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David Zinczenko

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Zero Belly Diet: Lose Up to 16 lbs. in 14 Days! Hardcover – Unabridged, December 30, 2014

by David Zinczenko (Author)

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Zero Belly Diet is the revolutionary new plan to turn off your fat genes and help keep you lean for life! Nutrition expert David Zinczenko—the New York Times bestselling author of the Abs Diet series, Eat This, Not That! series, and Eat It to Beat It!—has spent his entire career learning about belly fat—where it comes from and what it does to us. And what he knows is this: There is nogreater threat to you and your family—to your health, your happiness, even your financial future.

Yes, you can: Change your destiny. Overcome your fat genes. Strip away belly fat and finally attain the lean, strong, healthy body you’ve always wanted.

With Zero Belly Diet, David Zinczenko reveals explosive new research that explains the mystery of why some of us stay thin, and why some can’t lose weight no matter how hard we try. He explains how some foods turn our fat genes on—causing seemingly irreversible weight gain—and uncovers the nine essential power foods that act directly on those switches, turning them to “off” and allowing for easy, rapid, and sustainable weight loss. And he shows how these foods help heal your digestive system, keeping those gene switches turned off and setting you up for a lifetime of leanness.

Other diets can help you lose weight, but only the Zero Belly diet attacks fat on a genetic level, placing a bull’s-eye on the fat cells that matter most: visceral fat, the type of fat ensconced in your belly. These fat cells act like an invading army, increasing inflammation and putting you at risk for diabetes, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, heart disease, and cancer. Visceral fat can also can alter your hormone levels, erode muscle tissue, increase your chances of depression, and destroy your sex drive. But you can turn the odds in your favor.

Zero Belly Diet shows you how to deactivate your fat genes, rev up your metabolism, banish bloat, and balance your digestive health, allowing you to easily build lean, strong stomach muscle and strip away unwanted belly fat without sacrificing calories or spending hours at the gym. The result: weight loss that is easier, faster, more lasting, and more delicious than you’d ever imagine.

You’ll be stunned and inspired by the results of an amazing 500-person test panel—men and women who lost weight quickly, and with ease, following the Zero Belly diet. In just the first 14 days:

Bob McMicken, 51, lost 16.3 pounds
Kyle Cambridge, 28, lost 15 pounds
Martha Chesler, 54, lost 11 pounds
Matt Brunner, 43, lost 14 pounds

Zero Belly Diet features a week-by-week menu plan, fifty tasty recipes, and a handy shopping list that leads to a minimum of cooking and plenty of feasting.

Best of all, Zero Belly Diet offers something more: freedom. Freedom from bloating, freedom from food deprivation, freedom from weight loss fads, freedom from stress. So say goodbye to your paunch and hello to a happier, healthier you!

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ballantine Books
Publication date

December 30, 2014
Dimensions

6.4 x 1.2 x 9.58 inches
ISBN-10

0345547950
ISBN-13

978-0345547958
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Zinczenko is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Zero Belly Diet, Zero Belly Cookbook, Zero Belly Smoothies, and Zero Belly Breakfasts, and the co-author of the Eat This, Not That! franchise (which has sold more than eight million copies worldwide) and the Abs Diet book series. He is a health and wellness contributor at NBC News and has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Rachael Ray and is the award-winning former editor in chief of Men’s Health and editorial director of Women’s Health, Prevention, and Best Life magazines. Zinczenko is also the founder and chief executive of Galvanized Media, where he oversees a number of life-changing wellness brands. He lives in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Why Beating Belly Fat Is Health Goal #1

Your Belly Isn’t Just Sitting There, Looking Sloppy. It’s Actively Trying to Harm Your Heart, Your Muscles—and Even Your Brain!

Any diet plan can promise you weight loss. What Zero Belly offers you is something more: the power to wield food as a weapon, to turn off your fat genes, boost your metabolism, rebalance your gut health, and burn off fat for good.

Zero Belly is about putting your hand firmly on the tiller and turning hard to starboard, steering your life away from the twin icebergs of obesity and illness and out into the open water of a better destiny.

