Description (cont'd from above)

The Hamptons Diet Plan

Want to know how the rich and famous stay thin? The Hamptons Diet promises to tell all and help you follow their examples. A low-carbohydrate, moderate-fat plan, this diet promotes eating healthy fats, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lean meats, and fish. The diet suggests that consuming monounsaturated fats, lean proteins, and organic produce can improve your overall health and make you feel like a movie star. The diet's secret weapon, Australian macadamia nut oil, offers superior health benefits due to its balanced proportion of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. But this superior oil doesn't come cheap.

If you want to be truly thin, you have no need to fear fat in your diet. The Hamptons Diet tells us that fats are good. The diet's formula is "Fat equals thin equals happy equals healthy equals longer life."

Other rules to live by include eating slowly, never skipping meals, carrying snacks to avoid temptation, planning your meals before leaving the house, eating real foods, not eating packaged or processed foods, and choosing organic products (especially eggs).

What makes the Hamptons Diet plan different?

The Hamptons Diet is a low-carbohydrate, moderate-fat diet based on the Mediterranean lifestyle. This diet places a lot of focus on balancing the ratio of fats in the diet and understanding fat consumption. And it may be the world's only diet that emphasizes the importance of Australian macadamia nut oil. The diet promises to create a new era of eating, "the Hamptons Era." One can only imagine that everyone will be almost too thin, too rich, and too famous in that magical time. Tales of rich and famous Hamptonites and their successes on the diet plan make the diet's book highly entertaining.

What is the Hamptons Diet weight loss plan?

The Hamptons Diet plan is a 30-day plan with three meals and a snack daily. Before starting the plan, you will choose the list that fits you based on your weight loss goals. These are the criteria for choosing your "list."

• The A list (starting phase): more than ten pounds to lose
• The B list (transition phase): fewer than ten pounds to lose (or within five to ten pounds of goal weight)
• The C list (maintenance phase): to maintain weight loss. You can also choose this list if you are already thin enough, but want to join your friends who are following the diet.

Once you reach your weight loss goal on the Hamptons Diet, you graduate to the next list. What differentiates the lists is the amount of food and carbohydrates you can eat each day:

• The A list: below 30 grams per day
• The B list: 40 to 60 grams per day (less for women)
• The C list: 55 to 65 grams per day (women) and 65 to 85 grams per day (men)

Each of the diet's recommended menus shows the foods you can eat, depending on your list. Everyone on the plan may eat the top listed foods. If you're following the B or C list, you are allowed additional marked foods. While you're on the A list, you may eat fruits and grains only rarely.

All daily menus and recipes, on the Hamptons Diet, include carbohydrate counts, but no other nutritional information. You are also provided with a list of acceptable substitute foods so you can have more variety and not have to eat something you don't like (unless it's Australian macadamia nut oil).

Your basic eating plan, on the Hamptons Diet, will be comprised of egg dishes or homemade muffins for breakfast, salads and sandwiches for lunch, and salads, fish, and vegetables for dinner. The plan includes numerous recipes for meals, snacks, salad dressing, dips, and desserts.

You may not consume wine and beer on this diet, unless you're on the C list. You can enjoy distilled liquor (varying amounts for men and women). After all, you couldn't visit the Hamptons and not have a Mojito, Martini, or Cosmopolitan.

What are the weight loss expectations?

The Hamptons Diet claims that you may lose up to 14 pounds in the first two weeks. It doesn't acknowledge that dieting affects people differently and that dietary needs vary depending on how much weight you want to lose. The Hamptons Diet promises that if you stick with the diet strictly, your average weekly weight loss will be three to four pounds (for men) and two to four pounds (for women). The diet uses your Body Mass Index (BMI) as an indicator of weight loss expectations and calculations in the plan. This can be a useful tool for assessing progress.

Is exercise promoted?

The Hamptons Diet only acknowledges the value of exercise. Perhaps you can count on your personal trainer for this information, just as a loyal Hamptonite would do.

Are supplements recommended?

This diet recommends quite a few supplements including fish oils, a multivitamin, chromium, carnitine, CoQ10, glutamine, green tea extract, choline, and alpha lipoic acid. This assortment includes supplements that allegedly effect energy levels and fat metabolism and others that are rich in antioxidants.

The diet also suggests that you take Lean Mystique, a combination of over 20 appetite-suppressing and mood-altering substances (many with patents pending). The Hamptons Diet Web site currently offers the only available information about this product. Please consider carefully and do your homework with your own doctor before choosing to take this supplement.