Your 21-Day Guide to Shed Weight - and Take Charge of Your Health

This is the best healthy recipe/healthy menu planning book bar none. Such a brilliant idea to do your cooking in advance and mix and match those foods. I love that is has my grocery list made out, the menu planning for each day is laid out for you and all of the recipes are so so good!!! I have made all 6 stashes many times and now I even mix and match the stashes themselves. You won't be disappointed I promise! #officialstasherforlife

Broth recipe/concept: 5/5 stars
Stashes: 5/5 stars
Meal planning, organization tips: 5/5 stars
Everything else: 1 star (or less)

There are 6 "stashes" in this book, enough for 3 weeks of food (2 stashes/week), and the recipes are tasty, and pretty creative in how they mix and match the stash items - 2 protein, 2 carbs, 2 veggies - for interesting meals. I also enjoyed learning more about the broth, and that's something I plan to do more often.

In the first third of the book (almost 100 pages) the authors talk about how much better it feels to eat healthy (surprise!) and Troy ventures into some silly stuff about "qi" and energy flow and function of the gallbladder and liver and lymphatic system. The last 15 pages or so show Laura Prepon doing some "Stash Stretching" that ties in with this. Alarmingly, Troy makes countless claims throughout the book about health and science that are at best, misconstrued, and at worst, flat out false. If you are willing to approach her writing with healthy skepticism and not take everything she says as fact, then give this book a go.

This eating plan is INVOLVED to say the least. In order to really do this, you MUST have serious financial and time commitment. Overall, I love the recipes. Having said that, Im struggling with all the MEAT eating. I am not a vegan nor vegetarian. I do however like to seriously limit eating MEAT! The stash plan is truly for committed meat eaters! UGH. So, I am altering parts of it myself, no doubt, since authors provide no alternatives to all the meat . Like another reviewer already stated, NO WHERE in the book does it recommend how much broth to consume daily! That is a serious flaw in my opinion. I tweeted the author Elizabeth Troy over a week ago and no surprise, still haven't heard how much broth is recommended. I love all the background info around the liver and gallbladder meridians, as well as, the mention of fascia restriction issues. Being an LMT in NYS, I agree and find such explanation for illness and dysfunction to be quite helpful. Furthermore, I appreciate the overall approach that is taken for true healing from the inside out. Improvements are needed however for me to give it 5 stars.

Before I received the book, a sneak peak to stash 1 was released in order to start trying out the recipes. I didn't need the how/why these recipes aid in body function, I just read over the ingredients, saw wholesome variety and started cooking. I'm used to cooking ahead, but it's usually one dish that feeds us for 3 days- it gets boring. Each stash consists of 6 dishes, 2 proteins, 2 veggies, 2 carbs- and then there's a list of snacks or "hand grabbers." First impressions: I was impressed with the taste of the recipes, no dish overpowered another and the dishes complimented each other. Even foods that I normally wouldn't choose, were enjoyable due to how they were spiced.

Then the book came.

The opener gives some background info about steps that failed Laura in achieving health goals and then how she found success working with Elizabeth, as well as following this plan.

As a healthcare provider, I particularly enjoyed how much attention was paid to the breakdown of the human body, how certain foods hinder it's function and how you can rectify it:
1) food intake
2) attention to bone broth
3) specific stretches that pay attention to certain organs of the body

The recipes are easy to follow, most require few ingredients, and have a great taste (I've made stash 1 and 2 thus far).

The stretches:

Nowadays (I'm young, I don't mean to sound old) things are demoed via video, so reading the directions about movements took a moment but they're broken down simply. I work out most days of the week, but I'm not naturally flexible and felt like these all felt new/challenged my body. I'm feeling some soreness in parts of my body today, which reassures me that I am stretching in ways that are new to my body.

Overall there's some great stuff in this book. There's nice anecdotes, easy flow of language and it feels friendly. I honestly wish there were some more recipes in here, and maybe one day there will be a part two of just that but for now I'll enjoy what I've got.

Before I received the book, a sneak peak to stash 1 was released in order to start trying out the recipes. I didn't need the how/why these recipes aid in body function, I just read over the ingredients, saw wholesome variety and started cooking. I'm used to cooking ahead, but it's usually one dish that feeds us for 3 days- it gets boring. Each stash consists of 6 dishes, 2 proteins, 2 veggies, 2 carbs- and then there's a list of snacks or "hand grabbers." First impressions: I was impressed with the taste of the recipes, no dish overpowered another and the dishes complimented each other. Even foods that I normally wouldn't choose, were enjoyable due to how they were spiced.

Then the book came.

The opener gives some background info about steps that failed Laura in achieving health goals and then how she found success working with Elizabeth, as well as following this plan.