I’m not telling you that Zero Belly is the only way to lose weight. There are thousands of different ways you could achieve weight loss: exercise programs, calorie-restrictive diets, “master cleanses,” even hypnosis. You could have surgery, you could check yourself into a clinic, you could subsist on nothing but grapefruit or peanut butter or mung beans. You could become a Weight Watcher, a Tough Mudder, a Bowflexer, a CrossFitter, a South Beacher, a Dukanite. You can Zumba, you can Shred, you can Spartan Up, you can P90X to your heart’s content. They will all help you get fitter and drop a few pounds.

But they will not do what Zero Belly does: set a bull’s- eye on the fat cells that matter most, and go at them with high-intensity, almost surgical precision until your physical, mental, and emotional health is fully restored.

And now, we interrupt this book for a word from our sponsor:

Hey there, friend! Do you want awesome abs of steel, delts of diamonds, buns of tungsten? Do you want to get ripped, shredded, cut, buffed, and/or filleted all over? Do you want to strip away flab and get hot-hot-hot in just weeks? Then Zero Belly is for you! Act now! Order today!

So look . . . I’m not going to downplay it. The physical transformations wthat Zero Belly can bring about are stunning. Dropping the weight equivalent of a two-year-old boy in just six weeks will change the way people look at you, and the way you look at yourself.

And if appealing to your vanity is what it takes to get you to take the first steps toward a new life, then I’m all for it. After all, studies show that vanity works—in the short term: If I told you that you were going to appear on national television in a swimsuit, and you had six months to get ready for it, believe me, you’d be pretty motivated to start eating differently and to stick to it.

But Zero Belly is more than just another weight-loss program. This plan blasts belly fat from the inside by dramatically reducing bloating and inflammation; shrinks it from the outside by melting away fat and replacing it with lean, firm muscle; and keeps attacking it on a long-term basis by turning off your genetic weight-gain switches and restoring your metabolism to what it ought to be. This three-part strategy is how my program will give you back the health you need and the happiness you deserve.

To fully grasp how virulent belly fat is, and how to fight back, it’s important to understand where it comes from—and why, exactly, it behaves in the ways that it does.

KNOW THE ENEMY

A little bit of fat does a lot of good in our bodies—especially if it’s located in exactly the right places. It helps to keep us warm in winter and stores energy for later use. It’s involved in some important chemical reactions as well. A shapely little bit of fat produces the hormone leptin, which travels to the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls appetite, and flicks the switch that tells us to stop eating. It also produces adiponectin, another hormone that helps regulate the metabolism of lipids and blood sugar. In fact, in a 2014 study published in the journal Cell Metabolism, researchers reported that subcutaneous fat in your hips and thighs is associated with reduced insulin levels and increased insulin sensitivity (meaning that it actually protects against diabetes). People who are “pear-shaped” and store fat in their hips and thighs also tend to have higher HDL cholesterol (the good kind) and lower triglycerides, which means that Kim Kardashian may live forever.

But biologically, there’s an enormous difference between subcutaneous fat—the stuff that’s right below your skin, the stuff that makes up love handles and the like—and visceral fat, which is inside your abdominal wall, wrapped around your internal organs. The easiest way to tell the difference might be this: subcutaneous fat jiggles, but visceral fat doesn’t. Subcutaneous fat is fat you can pinch; visceral fat is the solid stuff that makes your gut stick out. Subcutaneous fat comes in different colors (white, brown, and beige), each of which has some positive health benefits. (To learn more about the oddly complex world of fat, check out “Fifty Shades of Fat” on page 56.)

But unlike its subcutaneous cousin, visceral fat isn’t just hanging out, keeping us warm. It’s more like an active volcano. It’s spewing out dangerous substances all the time.

