5-Day Miracle Diet

At half the length, this would have been an excellent guide to training away your cravings and losing weight, but redundancies and fillers add inappropriate padding. The basic point is as follows: if your blood sugar bottoms out, you start to have cravings, while at the same time you've become too tired and cranky to stand firm against them. Puhn, a certified nutrition specialist, recommends a starch and protein breakfast (starch breaks down quickly, protein slowly); and vegetables and proteins for lunch and dinner. More importantly, Puhn recommends snacking twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon on what she calls ""Hard Chew"" or ""Soft Chew"" snacks (apple or cantaloupe) in order to keep in ""Good Blood Sugar"" or GBS. With examples and sample menus, she outlines daily eating plans. Recognizing that not everyone is the same, she makes allowances for occasional indulgences and smartly helps tailor the program to vegetarians and to the insulin-resistant and carbo addicts. She also makes a cogent case against ""Lite"" foods (which often make up for low fat by high sugar or high salt). But jargon (""the fathead factor"") and peppy patter ( ""You call this a diet? I call it a dream come true"") make this sensible, practical program hard to swallow. (June)