cover image How the Rich Get Thin: Park Avenue's Top Diet Doctor Reveals the Secrets to Losing Weight and Feeling Great

How the Rich Get Thin: Park Avenue's Top Diet Doctor Reveals the Secrets to Losing Weight and Feeling Great

Jana Klauer, . . St. Martin's, $22.95 (268pp) ISBN 978-0-312-34038-4

Klauer's diet plan isn't revolutionary, but her approach is noteworthy. The author, a research fellow at St. Luke's–Roosevelt Hospital with a practice on Park Avenue, has a clientele comprising primarily successful businessmen and -women, "ladies who lunch" and celebrities—people with the drive to do whatever it takes to succeed, in the boardroom, in social circles or on the gym floor. They understand and practice Klauer's "nonnegotiables": daily exercise, the consumption of protein and calcium, the management of food cravings and the elimination of processed food. Although some readers won't be able to follow all of Klauer's advice—a personal trainer isn't within everyone's budget, nor can everyone choose the healthy Manhattan chain Better Burger over McDonald's—but there are many useful suggestions here. Try grilled shrimp over lentils with a cup of steamed broccoli for dinner, with a side of mineral water, and when traveling, beware the hotel minibar (the Park Avenue mindset creeps in with such lines as "better groups, such as... the Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons, allow special meal requests that can be preordered"). Sticking to Klauer's strict regimen isn't easy, but neither is life on Park Avenue. Agent, Richard Curtis. (Jan.)