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The Diet Fix by Yoni Freedhoff, M.D.

Why diets fail and how to make yours work

The Diet Fix

Yoni Freedhoff, M.D.

• Imprint: Harmony Books
• On sale: March 4, 2014
• Price: $25.99
• Pages: 352
• ISBN: 9780804137577

Contact: Lauren Cook
212-782-9486
LCook@randomhouse.com

There is an old joke in the weight-loss industry: “If there was a diet that worked, there would only be one diet.” But the fact is, the numbers of diets promising weight loss are proliferating as rapidly as our rates of obesity and our average waistlines. 

Over the past decade, nutrition and obesity expert Dr. Yoni Freedhoff has dedicated his career to helping chronic dieters get weight off once and for all. His results are extraordinary; his patients enjoy an 81 percent success rate in losing weight and do not experience regain even after they have finished treatment.

In THE DIET FIX (Harmony Books; on sale March 4, 2014; $25.99), Dr. Freedhoff reveals dozens of game-changing fixes and presents a counterintuitive, yet foolproof method that any one of us can apply to our weight-loss goals for a lifetime of confidence, wellness, and leaner waistlines.

Dr. Freedhoff looks at any weight-loss program from the point of view of sustainability. No matter a dieter’s willpower or motivation, any program that requires hunger, sacrifice, pain, and other negative feelings will fail. And this is precisely what most diets and grueling “exercise binges” do. This inevitably leads followers to a state of misery that they may be able to endure for a short time, encouraged by the first pounds falling off, but which is not possible to maintain over a lifetime of eating. Take a moment and ask yourself, Do you know anyone who truly succeeds this way permanently?

“If you don’t like the life you’re living while you’re losing weight, you’re virtually certain to gain it back.”

Combining this deeply intuitive truth with cutting-edge research about metabolism, nutrition, and willpower, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff’s revolutionary ten-day plan works on its own or can complement nearly any favorite diet by arming the dieter against the poisonous beliefs we have about how we lose weight—beliefs that prevent us from ever truly succeeding.

THE DIET FIX is a specific and fundamentally different eating and fitness program. While the core of the plan is that suffering never leads to long-term success, Dr. Freedhoff clearly spells out how to adopt the disciplines that he has seen in virtually every case of sustained weight loss, and how to incorporate them into any favorite weight-loss program or diet that has helped you to lose weight temporarily in the past. With Dr. Freedhoff’s ten-day reset, the pounds you lose on your favorite plan will come off, and this time, stay off forever.

As he guides readers through the most important ten days of their dieting lives, Dr. Freedhoff supplements his advice with warnings about common pitfalls and friendly encouragement that never lose sight of the fact that diets take place in the context of real life.

• LIFE INCLUDES CHOCOLATE: Food is fuel, but dieters who convince themselves that food isn’t also more than fuel are setting themselves up for failure. Trying to cut out the things you are genetically programmed to love is what leads to dieting misery and ultimate failure. Dr. Freedhoff describes how he manages his own cravings for wings and fries to show how to maintain a healthy relationship with your “danger” foods.
•  DON’T BE A “LOSER”: You may want to run to the gym every morning and hit the Stairmaster after watching Jillian Michaels browbeat The Biggest Loser contestants (many of whom regain nearly all their weight and more after the show ends), but Dr. Freedhoff strongly cautions against it. Citing a study in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, he shows how overdoing exercise actually makes the body burn calories less efficiently. Slow and steady wins the race.
•  THE SCALE IS YOUR FRIEND:  The scale is the worst enemy of many dieters, but Dr. Freedhoff shows how to avoid harmful “scale addiction,” “scale seduction,” and “scale avoidance” and instead use it as a simple tool in tracking your progress.
•  THE KITCHEN IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE GYM: The fact is, every day you eat a meal out is a day when you are not likely to make progress toward weight loss. Only when you prepare your own food can you fully control and track what goes in your body. Does that mean that weight loss requires us to chain ourselves to our kitchens? Of course not, but small changes do make a difference. The book includes a valuable appendix of easy recipes that can fit in even the busiest lifestyles.
•  SUPPLEMENTS AND SURGERIES: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY:  Perhaps even more than diet choices, there is a dizzying array of pills and potions hard-sold to us with magic-bullet promises of ending our weight worries forever. And for people who have tried everything and gotten nowhere, there are controversial surgical procedures that physically change how the body handles food. For readers considering any of these, Dr. Freedhoff gives clearheaded advice for determining what you really need or don’t need, and avoiding anything truly dangerous.

All health experts agree that weight management is the most important thing we can do to take care of ourselves. THE DIET FIX distills the truth between the lines of here today-gone tomorrow diet dogma, freeing readers from the latest crazes to simply enjoy a future of looking and feeling great. Dr. Yoni Freedhoff shows us why pens are more powerful than treadmills, how organization is more important than deprivation, how our personal bests are great, and that, yes indeed, real life does include chocolate.

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About the Author: Yoni Freedhoff, M.D., CCFP, is widely considered to be Canada’s most outspoken obesity expert. His weekly column in U.S. News & World Report’s online Eat & Run edition is regularly the most read on the site. He writes periodically on issues of health, weight management, and fitness for a variety of publications, including Psychology Today and the Huffington Post, and daily on his award-winning blog Weighty Matters. He is also an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa and a sought-after international speaker.