Of al the parasites that affect humanity I do not know of, nor can I imagine, any more distressing than that of Obesity," wrote William Banting in Letter on Corpulence, published in 1869. In the intervening 135 years, the parasite has multiplied: according to a recent study of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths due to obesity increased 33% in the 1990s. Obesity may soon surpass tobacco as the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S.
Since the 1970s—and Dr. Herman Tarnower's Scarsdale Diet—a growing number of doctors and nutritionists have identified carbohydrates as the culprit. With the phenomenal success in recent years of Dr. Robert C. Atkins's eponymous diet and cardiologist Arthur Agatston's South Beach Diet, low-carb has become the healthy choice. This spring, McDonald's went low-carb with its Go Active! Happy Meal for Adults—a salad, water and a pedometer on the side. Ben & Jerry's recently introduced Karb Karma, a line of low-carb ice cream, and even donuts and potatoes are getting carb makeovers. Krispy Kreme expects to introduce a low-carb donut by year's end (is nothing sacred?), and this spring a Dutch seed company announced that it had developed "spud-u-lite."
In today's intensely low-carb climate, publishers are looking to bulk up book sales by introducing more low-carb diet regimens, as well as exercise plans, especially during the all-important "new you" selling season in January.
Can You Say "Carbohydrate"?
"Everyone wants the next South Beach," says McGraw-Hill executive editor Judith McCarthy. And with good reason. First published by Rodale in April 2003, Dr. Agatston's The South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss has more than seven million copies in print after 24 printings. The newest addition to the line, The South Beach Diet Cookbook, launched in April with 1.5 million copies, the largest first printing ever for a cookbook.
Sales for books related to Dr. Atkins's more carbohydrate-rigorous diet are not far behind. According to Lisa Senz, associate publisher for consumer reference titles at St. Martin's, the hardcover of Atkins for Life: The Complete Controlled Carb Program for Permanent Weight Loss and Good Health has sold more than 2.2 million copies since January 2003. The paperback version, released last month, is a New York Times bestseller with 800,000 copies in print. St. Martin's will continue to expand its Atkins line in November with Atkins for Life: Low-Carb Cookbook by Veronica Atkins and Stephanie Nathanson. "This book fits right into the low-carb lifestyle craze," says Senz, noting that it offers menus for such family gatherings as Christmas, Thanksgiving and Super Bowl Sunday. The book will be promoted in the Atkins brand fall campaign, which includes TV advertising with T.G.I. Friday's and Subway, as well as special deals with joint-venture partners such as Hood Dairy and Sara Lee.
But not all carbs are bad. Both the Atkins and South Beach diets incorporate information on the glycemic index, or GI, a numerical system used to measure how fast a carbohydrate triggers a rise in circulating blood sugar. GI provides key information for diabetics like Matthew Lore, v-p of Avalon Publishing Group and publisher of Marlowe & Company, who has type one diabetes. "I was the first to publish a book on GI," says Lore. "And I think we're going to see more works on diet and health that are on the GI." Marlowe has more than two million books in print and a baker's dozen of titles in its New Glucose Revolution series by Jennie Brand-Miller, Johanna Burani and Kaye Foster Powell. The two latest entries are the just-released The New Glucose Revolution Life Plan and, coming in January, The Low GI Smart Carb Diet.
"You have to love the South Beach Diet," says HarperResource associate publisher Mary Ellen Curley. "People are coming into bookstores." That hasn't stopped Harper from developing a diet program of its own, The Rosedale Diet (Aug.) by Dr. Ron Rosedale and Carol Colman, which is set for a 50,000-copy first printing. "There's always an unsatisfied appetite for diet books," says Curley, noting that what distinguishes the Rosedale Diet is its use of the hormone leptin to in effect turn off the hunger switch.
"There will always be a major market interest in diet books," agrees Wiley executive editor Tom Miller. "They're always at the top of the health-related bestseller lists." He's excited about The Hamptons Diet: Lose Weight Quickly and Safely with the Doctor's Delicious Meal Plans (May) by Dr. Fred Pescatore, former medical director of the Atkins Center, which uses macadamia nut oil in many of its recipes. To publicize the book, Wiley will place postcards on advertising racks at health clubs and restaurants in New York City and the Hamptons throughout the summer. Warner's, um, well-oiled candidate is Cherie Calbom's The Coconut Diet (Jan.). "Coconut oil has gotten this bad rap. Now we're realizing having some saturated fat is good for you," says executive editor Diana Baroni, who first read about coconut oil's role in weight loss in an article in Women's World magazine.
