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Drop 10, 20, 30+ Pounds One Delicious Recipe at a Time

What if you learned that you could literally change your body and your life, one bite at a time? That may sound dramatic, but it’s true. The cornerstone of this recipe book is a list of 30 simple, whole foods that science shows can have a significant impact on your weight and health. Each member of this delicious dream team contains nutrients that crank up your metabolism, fill your belly for few calories, stop the cycle of cravings, stymie fat production and storage, and more. Think of these foods as ­fat-­fighting superheroes hiding in plain ­sight—­in the produce aisle, in the dairy case, at the ­butcher—­waiting for you to unleash their ­pound-­peeling power by, well, cleaning your plate.

You may have met these weight loss superfoods in The Drop 10 Diet, which featured an easy, repeatable ­five-­week plan to whittle off 10, 20, 30 (or more!) pounds. But even if you ­didn’t, simply swapping some of these recipes into your regular meal rotation can help trigger weight loss. (You can slip them into the easy menu plan in the first book, too.) ­That’s all it takes: Eat more delicious superfoods, lose weight. Study after study, plus our own testers and countless (trimmer!) fans of The Drop 10 Diet, have shown that loading up on these nutrition ­A-­listers can improve the odds of weight loss success, help you eat less junk, and pass up the giant portions that pack on flab in the first place.

Before you started reading, you probably already checked out some of the recipes and the ­luscious-­looking photos. At first glance, they may seem to have a lot in common with what many traditional cookbooks offer: tasty crowd-­pleasers starring favorites like pasta, steak, cheese, and chocolate. But ­that’s where the similarities end. Not only are these flavorful dishes a snap to make, but each allows you to indulge in the kind of food you love and still lose pounds and inches, lower your risk for major diseases, and gain energy.

The Superfood Advantage

The tasty Drop 10 superfoods offer enough variety to keep you from feeling like a diet zombie, mindlessly feeding on the same lifeless rabbit fare day in and day out. But variety ­wasn’t the only factor we considered when creating the deliciously diverse list. Like instruments in a band or the clothes in your closet, each food brings something cool and different to the table. ­Here’s a sample of what to expect once you begin enjoying the ­superfood-­filled recipes in this book:

Calories and body fat will disappear. Think about washing a crusty pot with soap and a scrub sponge versus only water and your hand. You’ll go through the same motions, but the detergents and sponge make your efforts easier and more effective, and the job goes faster. ­That’s essentially what happens when you eat these superfoods; their nutrients spur you to torch more fat or absorb fewer calories from your meals, so they do a chunk of your ­weight loss work for you! A few highlights of their stealth power agents:

Calcium blocks fat storage. Eat Parmesan and yogurt and you’ll slap down two hormones that otherwise tell your body to pack on fat.

Protein prompts calorie burning. About 100 extra a day, research suggests, if 30 percent of your calories come from this nutrient. Your body has to work harder to digest protein than it does carbs or fat, sizzling up about twice the number of calories in the process. Protein also helps build and maintain lean muscle, which helps rev metabolism (even on those ­slouch-­on-­the-­couch kind of days).

Healthy fats help strip fat off you. The unsaturated fats in avocado, fish, and olive oil are more readily burned by your body than saturated fats in butter and the like. Researchers ­aren’t sure why, but some suspect that our DNA may be programmed to allow only monounsaturated fat to activate genes that favor ­fat burning and resist fat storage.

Fiber blocks some calories in food. This body buddy is found in 70 percent of the superfoods (whole-grain pasta, apples, broccoli, even dark ­chocolate!). If you boost your daily intake to at least 24 grams, you could erase 90 calories a day, a study in The Journal of Nutrition reveals. Fiber’s trick for making inches disappear: This miracle nutrient binds to some of the fat and calories you eat and directs them through your digestive tract before you absorb them all.

Resistant starch (RS) helps you burn 23 percent more fat. Carbs have a bad rep, but RS is one type you’ll want to befriend. It ­doesn’t digest like most other ­nutrients—­instead, it lingers in your system, where it may step up production of hormone compounds that take your ­flab burning from hot to flaming.

You’ll thwart your ­body’s production and storage of fat. The Drop 10 superfoods are digestive ­slowpokes—­and ­that’s a good thing, because as fiber, protein, and fats in food break down, they “feed” your body a slow, steady stream of fuel. Refined carbohydrates (white bread and cookies, for example), ­full-­calorie sodas, and other processed foods digest at a breakneck pace and send a gusher of glucose (your ­body’s main fuel source) into your bloodstream at once. It’s more than you need, and the excess gets packed away as fat.

Hunger and overeating will be distant ­memories—­along with your old way of thinking about food. Because they take their time digesting, fiber, protein, and good fats constitute a hunger-­quashing, cravings-­busting trifecta of trimming. Of the three, protein takes the hunger-­taming gold. It decelerates digestion and may enhance the effect of leptin, a key hormone that helps you register fullness. Healthy fats stimulate the release of satiety hormones and are the slowest of the three nutrients to leave your stomach. ­Omega-­3s and resistant starch both may impact hunger and fullness signals, too, and may naturally rein in your appetite. As for fiber, it adds satisfying heft and chewiness to every bite.

You’ll eat more, yet take in fewer calories. There is another incredibly simple thing that helps hold down hunger: water, found in nearly all of the super fruits and veggies. (Some are up to 92 percent H2O!) Naturally high water and fiber contents make fruit and veggies low in energy density, meaning you can eat a sizable portion for a decidedly ­unsizable calorie hit. You’ll still feel full; multiple studies show that it’s the amount of these foods you eat that satisfies, more so than the actual number of calories you consume. Try it: If you add 3 cups of chopped broccoli to your dinner, you’ll take in a measly 93 calories but likely feel stuffed. Compare that with, say, potato chips; 100 calories nets you about 10 dinky chips.

Superfoods naturally crowd out crummy foods that make you fat. Unlike most processed foods, the Drop 10 superfoods satisfy you physically and mentally. By swapping out some of your current foods, meals, and drinks for superfood options or simply adding superfoods to what you’re already eating, you’ll naturally have less room and less desire for the nutritional zeros that add numbers on your scale. No diet drama, no cravings, no calorie math. The only thing you’ll count: the pounds as they melt off. It’s the ultimate ­no-­diet diet!