cover image Eat Your Way to Happiness: 10 Diet Secrets to Improve Your Mood, Curb Your Cravings, Keep the Pounds Off

Eat Your Way to Happiness: 10 Diet Secrets to Improve Your Mood, Curb Your Cravings, Keep the Pounds Off

Elizabeth Somer. Harlequin, $16.95 (276pp) ISBN 978-0-373-89207-5

Before registered dietician Somers reveals the ""secrets"" to becoming one of the ""happy, fit people,"" she proves her bona-fides by helpfully telling readers how much weight they can expect to lose applying her ideas, each of which is fully rooted in up-to-the-minute research. Unfortunately for the research-obsessed, however, Somer does not fully cite a single study in her whole book, a major oversight in an otherwise thorough treatment. Somer insists that her readers eat 75% ""real food,"" an increasingly difficult feat in the U.S.; as such, this makes a sensible guide to navigating nutrition in an environment hostile to genuinely healthy eating. Somer also proves knowledgeable about supplements and beneficial food-combining, and backs it all up with tasty recipe ideas emphasizing fresh ingredients and nutrient density: fat-free ricotta topped with crumbled chocolate wafers, for instance, is healthy, easy, and a lot tastier than it sounds. Somer writes with a motivational spirit tempered by a fondness for information and common sense, eschewing fads to arrive at a very doable plan for making every one of your 1600 daily calories count.