegetables. In wave 1 the breakfasts are generally 75% protein and 25 % whole grain served on a 7” plate - think scrambled egg and a slice of toast. Alternately you can have 1 c whole grain cereal with some skim milk. Lunch and dinner are served on 9” plates. Lunch is 40% and 60% vegetables while dinner is 30% protein, 20% whole grains and 50% vegetables.
Wave two is the weight loss portion of the eating plan. You will stay in this wave until you have lost all of your weight. At this time you can add back in most fruits and some of the starchy vegetables. You also get to enjoy a glass of wine everyday if you like and dark chocolate 3 times per week. While breakfast proportions stay the same in wave two, lunch and dinner are both 25% each of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and protein/dairy.
Wave three is the maintenance portion where you can add more fruits and vegetables as well as the occasional treat, although you still must follow the basics tenants of the meal plan. If you start to gain weight the book recommends that you revert back to wave one or two to get yourself back on track.
There is an emphasis on what are called the "power foods." These are almonds, bell peppers, blueberries, broccoli, grapes, olive oil, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes, and whole grains. When making a choice about what food to eat the power foods should be eaten often.
The Recipes
There are about 100 recipes in the book. Most of them feature vegetables, chicken and fish. There is a recipe index in the back to help you find a recipe. Leftovers from the dinner entrees are used in some of the lunch recipes although there is no cross reference to remind you ahead of time to make extra. All of the recipes use fresh ingredients. Each recipe features time estimates for prep and cooking time as well the number of servings.
My Experience
Well, I lasted about 1 ½ days on the Sonoma Diet, and that was on my 4th try. This just isn’t for me. I like fruit and I like white bread and I don’t like eggs or fish. While I suppose having a detailed menu for those first 10 days could be helpful to some, I found it too rigid and it wasn’t easy to find foods to substitute and still keep the same percentages from the various food groups. Since processed foods are off limits there are not a lot of options and adapting other recipes to this meal plan can be hard.
While it is possible to customize the diet there are a lot of rules to follow. There is a handy pull-put guide in the book to help keep the rules and allowable foods. Of course to plan it on your own is going to require even more time and effort. The percentages make it sound easy, but unless you really want to stare at a pile of plain broccoli on your plate day in and day out you really either need to follow the recipes or eat very simple (boring) food since there are so many ingredients that you can’t use. If are a person who likes just a splash of lemon juice on your green beans then you probably don’t need this diet to begin with.
If this is how people in the California wine country eat, then they must all have personal chefs. I enjoy cooking but this was ridiculous. It would take me over an hour to make lunch and close to 2 to make dinner following the suggested menus. I simply don’t have the time to do all of the chopping of vegetables and cooking required for most of the recipes. And while they sounded good there is not one recipes in the dozen or so that we tried that anyone wanted to eat again. Few of the recipes are “kid friendly” but after spending all that time to make a meal I didn’t have time to make anything else.
Make time in your schedule for lots more grocery shopping too. Since you will be using lots of fresh foods you aren't going to be able to shop once a week. You will need to keep restocking your kitchen with all of the perishables you will be eating. You will probably also see a significant increase in your grocery bill, especially if you have a family that won't eat fat free dairy or whole grain breads.
In my non-expert opinion I do think this can be a healthy way of eating. It is lots of vegetables, fruits and low-fat protein. For me the change was just too radical. I personally need to make smaller changes much more slowly to have them stick. You need a lot of motivation to follow this eating plan and I am sure that I could have done the 10 day wave one if I really put my mind to it. But knowing this is not a way of eating that I could follow long term made it difficult to stay on it even for a few days.
Is the Sonoma Diet for You?
I think the premise of this diet is good; each whole natural foods while shunning processed manufactured food. However the recipes aren’t good especially for the time and effort required to prepare meals. If you like a meal plan that tells you what to eat when and have lots of time to cook then give the Sonoma Diet a try.
This has been an entry in the Drive the CL's Crazy W/O - a.k.a. Expand the Data Base W/O hosted by captaind
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