[.ca] The Obvious Diet: Your Personal Way to Lose Weight Fast ... (ISBN 1559706511)

Not as good as the cover suggests:
I guess anyone who's ever lost weight can now write a "bestselling" diet book. Yes, we all know how to lose weight - eat less - exercise more. I had thought that this would be an original, amusing take on losing weight - from a real person who was out there in the trenches - and actually lost weight. What I read was name dropping of all of the author's famous friends and Mr. Victor listing every diet under the sun and being told to pick the parts you like from each one. The book was relatively boring from the middle of the book to the end. I applaud Ed Victor for actually losing the weight and keeping it off. However, this book is not going to help the rest of us until we have enough willpower to stop eating dairy, wheat, fat and sugar (which is soooooooo hard to do).

Simple Advice, Excellent Presentation:
Dangitall, someone just wrote the diet book I've always wanted to write, and he did a darned good job of it. In The Obvious Diet, Ed Victor points out that you are your own best diet designer and he inspires you to give it another shot. In these days of protein-vs.-carbs-vs.-macrobiotics and et cetera, it is refreshing to read this occasionally humorous book. Victor suggests using a food journal to identify your personal weak spots and then has a handful of general diet ideas to put into action. Most entertaining is the chapter on celebrity diet tips, which provides a real look at how individualized every person's eating is. ...

Worst Diet Book Ever:
This is probably the worst diet book ever written. Had this book been written by a knowledgable nutritionist, pyschatrist, or doctor, it really could've been something. The concept, that we know ourselves best, is a good one, but for those of us who are still trying to figure ourselves out, the author doesn't provide any advice on how to learn what works for us. And, in fact, the author doesn't know himself all that well, either. It took a visit to his doctor for him to learn that citrus fruit is "bad" for him (and no explanation of how or why the doctor determined this, either, which struck me as suspicious). This isn't an obvious diet applicable to anyone--it's merely the story of one man's weight loss. After going on and on about "making your own rules," the author proceeds to set out rules you must follow (including a fast day and a treat meal, two concepts that have never worked for me and are strongly advised against by most nutritionists). And contrary to what the cover claims, the "Obvious Diet" does require you to change your lifestyle. Let's face it, if your lifesytle was working for you, you wouldn't need to diet. The author is self-congratulatory and drops names like most of us would like to drop pounds. If you want to read about the diets of Larry King and Koo Stark, you'll enjoy this, but I didn't read anything that I could reasonably apply to my life. I gave this book 2 stars because there are some good recipes (most of which are reprinted from other cookbooks). Other than that, this book is a waste of good trees.