The Dolce Diet: Living Lean [Paperback]

I bought this book as someone who participates in combat sports and already has a pretty good basic knowledge of sports nutrition. Given that Mike Dolce is seen as a bit of a nutritional 'guru' by many within MMA, I thought that this'd hopefully be a good book to read in terms of expanding my knowledge: a lot of sports nutrition literature is written more with the bodybuilding market in mind, while the majority of the rest of it is based upon studies carried out upon endurance athletes. There's relatively little out there which is geared towards the specific demands of combat sports, and I hoped that this book would maybe go some way towards bridging that gap.

To say that I was disappointed in these hopes would be an understatement. The first half of the book basically consists of Mike Dolce's life story. Whilst this is reasonably interesting, it isn't what I bought the book for; I probably wouldn't have bought an autobiography of his at all, and I certainly wouldn't have paid this price for it. This is followed by a basic shopping list, telling the reader a few good things to buy: if you're a complete novice then this might be useful, but no explanation is provided as to why you should be buying these foods. If you've already worked out that spinach and chicken are good for you, meanwhile, it's really not going to be worth much to you. Further, no explanation is given as to WHY you should be eating these specific foods; he claims to be giving his readers the knowledge needed to plan their own meals, but he's only doing that at the most superficial level. Telling people to eat vegetables isn't enough; people need to know why they should be doing so.

Next, he gives a sample daily meal plan, claiming that this template will allow you to plan your own meals. This quite simply isn't true, because he once again doesn't explain why eating this particular mix of meals will do you good. His tagline of 'Don't count calories! Make calories count!' is totally vacuous; whilst it's true that obsessive calorie counting isn't necessarily a good thing, he should at least make some mention of macronutrient ratios, which are probably the single most important thing in sports nutrition. Reading this book as a beginner would lead to macronutrient (protein, carbs and fat) intakes being all over the place on different days. Your diet would certainly be healthy, but it wouldn't be optimal. It's maybe not entirely a bad thing from the point of view of a beginner, as it's better to start out by making small steps, but at this price I'd expect more. Further, the book very much gives the impression that it's teaching you everything that you need to know, which isn't even nearly the case.

The next section of the book consists of some recipes and suggested snacks. Some of these aren't bad (others, for various reasons, are ridiculous) and I can definitely see how they'd help someone who maybe wasn't sure of how to go about improving their diet to make good choices, but once again they don't really merit the price. Once again, he also doesn't explain why these meals are good for you: again, this flies in the face of his claim to actually be teaching his readers how to make their own decisions. Of course, if his readers did know how to make their own decisions they wouldn't feel a need to buy his next book...

He finishes with some basic workout plans. Again, not necessarily anything wrong with them, but they don't merit the price of the book. You could find similar recipes and workout plans in a monthly lifestyle magazine, and what's more the magazine would at least give some explanation as to why they'd do you good.

I don't doubt that Mike Dolce is an expert in his field, but there's no way that his approach with his clients is anywhere near as haphazard as the one espoused in this book. Frankly, I doubt that he even had much input into the book; it's ghostwritten and vague enough to make me think that it could be based on a very short series of interviews.

To summarise: if you know anything about sports nutrition or even just nutrition in general, you'll learn nothing from this book; if you're a novice in the area you might learn a bit, but it isn't worth the money.

I used this program and literally got in the best shape of my life. I follow the plan exactly as it was written and always feel well fed and energized. The meals are all so simple to make and the workouts are incredible. This book is like a personal trainer, chef and life coach built into one!

this book is excellent. very easy to understand and the recipes are incredible. i waited two weeks to comment to see what my own results would be. in that time I've lost 11 lbs and feel absolutely amazing! this book is just as good for regular people as it is for athletes.