There’s lots of talk and angst on the BFL guestbook about ladies using the Eating for Life book and not seeing weight loss.  Below is an excerpt from a blog published July 20 2007.

Don’t throw that EFL book out because you’re not losing weight. Just think it through. Here’s the potential problem with eating from nothing but the EFL book.

Let’s say you’re the “average” woman who wants to lose 15 pounds of “ugly” fat (ever seen pretty fat?). To do that in 12 weeks you need to shed 1.5 pounds a week on the average during your challenge. If a pound of fat is 3500 calories, then you’ll need, on the average, to sacrifice 750 calories a day off your normal caloric intake. The “average” woman uses about 2200 calories a day to keep that body the way it is.

Do the math—you’ll only be able to eat 1450 calories a day—and that’s assuming you don’t take a free day! If you take a free day, and let’s say you do about 1000 calories above your usual 2200, what you’re looking at is only being able to average about 200 calories for EACH of your six small meals a day. (That’s precisely why Myoplex Lite has 180 calories!) Now, let’s look at just one of the EFL recipes—”Eggs and Oats” on p 226.
½ cup oats, 150 calories; ½ cup skim milk, 40 calories; a whole egg (large) and 3 egg whites 230 calories. O.K., what we have here is 420 calories, BEST CASE SCENARIO. That’s a serving all right, but a serving for an average guy in a maintenance situation. AND, IF YOU’LL GO TO P. 73 OF THE BOOK, YOU’LL FIND THAT THE PORTION SIZES ARE INDEED TOO LARGE FOR THE AVERAGE LADY!

But, hey, don’t take my word for all this—go to the hussmanfitness.org website and scroll down to a heading called “How Calories Work” and go from there.

Bottom line here: Especially for ladies:
EAT EFL, but don’t eat the portions, at least if you want to lose fat!