You On A Diet Book Review

You On A Diet The Owner's Manual for Waist Management
Michael F. Roizen, MD and Mehmet C. Oz, MD
(512 pages)

The premise of this book is that in order to get the body you want you must must go a level deeper than just knowing the actions to take. The real secret is understanding your body's biology, in particular how bodies store and burn fat.

You On A Diet has a little of everything. It includes the biology lessons of course, recipes, FAQ's, discussion about the emotional pitfalls of dieting, the latest diet research and exercise recommendations and techniques.

You On A Diet is divided into four parts.

Part 1 The Major Principles For How the Body Is Supposed To Work Chapters:

• Work smarter, not harder
• What your body is supposed to look like

Part 2 The Biology of Fat Chapters:

• The science of appetite
• How food travels through your body
• The dangerous battles of inflammation in your belly
• How fat ruins your health
• Your body's hormonal fat burners
• How you can burn fat faster

Part 3 The Science of the Mind Chapters:

• The psychology of the failed diet
• The connections between feelings and food
• Make biology and psychology work in your favor

Part 4 The YOU Diet and Activity Plan Chapters:

• How to change what you thought you knew about dieting and change your life for good
• Physical strategies for waist management
• The waist management eating plan

Appendices:

• The medical jump start to waist management
• When plastic surgery is an option
• What to do if your weight is out of control
• Getting your kids to eat right

As you can see it tries to cover it all. Each chapter opens with several diet myths and the myth busters are revealed, and many of their explanations are contrary to conventional wisdom.

There are little factoids throughout that are designed to get your attention so that you can extract the important concepts with a cursory review and then return later to digest the details. There are tests and tips throughout.

The material is very user friendly, in fact sometimes the explanations are a little oversimplified but I get that the doctors are trying to be cutesy to hold the readers attention. I don't want to give the wrong impression, they don't patronize.

YOU-reka moments are peppered throughout the chapters. YOU-reka moments are a signal that you are about to come upon a moment of enlightenment by busting a myth or explaining something about diets that may seem 180 degrees from what you believe is true.

If you could only have one book on your shelf, this could be the choice for those who like to understand what the body is up to when you feed it. It suggests a somewhat flexible eating plan and workout schedule.

You On A Diet or the Dr. Oz diet, as I have started calling it, recommends a diet high in vegetables (more raw than cooked if you can manage it) and fruit, whole grains, healthy fats, moderate protein intake and minimal amounts of processed foods.

The real emphasis of You On A Diet is biology. Let's face it the authors are doctors and that is their field of interest. But I think that's a good thing. It can only do you good to understand how your body processes the fuel that you provide to it.

As someone with a lifetime of eating problems, I am still plagued by the idea that the source of most unchecked overeating is both genetic and physiological.

I have faith that someday someone will unravel the intricate physiological puzzle of appetite, hunger, metabolism, satiety, and biology.

Roizen, Michael F. and Mehmet C. Oz. You On A Diet. New York: Free Press, 2006

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