The Essential Oils Diet: Lose Weight and Transform Your Health with the Power of Essential Oils and Bioactive Foods

by Eric Zielinski D.C.

The first diet program that harnesses essential oils and bioactive foods for weight loss and disease prevention, from the nation’s trusted authority in essential oils and natural remedies. The runaway success of The Healing Power of Essential Oils showed that there is a growing interest in using essential oils to heal the body. Now, in The Essential Oils Diet, Dr. Eric Zielinski teams up with Sabrina Ann Zielinski (“Mama Z”) to teach readers how bioactive plant compounds--those found in essential oils and in foods like matcha green tea, chia seeds, almonds, and avocados--can aid in weight loss, boost energy levels, and trigger the body's natural immune defenses to fight chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes and autoimmunity.    The Essential Oils Diet features a sensible, evidence-based, two-phase program—first, the 30-day essential fast track, which helps you banish excess pounds quickly, followed by the essential lifestyle, a gentle, practical maintenance program you can follow for life. Featuring delicious, easy recipes, meal plans, and strategies to keep you on track, you’ll learn how to harness essential oils and bioactive foods to help your body reach the homeostasis necessary to help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight and abundant health.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction, Diets

341 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 7, 2019

Reviews

[Jacqie Wheeler · Rating 1 out of 5]

I extremely dislike this book, but it's my fault for not knowing that this book was anti-keto. I thought I was actually going to learn about how to use essential oils in my every day diet, but this book first preached about how we shouldn't follow diets and limit foods... But then it goes to list all the things you can't eat (no coffee, no meat, no sugar, no dairy, etc). The reason they say to not drink coffee is because of it being highly addictive (was this written by Mormons?).
This book also wants you to practice intermittent fasting (which I do agree with), BUT they want you to fast and not be hangry after only eating fruits and veggies? I already have tried doing that before and my blood sugar levels were through the roof.

Overall the book was very unorganized, repeated a lot of normal information, and there seemed to be a lot of restrictions (even with your lifestyle - no cell phones, no wifi, etc).

[Dora · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not expect the religious aspect lead in to this program. Criticism is made of low carb (paleo and keto specifically) however this book goes on to suggest eating that is very much in line with the low carb, clean eating diets. The general food recipes often included stevia. I prefer not to use sweeteners other that whole foods ( berries )

When you finally get to the recipes for essential oils, you are given a recipe to make a year’s supply! So I will not be investing in a huge batch, without having any idea if these will be nice or awful.

I found the type font hard to read, and many highlight sections are printed in gray blocks - really struggled to read those.

Overall am disappointed. It did make me curious to look for other guides for using essential oils.

[Alba · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ended up scanning the book because it was mostly stuff I already knew since I read a lot of natural health related books. It was not as much about essential oils as I had hoped and I am not big on consuming EO's and it was mostly food recipes with EO's in them.

If you have not read much on natural health it has some good information and can be useful to newbies.

[Shaun · Rating 2 out of 5]

I took this book out from the library hoping to learn more about essential oils and how they might be used to assist with weight loss.

Aromatherapy has been around for a long time, and although considered an alternative therapy thanks to a lack of research, given the power of smell and the fact that these oils can and do end up in our blood stream, I imagine they can have a true and even measurable physiologic effect.

Unfortunately, essential oils only make a guest appearance, as they are barely even mentioned.

Much of the book deals with lifestyle transformation. The authors, a husband and wife duo, discuss the tenants of successful change. Interestingly, I felt like there was quite a bit of good advice, just not much that related specifically to essential oils.

That said, I did learn a few things, and the authors do provide "recipes" for different essential oil mixtures and applications. I guess I was hoping for a book that explored what research exists and offered more substance.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn't exactly what I thought it would be and seemed to touch more on different diets and nutritional, rather than on essential oils. The author seems to have some strong opinions on different types of diets and includes a list of many things you "aren't allowed to consume." Which some of which are of course healthy, like no meat or no dairy, however I feel like the information provided in the book was different from the synopsis. Overall I didn't find the book to be very helpful and it also seemed a bit unorganized to me. Some of the information the author presents, like no drinking coffee and even some lifestyle choices, like no cell phones, just didn't seem practical to me. I wish the author had touched more on essential oils and how they can be useful in health and well being.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for sending me an ARC of this book.

[Amy Kreydin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a book about christianity, lifestyle, and some strongly held opinions on foods and how quickly women should bounce back to pre-pregnancy weight postpartum. As a clinical aromatherapist I had some curiosity about why someone would write a book with such a title so I requested an advance review copy through NetGalley. Some of the recipes, like adding basil essential oil into compound butter, pass the test of food flavoring but other recipes encourage the use of essential oils in coffee, tea, et cetera. Despite studying aromatherapy the authors must have missed the chemistry lecture on water and oil not mixing. I routinely use aromatherapy in my practice to support clients with a variety of gastrointestinal challenges but struggled reading this book.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

The more appropriate title for this book should be, "The Bible Diet". Maybe the PDF that comes with the book would be more helpful - I listened to the audiobook and therefore didn't take the time to look up the PDF.

[Florence Witt · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book that says it is not about dieting but goes on to tell you all the no-foods on their list....

