The 30-Day Ketogenic Cleanse: Reset Your Metabolism with 160 Tasty Whole-Food Recipes & a Guided Meal Plan

Absolutely IN LOVE with this book!!!! I even went and got it spiral bound for easier use in the kitchen. I am on Day 16 of the cleanse and have lost over 7 lbs. I stalled myself twice by having alcohol two different times. My own fault! The book says not to drink - but Football Sunday! :-)The recipes that I have tried so far in the book are incredibly tasty!!! The Ramen and the Rosti are not only super simple - but delicious! They are so good I've already made them both twice! There are some really great basics in the book as well! Like making "wraps" from eggs and herbs! So genius, easy, and delicious! I would give this 10 Stars if I could! I highly recommend. Also love the wings and the lemon "sauce"!!!! You can literally drizzle this sauce on everything -- and I have! Overall the recipe book is very brilliantly done. I've included pictures of several of the recipes that I've made personally. You can also follow my journey on Instagram too.*Disclaimer -- There is a 30-day meal plan; however after getting some notes from a friend that did all 30 days she let me know which recipes would be easiest for me because I'm single and cooking for 1. I make recipes that I can eat for several days straight. There are some recipes that are extremely involved and have a lot of ingredients. Some of which you can't freeze and won't keep for long in the fridge. I've been picking and choosing the recipes I make to fit my lifestyle.

I bought this book digitally last night for a few important reasons. 1) I respect Maria Emmerich. I have been doing keto for a number of months and have a few of her books. She is very informed, and does a lot of recipe experimentation that busy people don't have the time/inclination to do. 2) The recipes in this book are nut and dairy free. Having been eating A LOT of dairy on a standard keto diet, I've become very inflamed and realized that I actually have a dairy intolerance...mainly, rheumatoid arthritis has flared up, something I did not know I even had. I chose this book because I thought it would help me learn a lot of non-dairy options...I think it WILL do that.So, I have not made anything in this book yet (full disclosure). The reason I'm already rating this book a THREE already is because I work from home and have a flexible schedule, yet even I cannot imagine cooking everything needed on this 30 day plan. I have spent the last hour and a half looking at the recipes and figuring out what I might do. It's just overwhelming! To illustrate my point...to eat on the very first day you will have be making a fried shredded cabbage & bacon "rosti" for your first meal, then make an umami burger for your 2nd meal which INCLUDES roasting bones for bone marrow, AND ALSO fry 1 lb chicken wings in 2 cup of coconut oil/healthy paleo fat...for ONE MEAL! I cook all the time, and complicated meals, at that...yet I cannot imagine for ONE meal, making deep fried chicken wings...just to eat 2 in that meal, roasted bones for marrow and pan fry a burger. Don't misunderstand me, it's not about all the fat, the FAT is good and helps you get into ketosis...but the TIME COST and the MONETARY Cost...2 cups of coconut oil is expensive to just fry 1 lb of chicken wings. And I forgot to mention, you also have to bake keto buns for that DAY 1 burger...yet I did not even SEE keto buns anywhere else in the first week's menu. NOT REALISTIC!To be fair, many of these cooked items are then rotated into the subsequent days' menus...however, she often waits up 4 days to rotate a cooked protein back into the menu. (You eat the left over day one burger on day 5, and the left over chicken wings on day 6.) That is just too long. I do not like to eat cooked meats that have been sitting in the fridge more than 1-2 days after being cooked...they lose a lot of quality/taste after the 3rd day in my fridge, especially chicken. I don't mind eating the next day, but as it is written, it means that I really cannot follow her menu plans at all...because on day 6, you might be eating something prepared from day 1, day 3 and day 5....meaning you HAVE to have cooked all of those items and been willing to save them for that long.For me, I am disappointed that I can't just follow a more simple plan. It's just TOO MUCH cooking to make it practical. I fully understand that being successful on keto is a lifestyle change, and I am living that lifestyle already. I can't imagine following this if you do not already have some paleo/keto ingredients under your belt...and a lot of time for cooking.I am hoping that I will find at least 10 recipes in this book that are non-dairy and delicious to incorporate into a more simple routine. I don't need to add such great stress to my life. I do appreciate the work put into this, but I feel like she had a collection of recipes and "forced" them into strange combinations for a day. Another example of this is that for ONE DINNER you make a slow-cooked Cuban stew that makes 6 servings....but you eat a rather small serving so that WITH IT, you have to prepare and eat a lump crab salad with homemade mayonnaise on lettuce... that is almost identical in calorie/fat/protein/carb to one of the stew servings. So, why not just eat an add'l serving of stew for that dinner? Who eats cold crab salad with a meaty stew? Why not a nice side dish of cauliflower rice to soak up the delicious liquid from the stew? These are the things that I just think are wildly impractical. Not to mention expensive...beef brisket AND lump crab in one dinner? Come on!Finally, if you want to have a million keto recipes for eggs, great book! The first week shopping requires 4 dozen eggs! (I think 1/2 doz go straight into that keto bread.)If I do find a lot of wonderful recipes, I may feel better about this book. I will update in a few months.

