For those on the Body For Life program, this is an excellent book. Some people complain that there are less-than-creative meals in the book... such as blueberry yogurt with cottage cheese or the various Myoplex shakes. While this is true, I feel that the other recipes included make it worth the price. Specifically, I love the turkey bacon quiche, asian beef stirfry, turkey meatloaf, chicken enchilladas, and carrot cake muffins. These few recipes, with a few additional ones have made it worthwhile for me to buy the book!

A lot of the reviewers complain about the inclusion of processed foods in the book. Yes, the recipes often call for Splenda, non-fat cooking spray, low-fat cheeses (cottage, cream, shredded), whole grain breads, and canned items. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a mainstream cookbook that didn't include processed foods in the recipes. The choice is yours to make.

Finally, reviewers complain about the lack of nutritional information. The basic calories, fat, protein, and carb counts are on the book's website. Everything else is not. I would imagine part of this stems from how the Body For Life program measures "portion sizes," which would make it difficult to accurately calculate nutritional information.

Personally, I think the downfalls are pretty minor. I love the fact that this book offers tasty recipes for eating the Body For Life way. I have found some of my new favorite recipes in this book. If you're not really experienced at cooking (which I'm not) or don't have time to create fabulous meals, and you're following the Body For Life lifestyle, then this book is for you. It's simple, colorful, and better than eating meal after meal of plain chicken breasts with Mrs. Dash on a whole wheat bun... which was what I was doing prior to finding this book.

The recipes in the book are delicious. I don't think I can find one that does not look appealing to me and I constantly question how something so nice can still be so healthy. Bill says in the intro that he wrote the book for ANYONE to be able to follow the recipes and yes, I do agree, they are very simple to follow - thanks Bill! My only problem coming from Australia is that MANY of the ingredients are not available here (not that it is the author's fault), but most often than not you can find SOMETHING to substitute. I've even had my sister & Mum buy the book just for it's recipes, never having heard of Bill or BFL.

Big Book! And not bad at all! Well worth the price. With the book "Body for Life" Bill Phillips has helped many people build leaner, stronger bodies and enjoy healthier, happier lives. I think "Eating for Life" is a great follow-up to his first book.

Bill provides the reader with a good background by discussing some popular beliefs about eating and dieting. He further provides a very insightful guide to shopping for, and preparing nutritious meals.

Of course, the best part of the book are the recipes. Simple ingredients, simple instructions, with full color pictures for each and every meal. Bill even includes a two week meal plan and blank pages for your own meal planning journal.

Anyone who has some knowledge about healthy lifestyle will recognize the meals and ingredients Bill recommends. For more comprehensive information on that topic I highly recommend "Can We Live 150". By going beyond exercising and nutrition, the author, Dr. M. Tombak supplements a lot of other healthy lifestyle information that Bill missed in his two books.

We found that many of the meals in this book are really good and not too difficult to make. It's easy to find the items and the meals are usually really good. But if you have children like we do, they probably won't eat these meals very easily. So in a situation where one has kids, you may find meals they like in this book, but you may end up making two meals for every meal...and that doesn't last very long.

For example: The book gives a Seafood Pasta Salad on pg 269. The full page photo and easy instructions are great. Put that in front a first grader and he will turn his nose up at it.

The ingredients for this menu item are simple. There are nine common ingredients including bow tie pasta, and frozen or cooked crab meat.

The directions are easy. Everything about this book is great in my view, except most kids we know, including our own, won't eat these menu items. Even though we've had to back off from using this book because of that we still keep it handy and I think it's a great recipe book for meals without kids.

But if you don't have kids...or if you have the patience to make multiple options for meals...or want to force your kids to eat like you are...then this is a great way to go. The nutrition is balanced using ingredients that are not hard to find...nor too expensive for a regular budget.

The recipes in this book are both easy and delicious. Finally a diet cookbook that doesn't send you hunting for things you've never heard of!