It's been five years since Dr. Connie Guttersen released "The Sonoma Diet"--a favorite among celebs including Jessica Alba and Jennifer Aniston--and now she's back with its follow-up, "The New Sonoma Diet: Trimmer Waist, More Energy In Just 10 Days."
The Sonoma Diet is influenced by the cuisines of California's wine country and the Mediterranean, so not surprisingly, wine is allowed! The diet also encourages low glycemic meals, which it claims slims the waistline and boosts your energy.
TooFab spoke with Guttersen about the Sonoma Diet, its celeb followers, and living a lean life!
What aspects of the Sonoma Diet appeal to celebrities?
From Jennifer Aniston to Matt Dillon to JessicaAlba, it's a style of eating that's very conducive to their lifestyle becauseit's healthy, it's about lifestyle and it's not crash-dieting and they all lovewine so usually if you look along those lines you'll see the celebrities thatline themselves up with the Sonoma Diet.
The whole idea of the Sonoma Diet is to boost your energylevels with low glycemic foods, and for celebrities who are very active intoexercise, it's criticalbecause you can't be eating a low-carb diet or a diet that's not healthy andthen look your best or try to have enough energy for exercise, so it kind of aligns themselves medically. Butlet's be realistic, they're very social, they like wine and they've found a waytheir able to have the social with the medical.
Why do you think it'sa good idea to incorporate a glass of wine into a healthy diet?
Well, I personally feel that when you have a glass of wineyou savor, you enjoy the meal, you eat slower and it enhances the wholepleasure of eating. From a medical standpoint, the studies are finding that ifyou have a glass of wine every day, you're going to have less risk for heartdisease, diabetes, Alzheimer's. The best part is that women that drink a glassof wine everyday are slimmer. So it's a very cool, chic thing to do!
What kind of exercisedo people need to do on the Sonoma diet?
The New Sonoma diet features some fascinating new updates, and one of them happens to be more exercise from cardio-vascular to Tai Chi toyoga, because it's not only about losing pounds with exercise, it's about stressrelief, mood, sleep, looking you best."
Do you think thepower of celebrity encourages people to diet?
I absolutely do because if they make adecision to follow Sonoma diet, it usually tends to be a personality likeJennifer Aniston or Jessica Alba who is very outgoing, very healthy, intoexercise and lifestyle. We've been really lucky that wehaven't been associated with crash-dieting or unhealthy practices so I think acelebrity has a very powerful voice, but at the same time they have a hugeresponsibility because you find that young women and young men look tocelebrities for answers and they look to them as role-models.
