cover image Perfect Weight America: Change Your Diet, Change Your Life, Change Your World

Perfect Weight America: Change Your Diet, Change Your Life, Change Your World

Jordan S. Rubin, with Bernard Bulwer. . Strang Communications/Siloam, $24.99 (358pp) ISBN 978-1-59979-257-6

Rubin (The Maker's Diet ) and host of the Christian-based television show Extraordinary Health offers this fairly complicated 16-week diet plan that is heavy on his Garden of Life company's products and general enough for non-Christian readers. Many of the ideas are familiar to health aficionados: the benefits of filtered water and organic, locally grown, in-season fruits and vegetables; the value of high-fiber and high protein foods; warnings against refined carbohydrates, trans fats, artificial sweeteners, diet drinks and—more oddly—microwave ovens. Rubin, founder of the Biblical Health Institute, also offers a “Healing Codes” exercise involving breathing and meditation to reduce stress and a suggested workout program, which focuses on short, intense bouts of exercise. Eight pages of testimonials, 33 pages of recipes (most include his products) and a 66-page detailed meal-by-meal eating plan round out the text. A Web site, www.PerfectWeightAmerica.com, promises to help readers access more diet tools. For a diet book, this is surprisingly wordy and densely written, but Rubin fans who want a fully detailed eating plan—and don't mind extensive product pitches—probably won't mind its verbosity. (Jan. 2)