While Dr. Pescatore looks at his plan as taking the best from both the Atkins and South Beach Diets, Dr. Douglas Markham has crafted a lifestyle program that goes, as his book's title puts it, Beyond Atkins. In it he advocates eating protein-rich carbohydrates and turning the food pyramid upside down. Originally self-published under his Total Fitness imprint, Beyond Atkins will be re-released in January by Pocket Books, and publicity will build on the endorsement that Larry King gave to the original edition. "Larry is willing to have him on the program again," says publisher Louise Burke, noting that Pocket will get "Dr. Doug" more publicity than he was able to garner on his own.
Nelson Books, which according to publisher Jonathan Merkh has experienced some of its biggest growth in the diet and fitness area, looks to total health as the next big thing: "The concept of wellness as it relates to the whole person is something that is increasingly attractive to a culture where technology makes it possible to live longer lives, but often neglects the vital spiritual and mental elements that make life fulfilling. Books with a spiritual component are doing well." He singles out My Big Fat Greek Diet: How a 467-Pound Physician Hit His Ideal Weight and How You Can Too (Sept.) by Dr. Nick Yphantides with Mike Yorkey. Dr. Yphantides, who lost the equivalent weight of two average-size women in his battle with cancer, is the poster boy for total health. Posters, by the way, are key to the book's promotion; YMCAs across the country will display posters with before-and-after photos of the doctor.
"Endocrinologist Diana Schwarzbein believes you need to be healthy to lose weight, not lose weight to be healthy," says HCI communications director Kim Weiss. "Dr. Schwarzbein doesn't even want to be called a diet doctor: she's into whole health." HCI has sold more than 400,000 copies of the first four books in the Schwarzbein Principle series. In her new book, The Program: Losing Weight the Healthy Way: An Easy, 5-Step, No-Nonsense Approach (July), Dr. Schwarzbein offers a slimmed-down version of her regimen to make it easier for users to get with the program.
What's Cooking?
Ultimately the success of any diet plan rests with how easy it is to stay on it and keep the weight off. "Everyone is still having trouble staying on low-carb diets," says New American Library editor Ellen Edwards. Given that, she says, "Drs. Rachael and Richard Heller's The 7-Day Low-Carb Rescue and Recover Plan [Dutton, May; NAL paperback, Jan.] is more timely than ever; it tells dieters how to get back on any low-carb diet once they've fallen off." Dutton is publishing a companion cookbook, The Satisfy-Your-Cravings Low-Carb Cookbook: 200 All-New Recipes So Good You'll Never Cheat Again, in January.
"Ninety-five percent of people who lose weight end up gaining it back," says Rodale executive editor Heather Jackson, noting that Stephen Gullo has been successful working with the other 5%. (His first book, ThinTastes Better, was on bestseller lists for over a year.) Launching in January with a 100,000-copy first printing is Thin Commandments, which deals with even faster and more significant weight loss.
With diabetes 2, once an ailment of the elderly, on the rise among teenagers, Richard Laliberte, Pat Harper and Dr. William Petit remind readers of ChangeOne Diabetes (Reader's Digest, Jan.) that losing 10% of body weight drops blood sugar by 30%. Like the other books in the ChangeOne series, this one involves making incremental lifestyle/diet adjustments each week. Although GI diets are typically easier to follow than low- or no-carb regimens, sticking with them long-term can still be problematic. In Living theG.I. Diet (Workman, Dec.) Rick Gallop and Emily Richards divide food by traffic-light colors and provide recipes for green-light dishes that taste like red, such as Garlic Shrimp Pasta and Pecan Brownies.
Suzanne Somers gives low-carb eating the Somersize approach, which has earned her sales of five million copies over the past seven years. Or, to put that in dollars and cents, "customers have bought $80 million worth of her books," says Crown publisher Steve Ross. In October, Crown will publish a small-format book by Somers on that most craved (and often forbidden) food, Somersize Chocolate. Like Somers, chef George Stella believes that low-carb foods have to taste good or people won't eat them. The host of Low Carb and Lovin' It, which debuted on the Food Network last month, lost—together with his wife and two sons—more than 550 pounds. In The Low-Carb Family (Simon & Schuster, Jan.), he provides recipes that others can use to duplicate his family's success.
In 2002, nutritionist Shawn Talbott examined the role that cortisol, the so-called "stress hormone," plays in weight gain in The Cortisol Connection (Hunter House). In the intervening years, the book has built an audience. "We're up to 100,000 copies in sales, and most of that's in the past year," says publicist Lisa Lee. "Shawn logs an average of 10 radio shows a month with regular monthly interviews in high-circulation magazines, and he's been a returning guest on Living It Up! With Ali and Jack." In September, Hunter House will publish a sequel, The Cortisol Connection Diet, which includes sample plans for meals, snacks and supplements. Publicity for the book will tie in with Cortislim, a vitamin supplement for which Talbott holds the patent.
