Sonoma Diet Review

Joining Fee:

$5 per week ($20 per month)
Basic Terms & Conditions: (For full details please consult SonomaDiet.com)
Billed quarterly (every 13 weeks), with a five-week minimum commitment. Your credit card will be charged $65 when you subscribe and at the beginning of each following quarter. You may cancel at any time and receive a refund for the unused portion of your subscription, other than the minimum five-week charge of $25, which is non-refundable.

Prices are subject to change. For the most up to date information, please refer to the actual website.

Features:

Diet Features:
- You'll be eating controlled amounts of healthy fats - like olive oil.
- And you'll be eating healthy carbohydrates - like whole grain breads, cereals, and pastas.
- You'll also enjoy fruits, vegetables, meats, and cheeses.
- You may be surprised to learn that many of your favorite foods are part of The Sonoma Diet!
- The Sonoma Diet is divided into 3 Waves:
  - Wave 1 will last only 10 days, and you'll immediately start eating delicious breakfasts, lunches, and dinners prepared with healthful whole foods. Your online Meal Planner and recipe database will provide all the options you need to stay satisfied.
  - Wave 2 is the major part of your diet. This is the eating plan you'll stay with until you reach your target weight. With Wave 2 comes your full enjoyment of The Sonoma Diet lifestyle. That means pleasurable eating, a heightened appreciation of fresh foods, and weight loss. More than anything else, Wave 2 is about variety. You'll even be incorporating wine into your diet, if you'd like!
  - Wave 3 starts the day you reach your target weight. At this point, you've accomplished much more than a healthy (and great-looking) body weight - you've changed your entire approach to eating. And now you get to reap the rewards!
- Meal Planner: suggestions for Sonoma Diet-approved meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
- Printable Shopping Lists: Along with menu suggestions for each day on the diet, The Meal Planner will give you a printable shopping list for each meal for today and the week ahead.
- Searchable Recipe Index hundreds of recipes with easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions for preparing mouthwatering dishes that will keep you satisfied as you shed pounds.
- Food Diary: Write down what you eat and how you feel each day and keep track of your weight loss goals.
- Eating Guide
- Wine Guide
- Portion Guide.

Fitness Features:
- SonomaDiet.com offers Weight Tracker tool to help you monitor your progress but does not provide any fitness plans.

Community Support:
- Sonoma Pals: lets you join forces with others who share your goals, interests, and much more.
- On The Boards: a thriving online community keeps you on track and puts you in touch with hundreds of other dieters just like you.

Expert Advice:
- Ask the Nutritionist: as a member you can post your question on the message board and a registered dietitian will get back to within 24 to 48 hours.
- Exclusive E-mails and newsletters.
- Day-by-Day Support
- Weekly Question and Answer sessions.

Help Files / Technical Support:
- SonomaDiet.com does not provide a list of FAQs.
- If you have questions about The Sonoma Diet, you can e-mail or call toll-free from 9 a.m. - 8 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday.

Extras:
- On-line store: buy The Sonoma Diet book, cookbook and wine on-line.
- Windsor Vineyards is the official winery of The Sonoma Diet. This partnership pairs Windsor's award-winning wine with The Sonoma Diet wine country lifestyle and cookbook recipes.

Editor's Verdict:

The Sonoma Diet is a derivation of the popular Mediterranean diet, devised by nutritionist and dietitian Dr. Connie Guttersen who is a leading expert on the health benefits of diets inspired by Mediterranean, Latin American, and Asian cuisines. Her New York Times best-selling book, The Sonoma Diet, emphasizes eating a generous variety of foods that boost your vitality, protect your heart, and improve your overall health. As a member of SonomaDiet.com, you'll get a daily meal planner with printable shopping lists, a searchable index of over 500 recipes, personal answers from the author of The Sonoma Diet and her team of dietitians, and support from an on-line community of members just like you.

The Sonoma Diet is, purportedly, neither low-fat nor low-carbohydrate, but simply relies on dieters following basic principles balancing satisfaction (that is, feeling full!) and healthy weight loss. The Sonoma diet is inspired by the Mediterranean diet and the healthy lifestyle of Sonoma in California, and is based around 10 ingredients that are good for you, and taste great. The idea is that the diet plan emphasizes the benefits of eating these 'power foods' - whole grains, almonds, bell peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, grapes, spinach, blueberries, strawberries and olive oil - which are not only nutritionally excellent, but also have intense flavors (which, the idea is, will encourage you to eat less). That's not to say all you're allowed to eat are power foods. Users are encouraged to avoid white flour, saturated fats and large amounts of sugar, but apart from that, are encouraged to develop new eating habits to incorporate these power foods in a range of healthy meals and recipes.

Like many diets (such as the Atkins Diet, the Zone Diet or the South Beach Diet), the Sonoma Diet is divided into three phases. In the Sonoma Diet, these are known as 'waves' and advise dieters on how best to eat for weight loss. Wave 1 is the most extreme and low calorie element of the diet, and lasts for only 10 days. In wave 1 users are encouraged to throw out foods containing refined flours, non-whole grains, hydrogenated and saturated fats, sugars, and any oil that isn't extra-virgin olive oil. They are also urged to remove fruit from their diet in order to train the body to need less sugar. Wave 2 introduces a number of additional foods, including fruit, more vegetables, fat-free yogurt, wine and dark chocolate (in moderation of course). Users should stay on this part of the diet until their reach their desired weight, at which point they can move to Wave 3, which introduces more foods, occasional treats and greater experimentation with the way in which users incorporate the power foods.

We were disappointed to see that the Sonoma Diet, unlike the South Beach Diet, which has similar principles, doesn't include a range of fitness features in order to boost health and weight loss. Whilst the Sonoma Diet does encourage dieters to exercise regularly, it would be far easier for users to incorporate regular workouts and exercise into their daily routine if the diet plan offered advice as to how to begin doing so (especially if users don't usually exercise regularly). One of the best features of the Sonoma Diet is its emphasis on portion size, on which it advises dieters using plates of different sizes. The site also incorporates an online store where users can buy Sonoma Diet materials, cookbooks and wine from the Windsor Winery (an official partner of the Sonoma Diet).

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Sonoma Diet Reviews