[Ginger Hudock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a longtime reader of Dr. Eric Zelinski’s website and his previous book The Essential Oils Revolution, so I was very interested to read this new book, The Essential Oils Diet. As a certified nutritionist I am very well educated in healthy eating and living principles. I am always on the lookout for new books that will be of help to my nutrition clients and website readers. There are some worthwhile things in this new book.

I agree with most of the nutrition prinicples in this book and I also agree that essential oils can be a helpful adjunct to a whole foods diet. However, I do not agree that pasture-raised pork or wild caught shellfish are unhealthy foods. There are many excellent nutrients in shellfish, especially, and as long as you get them from a healthy source they can be part of a healthy diet. Animal foods, in general are not a problem in a healthy diet.

This book is actually mis-titled in my opinion. It is more of a healthy lifestyle and eating guide and not truly a diet book. I would have appreciated a little more guidance for those who want to lose significant amounts of weight. This book might not be very helpful to them in giving clear guidance. I have found that most of my clients who need to lose weight benefit from a lower carbohydrate diet. This book does not give good details on how to do a low carb diet and in fact, does not recommend it.

The Zelinskis teach from a Christian viewpoint, which is great for me because I am Christian. It might be offputting for some readers who are not aware of this, however. There seem to be a lot of additional resources available on line as links from the book, but these were not yet available when I read the book, so I can’t comment on their usefulness. The recipes are very good however.

I recommend this book for someone who want to adopt a healthier lifestyle and may have a small amount of weight to lose. For someone with serious health issues or a large amount of weight to lose, this book may not give you everything you need.

I received a complimentary advance reader copy from #netgalley.

[Create With Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have you ever picked up a book that you have high hopes for – you want to fall in love with – but, when you read it, it isn’t 100% of what you wanted it to be? That’s my experience with The Essential Oils Diet. There are a lot of things that I like about this book – but, truth be told, it isn’t everything I hoped it would be.

The problem begins with the title. Essential Oils are taking America by storm, and like many Americans, I am currently reading everything that I can get my hands on to learn more about how to use Essential Oils to improve my health. Based on the title, I expected essential oils to be the sole focus of the book, but it wasn’t. Instead, this was more of a Christian-based book that teaches you how to transform your health through several means, including removing toxins from your body and environment, incorporating bioactive foods and incorporating essential oils into your diet.

Now, this doesn’t mean that The Essential Oils Diet is a bad book – but it wasn’t 100% accurate in its description for me. In addition, while there is a lot of good information in the book, there are certain things in the book (such as the inclusion of stevia in the recipes) that just do not work for myself and my family.

So, check out the Table of Contents before you delve in and preview the book firsthand if possible.

The Essential Oils Diet is not going to be the right book for everyone – but hopefully, it will be the perfect book for you!

I rate this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher. My comments reflect my personal experience with this book!

[Ileana Renfroe · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Essential Oils Diet features a sensible, evidence-based, two-phase program—first, the 30-day essential fast track, which helps you banish excess pounds quickly, followed by the essential lifestyle, a gentle, practical maintenance program you can follow for life. Featuring delicious, easy recipes, meal plans, and strategies to keep you on track, you’ll learn how to harness essential oils and bioactive foods to help your body reach the homeostasis necessary to help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight and abundant health.

The author has very strong opinions and some descriptions are not practical.

[Abigail Parchment · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential Information

This book is well written with research-based information on how to adopt a healthy lifestyle. The authors use the Bible as a foundation for their recommendations, but anyone with any world view can use the information presented here to live healthier and happier.

I have been following the “bootcamp” for about a month and have lost pounds and inches, have fewer headaches, and am encouraged by the support group we get access to with the purchase of this book. I look forward to even more benefits as I continue.

[Elisabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sigh. I really thought this was going to be something different. But no, super preachy, taking tons of Bible verses way out of context, and basically saying “you have to live this way” which isn’t what I expected at all. (I’m a Christian, and anyone who is STILL USING THE OLD TESTAMENT RULES FOR FOOD NEED TO QUIT. Pork and shellfish are okay.)

There are some awesome recipes at the back of the book, hence the 2 stars instead of one. But as another reviewer mentioned, this couple is very anti-keto. Kinda made me angry the way they kept reiterating it.

Just not very good.

[Bookoholiccafe · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Essential Oils Diet is focusing on programs that is linking essential oils and food in order to help with weight loss and preventing disease.

I found this book a good reference book, there are several good tips and recopies that I easy to follow. It is mostly a lifestyle reference rather than a diet book. I found it containing heavy biblical references and is not an easy read.
Many thanks to Net Galley and the Publisher for sending me an advanced copy.

[Sydney Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great reference, especially for newbies in the natural health world. I always appreciate their Bible references. Combining the Zielinskis with Weston A Price would be the ultimate combo.

[Athena Rupas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the recipes, meal plans and strategies in this book easy to follow. Something the average person can understand and work with. It really is a gentle, practical maintenance program you can follow. I haven't tried it out personally but I think it's something that I think I can work with. I love working with essential oils and could easily incorporate them into my diet.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

[Christine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretty sure you're NOT supposed to ingest essential oils. Not sure how much that is encouraged, as I didn't make it past the bible-y bits. When I ran into that, I checked out the authors' photo: eep. Pretty much as expected.

Making a donation to PP in their name.