Indeed, visceral fat secretes more than a hundred biochemicals, which are collectively known as adipokines. But they ought to be known as adipo-unkinds, because they include such nasty substances as:

• Resistin, a hormone that undermines your body’s ability to metabolize glucose and leads to high blood sugar

• Angiotensinogen, a compound that raises blood pressure

• Interleukin-6, a chemical associated with arterial inflammation

• Tumor necrosis factor, which is as bad as it sounds—it causes inflammatory issues such as psoriasis, Crohn’s disease, and various forms of arthritis

And the more visceral fat you have, the less of the positive fat-based substances (like adiponectin) your body seems to be capable of producing. In fact, increased visceral fat can be a sign that your subcutaneous fat is not functioning properly, according to research by Michael Jensen, M.D., of the Endocrine Research Unit at the Mayo Clinic. That may explain why more visceral fat equals less positive fat-based adiponectin. Decreased adiponectin is linked to increased risk of type 2 diabetes, elevated glucose levels, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and even some types of malignancies, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Visceral fat also increases the amount of estrogen in your body, and interferes with the function of your liver, meaning your body has a harder time flushing away toxins—including the very toxins that fat is creating! In fact, visceral fat does the same thing to your liver that chronic alcoholism does; a recent study at the Mayo Clinic found that one in ten cases of liver failure resulting in the need for a liver transplant is now caused by nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH—a newly coined term for liver damage caused by visceral fat.

You can think of having belly fat as being in a state of chronic inflammation—your body is being irritated and attacked, 24/7, by the substances your belly fat spews out. For some reason, men are much more likely than women to store fat in their midsections, although plenty of women have this “apple shape” as well. And new research is showing that children may be even more vulnerable: 10 percent of children in the United States may already have liver damage caused by visceral fat, according to federal surveys.

But removing that visceral fat—which is exactly what Zero Belly is designed to do—helps to remove those risks.

THE ALIEN INSIDE YOU

So stop thinking of belly fat as a (literal) extension of your fine self, and start thinking of it as what it really is—a living, squirming parasite inside your body that’s out to ruin your life.

I know. Gross. But true.

This visceral-fat creature wrapped around your internal organs is eager to grow and cause even more mischief. And we now know that there are three specific factors that contribute to the growth of visceral fat: a diet low in fiber, high in carbs, and high in saturated fat; chronic inflammation; and a genetic propensity toward visceral fat storage that’s been triggered by the previous two factors. Once your fat storage system is turned on, you’re set up for a bigger belly. I’ll explain more about fat genes and how to turn them off in the next chapter, but before I do, I want to outline more about why it’s so important to focus on belly fat.

Every time you take in more energy than you burn off, the individual visceral fat cells inside your body become larger. The larger the fat cells, the more metabolically active they are. And activated fat cells have one goal in life: to make themselves even bigger. So they send out adipokines to cause more inflammation, which helps shut down your satiation hormones, which makes you crave more carbs and saturated fat, which you then eat, causing more fat storage and giving your belly fat even more power. Your belly fat basically tricks you into helping it grow.

But as fat cells become more metabolically active, they also become more toxic. So each time your weight goes up a single percentage point, your health risk goes up a lot more. When you accumulate visceral fat, you begin showing signs of something scientists call “metabolic syndrome.” Metabolic syndrome is a condition that’s really just a collection of heart disease risk factors: a larger waist, high triglycerides (the fat in your blood), high blood sugar, low HDL cholesterol, and high blood pressure. This combination increases the likelihood that you’ll

• Develop diabetes: 500 percent increase

• Have a heart attack: 300 percent increase

• Die of a heart attack: 200 percent increase

Recent estimates are that between ages 20 and 39, about 16 percent of women and 17 percent of men are already in the throes of metabolic syndrome; between ages 40 and 59, about 37 percent of women and more than 40 percent of men are; and by the time we hit 60, a majority of us all are symptomatic. In fact, visceral fat has been linked to pretty much every epidemic of our modern times, including not just diabetes and heart disease but high blood pressure, colon cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer. (It is also a major contributor to the epidemic spread of “mom jeans.”)

Think about it for a moment: Heart disease. Diabetes. Cancer.

How many loved ones have you lost to those three devils? How many times have you worried that one of the devils was hunting you? How many doctor’s appointments have you rushed to—or put off going to—because you thought that cough, that pain, that dizzy feeling meant one or more of those health problems might have you in its grasp? And how much are you already spending on medication to keep them at bay?

