The Virgin Diet Cookbook: 150 Easy and Delicious Recipes to Lose Weight and Feel Better Fast by J.J. Virgin

The author begins this book with a claim that if you follow her plan and drop the seven foods she lists, you will lose seven pounds in seven days. These foods are: gluten, dairy, peanuts, eggs, corn, soy, and sugar and artificial sweeteners.
She outlines a three cycle plan with Cycle One being to remove these foods for 21 days completely and to drink a vegan protein shake once or twice a day during those days in the place of a meal.
In Cycle Two, you re-introduce 4 of the 7 foods back into your diet - one per week to see if you have an intolerance to that food. She explains the difference in food allergies and intolerances and explains that the 7 removed foods often cause reactions due to the fact that many people have intolerances that cause them to have problems digesting those foods or other symptoms.
In Cycle Three, you maintain the diet including the four additional foods if you are not intolerant of them.
Artificial sweeteners are never to be eaten and she recommends that corn and peanuts stay out of your diet most of the time and sugar be very limited.
The book includes 150 recipes that meet the standards that the author sets.
I found that some of the recipes include ingredients that are difficult to find - like monk fruit - which she recommends to be used as a low calorie sweetener - I could not find it in any store, and Malaysian red palm fruit oil - she states that it must be Malaysian - not any other - and I never did see any red palm fruit oil in any store that listed Malaysia as the country of origin. Some of the recipes are very long with tons of ingredients and very labor intensive with many steps. Others, however are simpler.
I have made several of the recipes from this book and they were very good.
I tried her plan. I did not lose seven pounds in seven days.
I was also unable to find a vegan protein powder that did not taste disgusting - and I tried four different brands. They all had the same underlying flavor - which is that of the vegan protein - which I just find gross. One brand was way more disgusting than the others, but they were all gross. The protein powder is not only awful tasting, but it has a lot of calories - way more than I usually eat for breakfast. In fact, due to drinking the protein powder shakes following her recipes, I actually gained a couple of pounds when I started this "diet". After 6 days I gave up on the horrid protein powder shakes and I lost those two pounds again. I did not, however lose any other weight and certainly not 7 pounds in 7 days as the author promises.
While I don't think her plan delivers what she promises - weight loss, and feeling better without feeling hungry or deprived - I did feel deprived - I do think that her recipes are ok. I like that she includes the nutrient content per serving with her recipes and I think that can be helpful to some people.
Although she claims that calorie counting is not necessary, I think that for most of us, dropping those 7 foods will not lead to losing 7 pounds in 7 days unless you also cut back on the amount of calories that you eat as well. I received this book free to review from Netgalley.