Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A more comprehensive guide is needed.
The Atkins diet is a regime that works for many or most people. For me, I have gotten back to the weight I was in high school by following the Atkins program. I am a true believer.As followers of Atkins know, the one thing you have to be pretty conscientious about is counting how many grams of carbohydrate are in your diet. While this book is helpful for that, it is far from complete. For example, I like to drink wine. This book only lists a view varieties of alcoholic beverages as regards their carbohydrate gram count. What I was hoping for when I bought this book was something that might have contained say, 3 or 4 dozen varieties of white wine and their gram counts. But no. Same with salad dressings--it would be great to have listings by brand, with dozens of brands. Once again, this book only contains several brands. This book is somewhat better than the gram count section contained at the back of Dr. Atkins book, (Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution) but not a lot better. While this book may be the best available, someone out there would do well to publish a much more comprehensive guide. Adherents of the Atkins program would probably snap it up. The Atkins diet program is a program that works as Dr. Atkins describes it in his book. A comprehensive guide to carbohydrate counts in brand-name foods would be helpful, but this guide falls short.
Rating:  - Quick pocket reference for the diet-conscious.
If you've started the Atkins diet, or at least read the diet book, then you already realize the importance of counting the carbohydrate grams you consume. Please allow me to clear up some FAQ's:1. This book will not teach you how to do the Atkins diet - for that, read Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution. 2. This book will show you total carbohydrate, fat, and protein gram counts for standard portion sizes of general or common foods. For instance, there is a general listing for "fig" but not "Kadota fig" or "Mission". If you are into more exotic fare than the standard American foods listed - say for instance that you like obscure asian fruits like or you're a oeniphile who is interested in the carb count of 60 different varieties of French wine- then you will have to do research for the carbs in your special interest on your own. 3. This book will not make specific recommendations as to which ones to avoid, eat more of, etc. - that's not its job. Instead, you are allowed to make those decisions for yourself based on the information presented and your individual allowance of daily carbs. 4. This book does not list calories because the Atkins diet is qualitative, not quantitative. 5. This book will, however, be a quick on-the-spot reference guide for Atkins dieters. It is designed to be portable and easy to understand at a glance when you need information in a hurry. Are there any flaws? Yes. For one thing, IMHO, the price could come down a bit considering that this book is a very small, almost the size of those supermarket pocket books at the checkout counter that cost only 99 cents or so. Also, it would have been helpful if Dr. Atkins had included the fiber content along with the fats, carbs and protein so that one could calculate total impact carb grams and make more educated decisions. Still, I believe this is the best carb gram counter out there for low-carb dieting purposes. I find myself consulting it quite often.
Rating:  - Handy little carb counting tool!
This is Atkins pocketsized Carbohydrate Gram Counter updated and expanded. For each food item listed carbs, fiber, net carbs, protein, fat and calories are included. A nice difference between this and the older version of the book is the inclusion of net carbs.
The net carb of a food is the impact it will make on your body. These are the only carbs you need to count because they exclude carbohydrates and sugar alcohols. The mini book begins with an introduction that explains the science behind why it's carbohydrates we need to be concerned with not fat. Then the book gives a very basic overview of the Atkins plan. One page also gives portion size guidelines. Really handy. For example 2T peanut butter is about the size of 2 teabags. The rest of the book is devoted to food and beverage counts. Though the book is not as comprehensive as a larger book such as Corrine Netzger's Book of Food Counts it covers quite a few foods. If you are only purchasing one guide, I would purchase a larger one as it is more comprehensive. But its really helpful to have this little book in your purse, pocket or car for quick checks of what you are eating. The small size makes it easy to tote. The back of the book gives tips for dining out and has a small list of popular restaurants and the counts for their food items. I liked the book so well, I purchased two. One for my purse and the other for quick checks on the kitchen counter!
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