When you embark on a weight loss diet, there are many sacrifices to be made and let’s face it, the premise of eating bland food, boring salads or cardboard biscuits has most of us reaching for that chocolate bar.
The Shrinking Hubby’s Healthy Food We Love To Eat starts with the story of Alix Toytnon who married her husband Andrew when he weighed 155 kilos. Over the years, through a combination of diet and lifestyle changes along with a diet coach, he has lost 60 kilos.
The book is not a miracle diet but a collection of over 50 recipes that Alyx has devised for everyday people to encourage eating real food and healthy meals that still taste good and can be achieved when you’re time poor. She is not a nutritionist and the book comes with the usual disclaimer that is not intended to be medical advice.
The cookbook is divided into healthy breakfasts, vibrant smoothies, hearty soups, healthy salads, healthy lunch and dinner menus, inspiring ways to dress up vegetables and salads, as well as sweet treats.
Salmon and Zoodles
You’ll find the recipes easy to follow and most include ingredients you’re likely to find in your pantry. Some recipes have dual instructions including those for Thermomix. The recipes are mostly gluten free and in some cases grain free, minimising starchy carbohydrates, refined sugars, some dairy and processed food.
The food is not strictly paleo but it comes very close in principle. Food substitutions are part of this diet and they entice you to try them. For example, pasta is substituted for “zoodles” or zucchini noodles, rice becomes grated/”riced” cauliflower and medjool dates and coconut sugars replace sugar in sweet recipes. The use of coconut oil features predominantly instead of vegetable oil, an ingredient which may not be to everyone’s taste.
The Shrinking Hubby Cookbook is available online for AU$29.95 (paperback), AU$19.95 (pdf), AU$34.95 (paperback and pdf) at www.theshrinkinghubby.com.
Photo courtesy of The Shrinking Hubby Cookbook, used with permission.
