cover image Awaken the Diet Within: From Overweight to Looking Great-If I Can Do It, So Can You

Awaken the Diet Within: From Overweight to Looking Great-If I Can Do It, So Can You

Julia Griggs Havey. Grand Central Publishing, $21.95 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-446-53016-3

This revamped version of a 1999 self-published paperback of the same name offers Havey's success story coupled with weight loss advice and a new menu plan section. The author, a formerly overweight mother of two, received an anonymous letter detailing an affair her husband was having with another woman. Havey divorced her husband and turned her life around-by losing 130 pounds through a motivational plan of her own design. The secret to successful weight loss, according to Havey, is to identify individual goals and develop a positive attitude by engaging in enjoyable activities-walking, meeting a friend or gardening-instead of eating. Havey recommends exercising and offers healthy recipes and advice on supplements; she believes in losing weight through self-motivation rather than via the diet of the moment (""Live the life, not the diet""). The author has parlayed this helpful, commonsense weight loss program into a career that includes advertising her books and diet aids on cable TV and maintaining a Web site where she promotes motivational tapes and CDs.