Book review: Cooking for a size less

A few weeks of self-isolation appears to give many people a few extra corona silos on the hips. Time to pay more attention to your diet. The book Cooking for a buddy is about losing weight with tasty, healthy dishes and above all without hassle.

Writers Hilde Deweer and her daughter Marie Bossuyt themselves struggled with being slightly overweight, through menopause and a first pregnancy respectively. Mother and daughter challenged each other and developed a no-hassle weight loss plan that really works. Cooking for a size less starts with the challenge of losing 6 pounds in 6 weeks. And that works thanks to a practical nutrition plan with weekly shopping lists and recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And - importantly - the meals are not only practical and slim, but also tasty. Cooking for a size less is a book for bon vivants who want to eat healthy and tasty and lose some kikos.

Stage One: Cooking for a Size Less

The first phase in this lifestyle plan is all about that size less. The writers recommend sticking to this phase for six weeks, losing an average of 1 kilogram per week. For the first six weeks, the book contains a fully detailed eating schedule with breakfast, lunch and dinner. The menu includes a large amount of vegetables every day, with a normal portion of fish, meat, poultry or meat substitute. In addition, there is a daily one and a half liters of water, soup and coffee or tea. The book contains the shopping lists, nice and clear.

This weight-loss plan avoids fast carbohydrates and contains almost no sugar, except for what is naturally present in fruits and vegetables. Fruit is limited to one serving per day. There is also plenty of attention for your fiber intake. At first glance, breakfast seems a bit thin. But because it scores high on satiety, you will certainly not be left with a hunger pang. It is mainly seeds and bran that you take in the morning. Slow carbohydrates that you can supplement with fruit or vegetables, an egg or low-fat cheese.

For lunch there is usually soup on the menu. To serve with: some cheese, fish or low-fat meat products. Besides soup recipes, Cooking for a Size Less also includes a number of tasty salad recipes.

The evening meal again consists of a lot of vegetables, a piece of fish, meat or poultry or a combination thereof. There are no fewer than 51 types of vegetables and legumes in the book. In the menus, the authors set the limit at 5 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams of fresh product. Vegetables that contain slightly more sugar and carbohydrates and sugar are only allowed a large portion once a week in the first phase.

You can switch the meals as required. If you want the Tuesday menu on Monday, you can. And if your favorite breakfast is Thursday, you can eat it quietly for several days. Cooking with a curvier also has a mandatory yolo moment every week: You Only Live Once! That means a meal every week where you can and may eat whatever you feel like, including fries. You can even have a glass of wine if you feel like it. According to the authors, this is how you make it clear to your body that it should not switch to saving mode.

Phase two of the book is also all about cultivating 'the buddy less reflex'. A chapter full of useful tips and tricks to keep the lost kilos off. Cooking for a size less provides overview and guidance. In addition to the easy eating schedules, it contains an overview of the things you should always have at home and it contains clear agreements about, for example, the sizes and quantities that are used. Snacks are allowed, but not required. Also nice: the barbecue recipes!

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