Now consider that I’ve seen Zero Belly reduce the risk of death from obesity-related disease in just six weeks—by up to 80 percent in at least one of our participants.

Like I said, any weight-loss plan can help you lose a few pounds. But Zero Belly is specifically designed to target the fat that matters most to your health: visceral fat—the kind that insinuates its way in and around your internal organs. Visceral fat is a living, breathing welcome committee for the Big Three.

I’ll go much more into the science of this later in this book, but recent and ongoing studies have found that just carrying around extra weight isn’t necessarily the worst thing that can happen to your health. Where and how fat is distributed in your body makes all the difference. In fact, belly fat alone may be the number one contributor to three of the biggest killers of our modern times. According to a Mayo Clinic study of 650,000 adults, greater waist circumference means greater risk of death at pretty much every turn.

In a study presented in fall 2013 to the American Heart Association, researchers reported following 972 obese people over eight years. They found that those who store most of their fat just beneath the skin—subcutaneous fat—were not at increased risk for heart disease, no matter how much they weighed or how broad their waistlines. But patients with high levels of visceral fat were much more likely to develop heart disease, including heart attacks, strokes, heart failure, and atrial fibrillation (irregular heartbeat).

High levels of belly fat are also linked directly to diabetes risk. In a trial that followed participants for more than eight years, researchers tracked two sets of people who had recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. One set followed a low-fat diet, while the second group followed a diet high in the fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats that make up the Zero Belly plan. Those in the second group went significantly longer before needing diabetes medication, and more of them had their diabetes go into remission.

Most people understand that heart disease and diabetes are linked to weight gain. But more and more scientific research is finding a direct link between visceral fat and a variety of cancers, especially prostate, breast, and colon cancer. And in a recent paper, Italian researchers outlined how they have begun to study adipokines as markers for autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. In the near future, doctors may be able to predict whether you’ll get everything from arthritis to irritable bowel syndrome to psoriasis and even Alzheimer’s by measuring how active your visceral fat is. Imagine that: we may soon be able to tell exactly how much mental decline you’ll suffer based on how effective your belly fat is at attacking your brain. Makes you want to attack the fat first, right?

And if that doesn’t make your head reel, then grab hold of your cerebellum, because this will blow your mind. Visceral fat tries to grow itself not just by messing with your hormones and making you more hungry but also by killing off other parts of your body, particularly your muscles.

Let me say that again: like a parasite, visceral fat literally kills off other parts of your body to keep itself alive.

I know what you’re thinking: “Fire up that liposuction machine and let’s hoover this monster out of me now!” Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Because visceral fat literally wraps itself around your liver and other vital organs, there’s no way to safely remove it with surgery. There’s only one viable answer.

Fortunately, you’re holding the key in your hands.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Books; 1st edition (December 30, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0345547950
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345547958
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.4 x 1.2 x 9.58 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #56,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #94 in Detox & Cleansing Diets
- #268 in Nutrition (Books)
- #537 in Other Diet Books

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David Zinczenko

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DAVID ZINCZENKO is internationally recognized as the leading voice in health, fitness, nutrition and weight loss and is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 25 books in 15 languages, with more than 10 million books in print. Dave created the Eat This, Not That! series and the Zero Belly Diet franchise, as well as The Abs Diet series and the 8-Hour Diet. He is also the Editorial Director of Men's Fitness and the Nutrition and Wellness Correspondent for ABC News, and has appeared on Oprah, Good Morning America, 20/20, The Rachael Ray Show, the Ellen DeGeneres Show, and was a frequent guest on The Today Show.

His books have changed the way the world eats—and have helped millions of men and women lose weight, sometimes up to 70 pounds or more.

Starting in a 2002 op-ed in the New York Times and later in 2007 with the Eat This, Not That! series of books, Zinczenko called for food manufacturers "to provide what every diner in America deserves: full disclosure" and led to calorie counts on menus and healthier formulations of products from Jamba Juice, Carl's Jr. and many more. The blockbuster series—with its pop culture attitude, shocking food swaps and proven "no-diet" weight loss strategies—continues to top the charts, with titles devoted to restaurant menu survival, supermarket shopping guides, healthy pregnancies and rapid weight loss.