Recipes for successful dieting, collected from EatingWell, The Magazine of Food & Health, can be found in The Essential EatingWell Cookbook (Countryman Press, Sept.) edited by Patsy Jamieson. Included are cholesterol, carbohydrate, protein and fiber counts for recipes ranging from Fresh Tomato Vinaigrette to Spicy Yogurt Chicken to Double Lemon-Poppy Seed Bundt Cake. Steve and Elena Kapelonis, owners of the Pump Energy Food chain in New York City, share 150 recipes for low-carb, high-protein foods, as well as a two-week diet for losing weight and another for bulking up, in The Pump Energy Food (Hyperion, Jan.) written with Mary Goodbody. The book will be cross-promoted in the restaurants, in gyms and online at PumpLifeStyle.com.
In The Dish: On Eating Healthy and Being Fabulous! (Atria, June), Carolyn O'Neil, host of PBS's Cook-Off America, and Densie Webb serve up tips on healthy eating out—or in—for hip young women. Atria mailed a special Dish Diva postcard and brochure to booksellers and food writers, and is sending the authors on a six-city tour. Bob Skilnik, who's evidently less concerned about the food than the drinks, provides the skinny on carb counts for beer, wine and mixed drinks in Low-Carb Bartender (Adams Media, Nov.).
Yoga and Pilates: Walk Don't Run
But diet is only half the story, of course, when it comes to losing weight. Exercise also plays a weighty role, as James O. Hill, John C. Peters and Bonnie T. Jortberg note in The Step Diet Book: Count Steps, Not Calories to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever (Workman, May). They move the concept of walking for exercise at least a thousands steps further, or the equivalent of walking off an ounce of M & M's. Instead of measuring food in terms of calories, the trio, who founded America on the Move, translate foods into steps, and their book even comes with a pedometer with a one-year warranty. "This is not a diet in the traditional sense," says publicist Nicki Clendening. "It's all about adding steps to avoid weight creep." She and about 30 other Workman folk strapped on pedometers for 12 weeks and tried to be more conscious about their food intake. Most lost five pounds; one employee lost more than 20.
"I think everyone is still trying to reach that primary market, the baby boomers," says Warner's Baroni. "Walking is an effective form of exercise, and it's easy. You don't need any special equipment." To promote Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds (Jan.), Baroni is planning a series of mall walks. But Warner isn't the only publisher stepping up fitness regimens, especially for pregnant moms (see sidebar, p. 24). Catherine Cram and Tere Stouffer Drenth provide basic exercise routines in Fit Pregnancy for Dummies (Wiley, July), while Mark and Lisa Fenton advise women to keep on walking in Walking Through Pregnancy and Beyond: How Expectant and New Moms Can Walk Their Way Through a Happy and Healthy Pregnancy and First Year (Lyons Press, June). Fitness expert Jane Simons relies on strength and flexibility exercises in Powering Through Pregnancy: Keeping Strong and Supple for the Most Important Nine Months of Your Life (Allen & Unwin, June).
Long the backbone of many fitness sections, the market for yoga and Pilates titles is fast reaching the saturation point. "Our accounts entreat us, 'No more yoga,' and 'No more Pilates.' We've been told, don't even publish it," says Broadway Books senior editor Ann Campbell, who is hoping that the next big trend will be Debbie Rosas and Carlos Rosas's The Nia Technique (Dec.), the workout plan used by Cher and the Royal Canadian Air Force, to name just a few. "It has that almost cult-like following, and it's so much fun," says Campbell, who enjoys Nia's fusion of dance, yoga and martial arts. In order to convince booksellers and sales reps if they try it they'll like it, Broadway is working out an agreement for free classes. Ann-Marie Millard looks East for her fusion techniques in Fusion Fitness: 15 Martial Art Workouts for Mind, Body and Spirit (Kylie Cathie, Aug.).
Of course, there is still a market for carefully published yoga titles, especially those from bestselling authors such as Deepak Chopra and David Simon, authors of The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga: A Practical Guide to Healing Body, Mind, and Spirit (Wiley, July) or Cyndi Lee, founder of the Om Yoga Center in New York City and author of Yoga Body, BuddhaMind (Riverhead, Aug.). Cindy Dollar and Susanna MacKenzie Euston help yoga practitioners tailor exercises to their individual needs in Yoga Your Way (Lark, Jan.). For intermediate practitioners, Srivatsa Ramaswami, who studied under Krishnamacharya for three decades, offers The Complete Book of Vinyasas Yoga (Marlowe, Jan.), which includes an audio CD and 900 color photos of yoga sequences.
