The L.A. Shape Diet: The 14-Day Total Weight Loss Plan

The author of What Color is Your Diet?, Heber has an impressive resume: founding director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, professor of medicine and public health, and the founding chief of the Division of Clinical Nutrition in the Department of Medicine at UCLA. If his previous book was based on the colors of visually appealing fruits and vegetables, his follow-up continues to take looks into account--this time of actual dieters. Proceeding from the extremely L.A.-friendly premise that""your personal shape determines a desirable amount and location of body fat for health and your happiness,"" Heber offers Body Mass Index tables for figuring out what type one is (""sarcopenic""?""over muscular overweight""?) and what one's corresponding protein intake should be. The""14-Day"" part of the plan recommends that the first week's meals consist of""Shake-Shake-Meal!,"" or protein-enhanced shakes for breakfast and lunch, and a simple dinner of some lean fish or fowl and salad. Along the way, Heber tells readers""what is wrong with 'No-Carb' diets once and for all."" He recommends a protein intake of""twice what is now recommended by government advisory groups,"" for which there are plenty of shake and supplement variations, described in an upbeat if somewhat brief (but never terse) manner. Recipes and exercise regimes round things out. Carefully grounded in research and in his experience treating obesity and nutrition issues, Heber's plan is a protein-enhanced Atkins alternative that may particularly appeal to vegetarians.