Oprah called Eat This, Not That! "a great guide everyone should get" and Ellen DeGeneres said "Eat This, Not That! will freak the weight right off of you!"

His diet books have been equally acclaimed. The Abs Diet series was ranked as one of the best commercial diet plans by U.S, News and World Report. The 8-Hour Diet (published in 2012) led the trend of intermittent fasting.

His latest franchise—Zero Belly Diet—has spawned two more bestsellers, Zero Belly Cookbook and Zero Belly Smoothies, and have helped thousands lose weight and look, feel and live better than ever. Dave's next book, The Sugar Swap Diet, will show you how giving up added sugars will melt fat and guarantee your happiest and healthiest life.

Formerly the Editorial Director of Men's Health, Women's Health and Prevention, and the General Manager of Rodale Books, Zinczenko is also the Founder and CEO of Galvanized Media, a company helping define the new era of healthy living. He grew up in Bethlehem, PA, where he's in the Hall of Fame, and attended Moravian College, home of The Zinczenko Center for New Media.

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fishgirl

Gung Ho For This Eating Plan

Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2016

Verified Purchase

I bought both Zero Belly Diet and Zero Belly Smoothies in the Kindle versions. What intrigued me was the author claims you can lose weight quickly and that this is actually good for you (unlike what was previously thought). Anyway, I am not a big fan of the scale but I recently had a physical at the doc's office and the number scared me. My weight plus high cholestrol, joint pain from inflammation, lack of focus and energy, skin problems all caused by emotional eating due to grieving over my husband's death 2.5 years ago. I realized I had to do something and I finally got serious. I figured I would try the ZB method and tweak it to my own convenience. By tweaking, I mean I am adding things like spirulina, gohji berries, moringa powder, organic collagen peptides to my smoothies in addition to ingredients suggested in the books; a splash of organic cranberry juice to my water, etc. Little things that keep in the spirit of the books but are not mentioned by them.

ONE WEEK RESULTS: I decided to take my measurements instead of keeping track of weight loss. It's been one week exactly today and I have lost 1.5" off my waist, my hips, my thighs, and my knees and 3" off my bust (mostly back fat I think). Wow! If that is not motivating, I don't know what is!

I went off coffee completely and replaced it with organic matcha green tea powder form to make tea or to add in smoothies. Yes, I had fatigue and mild headaches for about 24 hours. I had to go off coffee since I only like it with half and half and the ZB says no dairy. Anyway I felt like I was detoxing the first 3 or 4 days and fell asleep at 8PM two nights in a row (unusual for me). Then midweek I began to notice that my energy levels shifted way way up and I could stay up til midnight if I wanted to. My joints stopped hurting so much and I have been able to do a lot more physically without pain than I have in a few years. Day 6, I did several hours of yard work plus swam half a mile in a lake and still had energy to walk my dog for a mile! The past couple of years I have barely had the energy to walk my dog let alone all the rest. I'm psyched! This is exactly what I wanted to happen and I was skeptical that it would happen so quickly.

The author lays out menu schedules in various forms of detail. You can either follow the recipes to the letter, or, you can figure out your own meal plan and go by the charts as to how many smoothie drinks you want to have. IE some mornings I have oatmeal, some mornings I have eggs, some mornings I have a ZB smoothie of my choice. I knew I wouldn't stick to the plan unless I had variety. These two books make it easy to go shop and plan in advance with a "Prep day". I have several different fresh fruits I bought and cut up and put in freezer ready to go into smoothies. I cook lentils and put them in an airtight container in the fridge. Same with oatmeal--- I make 4 servings of steel cut Irish oats and take out only what I need each day to mix with almond milk and fruit and nut butter or spices. I make the dressing in advance, too. I live alone so I put single portions of fish, chicken, turkey burgers in ziplocs and freeze them to take out when needed. In Zero Belly Smoothies, the author recommended Carlson's Fish Oil which comes in lemon flavor---- wow! It's expensive but so worth it! Adds a lemon zing to a green smoothie and has absolutely no fish taste at all.

