The DASH Diet Action Plan

Book excerpt: The DASH Diet Action Plan is the user-friendly teaching guide to the DASH diet. Initially, many people find it difficult to follow the DASH diet. This book makes it simple to understand and put into practice. The book makes it easy to lose weight with the DASH diet, and it has realistic ways to add exercise. Although the book was not intended to be an aggressive weight loss book, people are writing to say that they have surprised themselves by finding it easy to lose weight following the plan! Many people find the DASH diet to be hard to implement and sustain in a hectic lifestyle. The average American gets 2 - 3 servings of fruits and vegetables combined each day, so following the DASH diet may seem daunting. The DASH Diet Action Plan book is designed to help you with more than just "what" is involved with the DASH diet, it also shows you "how." How to follow the DASH diet in restaurants, how to lose weight, how to make over your kitchen to make it easy to follow your plan, how to fit in exercise, how to reduce salt intake, how to add vegetables even if you "hate" vegetables. And the book helps you make your own personal plan with specific steps you will take to fit the DASH diet into your daily routine. Our readers say that this is the best DASH diet book! Your step-by-step plan will include: setting your goals for blood pressure and cholesterol, determining the calorie-level you need for maintenance or weight loss, developing meal plans, developing a realistic exercise plan, adjusting the DASH diet to accommodate other health problems, choosing the key DASH diet foods, reading food labels, and learning how to incorporate more vegetables in your diet, and setting up your kitchen to make it easy to stay on track. This book was written by a registered dietitian who is experienced in helping people make sustainable behavior changes, and make healthy eating part of their real lives. She knows that people need flexibility and options to choose different approaches, since not everyone has the time or the interest in cooking or making drastic changes in how they eat. The book incorporates tools that will help you plan the specific steps you will take to adopt the DASH diet. Research shows that people who make concrete plans are more likely to be successful with adopting new health behavior. This should improve your ability to lower your blood pressure (and cholesterol), without medication.