The nutrition guide has a few different ways to go about following it. I may not use the correct terms (as my book is in my office) but one is the menu plan, where you basically make a bunch of food per their recipes. That didn't work for me. Another way is to follow their number of servings per food group for your goals...meaning if your goal is to lose weight, follow the "Fat Burner" number of servings. If it's to maintain, use another and if you're an athlete in training use another. I followed the fat burner method and tried to follow the quantities for it. It was a lot of lean protein, some carbs (but healthy), vegetables (but not so many it's unattainable), some fruit, dairy, fats, etc. I really didn't find it all that bad.
Red meat isn't stricken from the diet. Lean cuts of it are okay (like a London Broil). But I would say chicken and fish is probably preferred.
To give you an idea, a typical day eating for me was:
Breakfast - An egg white scramble with lowfat cheddar cheese and something else...I liked mushrooms, asparagus and occasionally lean ham. I also used Tabasco liberally.
Snack - Usually some celery and carrot sticks, with about a tablespoon of peanut butter for protein and to make the celery taste better. Or just some nuts (Wasabi Almonds are awesome!)
Lunch - Mixed greens salad with chicken breasts, a little cheese, maybe some olives, any healthy vegetables I had around with fat free salad dressing.
Dinner - A typical, but healthy dinner. Chicken breast, lean beef, fish, or lean pork with a healthy carb (usually brown rice, wild rice or a sweet potato (to me it falls in both carb and vegi catagory)) and a vegetable.
I tried to work a snack in between lunch and dinner, but it wasn't for me.
No eating after dinner, water is the main (almost only) beverage, yada yada yada. All of the typical healthy eating guidelines.
I would assume most people who've been on it cheat. For me, if I knew I was going to cheat, I wouldn't cheat as much. And the biggest thing that I got threw my thick skull was if I did have an unhealthy meal (ex. cheesesteak before a Phillies game), I didn't fall off the wagon...I brushed it off as no big deal and got right back on the program.
Also they stress no alcohol. I cut down big time, but I didn't give it up. Oh, and I drank coffee aplenty.
To me, it wasn't really a "plan", but more of a guideline. It's basically all of the healthy, natural eating things you've probably heard a dozen times. I'm not bashing it...on the contrary, it was well designed, reasonably easy to understand and reinforced healthy eating. It's more common sense than a system.
Hope that helps.