Anyway, I found the kindle cloud edition maybe not so easy to jump back and forth or copy recipes to print out. So I agree with the reviewer who said buying a hardcopy might be better as a handbook to guide you and keep in the kitchen.

I will try to post back again in a month or so to give you more results. I'm hoping I can drop 50 lb total by end of year. For me that would be going from a size 16 to a size 8 or 10. Thanks David Zinczenko for giving me the tools I need to get this done!

WEEK TWO:
Weather here in Maine has been raining a lot this week so I was not able to swim or hike EVERY day (my primary exercise) but still here are my results:
Waist-- 1.25" off (bringing my two week total to 2.75" off on ZB program!)
Hips-- down 3/4" (total loss of 2.25" in two weeks)
Bust-- down 1" (total loss of 4" back fat so far)
Thighs-- down half inch (total loss of 2" )
Knees-- down half inch (total loss of 2")

I'm thinking these are still good results even without working out daily. I'm also thinking that I'm probably taking in too many calories as I when I make a smoothie there is always more left in the blender (and of course, I drink it). In addition I must confess I took advantage of the one cheat meal this week and had 3 glasses of wine (not on the same night!) overall for the week. However my "cheat" was to have a filet mignon and some red potatoes cooked in butter not olive oil, and a tiny scoop of key lime coconut ice cream. All else was ZB.

End of Week 3
3/4" off my waist (for a total of 3.5" in 3 weeks...)
1" off my bust
1/4" off my hips
0 off my arm
3/4" off my thigh
1/2" off my knee

This appears to be a slow down or a reminder to up the exercise portion of my program. My review is getting too long. I'll check back in at the end of another month and let you know how I'm doing.

UPDATE WEEK 10:
I admit to some boredom creeping in. I had some serious cheating the past week but kept the smoothies and overall diet plan going and was surprised that my progress to lose inches continued. I suspect that it's true that if you are on a stricter diet your body goes into "starvation mode" and holds onto fat but on the ZBD plan you're never really deprived so even if you overindulge a couple of meals of non-plan-approved food your metabolism at this point is on high rev and will burn it off quicker. So in a way, cheating is good for you. I'm working in a 1-2.5 mile hike on forest trail at least 5 days per week. Haven't stepped up my exercise plan yet. I'm really pleased with the results so far.
Here are my numbers (total inches lost so far):

5" Waist
6.5" Bust
4" Hips
1.75" Arm
4.5" Thigh
3" Knee

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Simone C.

Easy Reading and Comprehensive Solution Guide on the Epigenetics of Belly Fat

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2015

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David Zinczenko is the former editor-in-chief of Men's Health and a regular contributor to ABC News. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Cook This, Not That! and The New Abs Diet and has written The 8 Hour Diet as well as a number of cookbooks. In the Zero Belly Diet, Zinczenko sets forth an approach to weight loss and more importantly overall health, that is based on the cutting edge science of the epigenetics of metabolism and the microbiome.

To put my review in context...

I am an avid reader of nutrition books, have a background in molecular biology, and usually enjoy in-depth discussions of the science behind different approaches to health. I'm often perturbed by books that make a lot of claims and don't back them up with sufficient explanations of the underlying science. The unsatisfied curiosity and/or skepticism is like having an itch that you can't scratch. Fortunately, I've already read quite a bit about the theory and am now looking for additional information on the application of the theory. So for my purposes, this book was fantastic. Zinczenko provides a comprehensive "how to" guide that is simple and entertaining.

And of course there are those of us who aren't science nerds and are super busy and simply looking for a solution to their weight and health issues. After all, not everyone wants to be knee-deep in mitochondria and cytokines. If this describes you, you're in luck.

Diving into the content...

