cover image Eating Thin for Life: Food Secrets & Recipes from People Who Have Lost Weight and Kept It Off

Eating Thin for Life: Food Secrets & Recipes from People Who Have Lost Weight and Kept It Off

Anne M. Fletcher. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), $24.95 (352pp) ISBN 978-1-57630-020-6

Following up on her bestselling Thin for Life (1994), Fletcher records and organizes the experiences of 200 men and women who have successfully maintained over a number of years a significant weight loss (an average of 64 pounds). Fletcher calls her subjects, who have kept off 20 or more pounds for more than 10 years, masters. In Part I, she catalogues the strategies they have used to hold on to their weight loss, offering five main ""food secrets,"" e.g., ""Want to be Thin More Than You Want to Eat the `Wrong' Foods""; ""Fix Your Full Button."" Each tip is fleshed out with stories from ""the masters"" demonstrating how it has helped them. The second section offers 21 days of menus for low-fat, reduced calorie dishes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert, as well as snacks. Part III offers 100 recipes (with food counts) from the masters for recipes that have become mainstays on their tables. Included are recipes for Meatballs with Parsley and Sage, mixing ground round steak with grated potatoes; Crepes with Chicken and Mushroom Filling; Sweet Potato Puff, with bananas; Deep Dish Pumpkin Pie, with a graham-cracker crust. The accompanying list, ""Tricks of the Low-Fat Cooking Trade,"" is particularly helpful. As both inspiration and practical guide, this volume is likely to prove a great ally to readers who know that keeping off the pounds they lose is the larger part of a weight loss campaign. BOMC and QPB featured alternate; Prevention Book Club main selection; author tour. (Jan.)