Hi folks – I got the recipe book and started on the BSD about three weeks before my copy of the BSD book arrived (I had to order it in), and I found the recipe book plus the website contained sufficient information to start on the BSD. When the BSD book arrived, I was relieved to know I’d been following it to the letter ๐ I think the recipe book is fantastic – I have always loved cooking, and the recipe book showed me that I could still have fun cooking delicious food, and taught me a whole bunch of new ideas and ways of preparing food. Fantastic!
I’m four weeks in now and loving the diet. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good in life.
BUT…. the calorie counts are often underestimated (as pointed out by others above), or sometimes inconsistent. For example, compare the ‘Apple and Cinnamon Porridge’ with ‘Spicy Fruit Porridge’ (they are on pp 34 and 36 of the Australian and New Zealand Edition). They have _exactly_ the same ingredients and quantities, except that the latter also has ‘a knob of butter’. Yet the calorie count is given as 260 for the former, and 210 for the latter – so, the knob of butter somehow ‘removes’ 50 calories from what is otherwise an identical list of ingredients ๐ ??
Also, some recipes list ingredients and then don’t tell you what to do with them… like they are accidentally left out of the instructions. Luckily I could use my imagination and figure it out.
But I hope there will be a corrected edition before too long.
And having said all, that, when I make something out of the book (which is about half of the time) I just use the calorie count as in the book, and my progress on the BSD with regard to weight and waist circumference has been fantastic.