Lots of interesting recipes in this book that I would not have considered. I've been crafting my meal plan around this book for about 6 weeks, supplemented with some online resources, and I'm still finding lots of new dishes to explore.I was disappointed, though, that the meal plan provided in the book is impossible to follow if you have a normal job. Or, you know, a life. Many of the recipes have to be prepared fresh and do not make for very good leftovers (and if there are leftovers, you cannot microwave them, you must heat them on a stove or in the oven). And here's the kicker - you're only supposed to eat from 10 am to 4 pm. But you must have access to a kitchen for the vast majority of the meals. It was really discouraging to feel like I'm doomed to fail before I even began. The author seems incredibly out of touch with how most people live. There are also some gems in the book that reinforce that impression - she recommends that everyone swim in a cool, fresh water river every night before bed like she does because she has a river on her property. Major eye roll.I've made the book and most of the recipes work for me but it definitely takes a lot of effort and planning - the kind of planning that I thought the book was going to do for me. I cook most of my meals on Sundays, freeze anything I can, and plan out which meals I'm going to cook throughout the week. There's no way I can stick to this meal plan and do IF though, there's just too much cooking involved.

This book is incredible. I've followed the keto diet for years but I was gaining weight and my keto happiness was diminishing. I'd tried carbing up but it induced binges and strict keto ruined my sleep. I bought this to get me back on track and MY GOD it's worked!First and foremost, Maria's flavours are fantastic (damn, I wish she were called Fenella, it would have appealed to my alliterative self). Secondly, my blood markers, moods, waist line, abundance of energy, brain power have all dramatically improved, and I've only followed it for 8 days, but I have followed it to a tee.However, the cooking has taken time. My gripes are that she says a recipe takes 20 mins, say, and it's only when you're starting to prepare it and read through that you note you need leftover chicken from the slow cooker recipe that takes 6 hours, or you have several other ingredients that are other recipes that you are meant to have prepared earlier. For the first week I seemed to spend every spare moment cooking. This time around, I'm more used to her methods and the fact I might need to pre-prepare things before embarking on the recipe itself so it hasn't taken so much time.I was slightly concerned by the quantity of eggs I now eat. Eggs are phenomenally nutritious with a fabulous amino acid profile but I believe eating too many can potentially lead to intolerances. Similarly, the quantity of veg seemed low and the protein high, compared to my standard diet. But my standard diet, though good, wasn't working and yet this does, so I'm rolling with it.

It took a week or so to get my head around the preparation of the recipes, and also get my head around the no-lunch element. But, I have to say, we ended up shedding a serious amount of weight very quickly, and now that we’ve surpassed the 30 days of the diet, we’re actually just continuing with it because we love it! There’s just so many really beautiful flavoursome recipes to look forward to, and once you get into it the preparation actually isn’t that bad. On a Sunday afternoon I tend to prep for the rest of the week so make a big batch of one or two of the recipes and stick them in the freezer, this has hugely reduced the amount of preparation time needed in the morning. I have now become more accustomed to not eating during the day, although I have to admit I do drink about 20,000 cups of tea to get me through. So my recommendation is give it a try, commit to at least one week, and more than likely you will really get into it, but the first few days are tricky, but it’s completely worth it.

The background of how Keto works on the body was thoroughly grounded and well explained, it all seems pretty convincing. The recipes were clear, varied and well laid out. Picture after each one instead of before it was a little strange though. The case for what goes wrong in carb heavy diets with sugar highs and slumps made perfect sense. So I have rated on the basis that those who want to follow a Keto diet can be assured this is a great resource. But I wanted to figure out if I could follow it.1. Most of us follow a recipe once or twice a week. This requires a recipe for every meal. There is a fair amount of science to it so quantity is important.2. This will mean no more carbs or sugar. They will become lethal factors in your diet if you waiver from this high fat medium protein diet. Adding carbs and sugar will prove significantly worse when combined with high fat and lead to greater weight gain than if you hadn’t started down this road at all.3. There is a LOT of fat in the recipes. Albeit that they contain good meat and certain fruit and veg which are allowed. And no root or starch veg allowed, berries or apples.I tried a little over a weekend. Yes it feels a different kind of full to a carb belly full and I did ok on it. Two meals in the day. I am not grossly overweight just want to lose a little. I craved the very things I couldn’t have. So after the 2nd day of Keto I had two Small crackers and cheese and one tiny individually wrapped chocolate. Disaster! So it’s a no thanks from me, I don’t have the time to buy the food, choose and make these recipes every day and decline myself things I enjoy. So instead I will eat a little less of everything I currently enjoy in my fairly good diet. I would also say that this is designed for the US market (all measurements are US) and the dreadful Hormone stuffed meat they eat, very over processed foods and sugar-everything, even in shop bought milk. So I think in Europe we don’t have so much to worry about.

I am already Keto but follow the author on social media. I bought the paperback version because I like cookery 'books'. It's really good quality and thick, not flimsy , actually quite heavy I thinkThe recipes are literally amazing and perfect.Keto lemon curd! And hot fudge sauce 😁 it's dairy free which is why I bought it. I want to reduce my cheese and cream consumption and had tried before but it was hard to stick to as I couldn't think of recipes. Well Maria has them here and it's been easy . I don't agree with reviews that say the cooking is time consuming, it's no more time consuming than normal cooking.I have ordered another of her books now so I can see more of her recipes.If you can go for the paperback copy. Kindles are for lolling about reading and this book inspires you to get up and cook.

Another outstanding book from Maria Emmerich. I now have most of her books and they have absolutely changed my understanding and approach to the food we eat. She and her husband Craig do the most amazing job in bringing us the latest information on the way eating low carb can benefit each and every one of us. They share their research and help in the most simplistic and clear manner .... and the food is AMAZING. My husband does not follow my low carb way of eating, but this does not complicate our meals in any way....and he is always totally amazed at the food we eat, it really can be eaten by the whole family. As I now have most of her books I don't ever feel the need to look elsewhere when meal planning. A huge thank you to Maria and Craig for everything you have done and continue to do!