Book excerpt: The 16-Word Diet is a once-in-a-generation book - a survival guide for people who are tired of miracle diets and magic pills, and who want common-sense solutions to the complex problems of obesity. Written by mathematician and weight loss expert Jay Wiener, The 16-Word Diet explodes dozens of popular myths about dieting and replaces them with just sixteen words - the simple keys to losing weight permanently and living a longer, healthier life. Here are a few of the many topics covered, written with the author's remarkable gifts for wisdom and laughter: On Maintenance: Losing weight is hard work, but maintaining a weight loss is hand-to-hand combat. If you don't learn how to maintain before you start to diet, you will be clobbered. On Goal Setting: Most dieters never choose reasonable goals. Worse, they do no planning before they start, unless you count reading the directions on a bottle of enchanted diet pills as planning. On Fad Diets: The Raw Food Diet is a typical fad. Dieters aren't allowed to cook their food. Raw vegetables are fine with me, but... Raw pork? Raw chicken? Those dieters may get thinner, but who wants to kiss them? On Binge Eating: I was a binge-eater for twenty years. The most important thing to understand is this: you can stop. Not immediately, of course, but you can learn how to turn massive overeating into mini-binges, and then into micro-binges, and happily live that way forever. On Bad Obesity Research: They studied the effects of diet on ED by asking men to remember how often they had ED. Seriously? I can remember how often I've slept in an igloo with Jennifer Lawrence, but not much else. On Temptation: Tempted to indulge in a chocolate croissant at Starbucks? Think of all the teenage baristas who breathed on that croissant before you started to eat it. On Exercise: You hate exercise. Too bad. If you're serious about losing weight, then stop reading and go for a walk. Buy this book when you come back. The 16-Word Diet. The most important new diet book in a generation - and fun to read. ********** From the Introduction: People who succeed at losing weight and keeping it off share a secret: they understand that losing weight is not about food. It's about every part of your life. And that's why this book is so different from other 'diet' books. It doesn't focus on what you eat; it focusses on how you can live a slimmer, healthier life for the rest of your life. What you eat is an important part of your life, but not the only part. To be successful, you need new skills that will help you live a healthy life at a significantly lower weight. How do you prepare before you start to diet? What are the most common mistakes people make when starting a diet? How do you choose between low-fat and high-fat diets? What makes us slip after months of success? How can we recover? What is the true value of exercise? How can you handle weight-loss plateaus? How should you manage vacations and holidays? Seven topics (there are many others) and only one is about food - because dieting is about so much more than what you eat. The 16-Word Diet is a rare book. It can change your life.