As a healthcare provider, I particularly enjoyed how much attention was paid to the breakdown of the human body, how certain foods hinder it's function and how you can rectify it:
1) food intake
2) attention to bone broth
3) specific stretches that pay attention to certain organs of the body

The recipes are easy to follow, most require few ingredients, and have a great taste (I've made stash 1 and 2 thus far).

The stretches:

Nowadays (I'm young, I don't mean to sound old) things are demoed via video, so reading the directions about movements took a moment but they're broken down simply. I work out most days of the week, but I'm not naturally flexible and felt like these all felt new/challenged my body. I'm feeling some soreness in parts of my body today, which reassures me that I am stretching in ways that are new to my body.

Overall there's some great stuff in this book. There's nice anecdotes, easy flow of language and it feels friendly. I honestly wish there were some more recipes in here, and maybe one day there will be a part two of just that but for now I'll enjoy what I've got.

Most of those 5 star reviews were posted before it was even an option to have completed a week on this plan, so I will share with you my experience this week with The Stash Plan. I just cooked up Stash 2 last night, and I have to say I'm disappointed in the accuracy of the book. The philosophies and health reasons behind it are all great. The theory of the process is fantastic, but the follow through, if using the book, is a little off. Just some examples... 1) The seemingly helpful grocery lists are off. For example, the list said to buy 1 avocado for Stash 2, but on 3 occasions the plan calls for use of 1/2. That's simple math. 2) Nowhere on Stash 2 list did say to buy blueberries, but yet every day on the plan calls for a cup of blueberries. I should have been more attentive and made my own lists but I thought the point of those were to make it simple, so buyer beware - those handy lists are not 100% and proved to be not so handy. 3) The recipes are a bit off (and include some typos, i.e. the quinoa tabbouleh recipe says "add the rice to the pot" when it's not a rice dish...small error but as a published book you would think someone was not only editing the recipes but also testing them for taste and portions!) - why would I waste a 1/4 lb of meat to make a 4th bison patty when I'm only using 3 for Stash 1? I would have preferred to freeze that meat. I also had loads of other cooked produce leftover based on the portions I was supposed to eat. Overall, the disconnect between recipes, shopping lists, and plans is frustrating needless to say. 4) Cooking for 3-4 hours on a Wednesday night after a full day of work was just miserable. Sundays I'm fine with - but the Wednesday night stash cook is just exhausting. Nothing is that complicated and yet, it's still too much to bother with. I was home from work around 7, didn't finish cooking my last stash component until almost 11.
The upside is that I have learned what foods are good to eat to improve liver and gallbladder health. I have also realized that twice a week cooking isn't a bad idea but I want to simplify what I'm cooking and find ways to make the proteins, veg, carbs feel different/special the day I am pulling that meal together - spices, dressings, etc. The other upside is that now I have batches of homemade super healthy beef and chicken bone broths in my freezer :-)

I think this book is well written, interesting and relatable as it gives many examples of Laura's journey to get where she is. I just received the book a couple days ago and finished it in a day. I will dig into the recipes this week, but they look simple, delicious and not too different than the way I currently eat.

The book puts a major emphasis on stretching and that's why I am only giving this book three stars. I find it VERY difficult to understand different stretching postures by only reading about them, and I really didn't find the pictures to help that much. I really, really wish there was some sort of video or resource to demonstrate the stretches to ensure they are being done properly. There is no point in doing a stretch incorrectly so some additional guidance would be nice.

The "shopping list" is very out of order, for our first purchase the book wanted us to buy things for stashes that were in stash 4-6, but didn't have us buy things for stash 2. Instead of buying everything for a full week, it wants you to buy half of a weeks worth of groceries to fill out one stash, but then it wants you to go to the store again for stash 2 which occurs in the middle of the week. My Fiancé and I purchased this book thinking it would be a meal prep for the whole week and that it would be pretty easy, but instead it was very expensive, took A LOT of time just to cook stash 1 and then we were incredibly frustrated to see that we'd have to go to the store again before doing stash 2. Sure you could say "well just read ahead and plan it for the whole week." That would be great but the shopping lists are trash, they are in a totally random order so right when you think you have everything, you go down the list and find out you need to go back to the other side of the store. It was just a terrible terrible book, also 90% of it is about her and not about the actual diet. Waste of money for sure.

This book is Awesome!!! Well written and so easy to understand. The Authors share their own stories and experiences and what has worked for them. I have suffered with hypothroid, Hashimoto's and Fibromyalgia since my youngest was born and she will be 21 in May! I am going to commit to trying The Stash Plan and I will report back after a couple of months. My youngest two still live at home and have their own issues so we will do this together. Recipes look delish and it seems simple enough. Thanks Laura for sharing!

This book was very interesting. I learned so much reading it. I have made some of the recipes already but haven't started the plan as I am currently looking for a local supplier of grass fed meats and bones. I am very excited to start the plan and my hubby is on board as well.