Scientific studies in the past few years have emerged demonstrating that your waistline and chances of developing a chronic, degenerative disease (e.g., diabetes, cardiovascular disease) are largely determined by the expression of certain genes. Therefore, it matters not that you have the genes that make you susceptible to a certain disease, but that they are *expressed*. You could go a lifetime housing genes for all kinds of diseases that simply lie dormant and never, ever make themselves known. This expression is controlled by epigenetic factors, primarily diet and lifestyle. Pro-inflammatory diets are probably the biggest culprit when it comes to switching on bad genes, including fat genes. So this book goes about explaining what the latest research concludes about which foods to eat to calm inflammation, turn off fat genes, and lose weight while gaining metabolism-boosting muscle.

This approach is revolutionary for the reader who believes, as many of us do, that weight loss or gain is determined by the calorie balance equation (calories in versus calories out). Spoiler alert: the whole calories-in-calories-out thing is outdated and bunk!

The Table of Contents is as follows.

Part One: Target the Fat that Matters Most
1. Chapter One: Why Beating Belly Fat is Health Goal #1
2. Chapter Two: Turn Off Your Fat Genes!
3. Chapter Three: Win the Battle Inside Your Belly
4. Chapter Four: How Real is Your Risk?

Part Two: The Zero Belly Diet
5. Chapter Five: The Power of the Zero Belly Foods
6. Chapter Six: The Zero Belly Meal Plan
7. Chapter Seven: The Zero Belly Drinks
8. Chapter Eight: The Zero Belly Recipes
9. Chapter Nine: The Zero Belly Workouts
10. Chapter Ten: Zero Belly in Seven Minutes a Day
11. Chapter Eleven: The Zero Belly Seven-Day Cleanse

With this book, you will find LOTS of practical strategies for how to implement the necessary changes into your life. And, as with many nutrition and diet books, this one begins by proposing an idea and explaining it and ends with action plans, such as daily menus. With some diet books, the recipe section looks more like an afterthought than a carefully crafted menu that will aid you in achieving success. The Zero Belly menus look more like the latter: great flavor combinations, practical ingredients with specific product recommendations at times, and clear instructions. The workout plan section is EXTENSIVE. He provides workouts that can be done in the gym with equipment or at home with a kettle bell, medicine ball, or simply body weight. He even provides a workout that can be done while you're at the park with your kids.

Overall, I'm giving Zero Belly Diet four stars for its meaningful content based on cutting-edge science, easy reading, and comprehensiveness in terms of all the tools and strategies Zinczenko provides. You won't learn the exact mechanisms at play physiologically. But you will be armed with the tools needed to significantly improve your health.

(Note that I bought the kindle edition. As is the case with kindles, some charts were illegible. So if you do decide to follow the plan and want to use the book as your workbook, you'll probably need to invest in a physical copy.)

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Cristina

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Reviewed in Canada on March 7, 2022

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Angie Athanassiades

Excellent. I have tried all sorts of diets

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 8, 2016

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Excellent. I have tried all sorts of diets, with more or less success, but this one not only worked, it made me feel a lot better, with much more energy and it allowed me to discover a new way of approaching my dietary habits that have continued till now, almost a year after I read the book. Oh, and I'm vegan, which kind of made the protein issue slightly trickier :-).

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bill

reenergized

Reviewed in Canada on January 29, 2015

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This book brought back to the forerunner of my brain what I should be eating to feel my very best. It reenergized me to look after my health so that I can be at my best all of the time.

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R

Great healthy receipes.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 13, 2015

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THE WHOLE BOOK IS BASED AROUND THE OLD BASIC DIET TIPS: EAT LEAN PTOTEIN, LOW CARB, HIGH FIBER AND FOOD RICH IN OMEGA 3 FATTY ACIDS. I DID NOT LEARN ANYTHING NEW REGARDING WHAT TO EAT BUT THE BOOK HAS SOME EXCELLENT DELICIOUS HEALTHY RECEIPES WHICH WILL HELP ME LOOSE WEIGHT HENCE THE 4 STARS.

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Sheila Barnes

Best eating advice

Reviewed in Canada on March 24, 2017

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I am still following David Zinczenco's books and eating regime. I have lost weight and feel much healthier. I hope to keep it up as a way of life.
A big thank you to this man

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