Rodale's Jackson is convinced that "there's a little more room in the market for Pilates." For her, it's all about fusing fitness concepts, such as Wini Linguvic's Strong, Lean and Long (Jan.), which combines strength training with yoga and Pilates stretches. Sian Williams and Dominique Jansen take a more straightforward look at Pilates routines week-by- week in The Beginner's Guide to Pilates (Barron's, July), while trainer Shirley Sugimura Archer adds a spiritual element to the exercise in Pilates Fusion: Well-Being for Body, Mind, and Spirit (Chronicle, Sept.).
Faster, Faster
"For fitness particularly, people want quick results," says McGraw-Hill's McCarthy. "It's the whole Extreme Makeover thing." That's precisely what David Kirsch, whose clients include Heidi Klum and Faith Hill, proposes in The Ultimate New York Body Plan: Just Two Weeks to a Total Transformation (Oct.). Harley Pasternak, whose client list reads like a celebrity who's who, divides his workouts into five-minute cycles five days a week in Five Factor Fitness: How Hollywood's A-List Gets into Shape and How You Can Too (Putnam, Jan.) with Ethan Boldt. "Halle Berry is one of his clients, and she credits him 100% with her body," says Perigee publisher John Duff, who is "pretty confident" that the book will launch on Oprah. Pasternak appeared on the show briefly last month with Berry and Catwoman costar Benjamin Bratt, also a client.
Another trainer with a devoted A-list following is Gunnar Peterson, author of G-Force (Regan Books, Jan.). "He is the guy," says Judith Regan, noting that his client list includes Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez. "I want to give up this life of sin and become his assistant." Gary Todd offers a different set of celebrity exercises based on interviews with legendary boxers in Workouts from Boxing's Greatest Champs: Get in Shape with Muhammad Ali, Fernando Vargas, Roy Jones Jr., and Other Legends (Ulysses Press, Oct.). The company plans to approach gyms and fitness centers to co-promote.
Oprah's personal trainer Bob Greene is back in January with Bob Greene's Total Body Makeover (Simon & Schuster, Jan.). "It really is a 12-week, jump-start your life program," says senior editor Sydny Miner. "It doesn't matter whether you're looking to lose the last five pounds or just starting; he lays out a very specific exercise program."
Buns of Steel fitness guru Tamilee Webb has an even faster plan for overcoming aging in Tamilee Webb's Defy Gravity Workout: Fight Aging with Easy Exercises That Lift and Tone Your Entire Body (Fair Winds, Jan.). "You really can drop two dress sizes in eight weeks," says publisher Holly Schmidt, who plans to cross-promote the book with Webb's video on anti-aging exercises.
" 'Body sculpting' has become a huge buzz word, and we have it right in the title," says Hatherleigh publisher Kevin Moran about the company's Body Sculpting Bible series, which launched in fall 2001 and has a quarter million copies in print. Coming in January are The Body Sculpting Bible Express for Men and ...for Women, which feature quick routines of 21 minutes a day. "Our feeling," says Moran, "is body sculpting might become the next Pilates. You can do the weights at home and you don't need to belong to a gym. If you want fast results, weight training is the way to go." W. Jack Davis also guides readers to quick weight loss with The Miracle Workout: The Scientifically Proven Path to Weight Loss and Peak Performance (Ballantine, Feb.). He uses the concept of integrated Body Condition to get the heart rate up and keep it going through flexibility and resistance exercises.
But exercise is only part perspiration. It also involves determination, a trait that's literally on display in Mike Magnuson's Heft on Wheels: A Field Guide to Doing a 180 (Harmony, June). The front cover photo, which originally appeared in Gentleman's Quarterly, pictures a very heavy Magnuson riding his bike in the buff; on the back he's clothed and trim. "His transformation was absolutely amazing," says publisher Shaye Areheart, who believes that, although the diet book market is a difficult one ("the only thing out there selling is South Beach and Atkins"), in the exercise category "people have become so much more enamored of staying in shape." To promote Heft, Harmony is trying to build word of mouth at bookstores in strong biking communities like Book People in Austin, Tex., with ARCs and oversized postcards. Postcards will also be included in goodie bags for two major bike events, Blood, Sweat and Gears and the Bridge to Bridge.
One of the benefits of eating right and exercising, as the coauthor of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and costar of the popular TV show Kyan Douglas notes in Kyan Douglas Beautified: Kyan's Secrets to Looking and Feeling Fabulous (Clarkson Potter, Oct.), is looking good. Publisher Lauren Shakely, who calls him "the Paul McCartney of the Fab Five," says that the idea for a book on women's beauty and fitness came from a straw poll taken on the street at an author autographing for his earlier book.
With a myriad of approaches to fitness—from celebrity workouts to a fusion of regimens and speedy routines—and a variety of diet choices, this is shaping up to be a strong season for diet and fitness titles. And even without dire statistics about obesity and weight, finding the right diet continues to be a popular exercise. As Broadway's Campbell points out, "Two things people always think about are their weight and their health."
