10 Habits That Mess Up a Woman's Diet
by Elizabeth Somer
Three Rivers Press, 2005

List Price: $16.95
Amazon Price: $11.53

Review by Kathleen Daelemans

What I'm Reading Now…
10 Habits That Mess Up a Woman's Diet by Elizabeth Somer, M.A., R.D., author of Food & Mood

Why: Because despite having maintained a 75 pound weight loss for over a decade, I slip into lousy eating habits on occasion too and I'm a fan of Elizabeth's work. She's passionate, down to earth and realistic. And she's dedicated the past 25 years of her life to helping women come up with realistic solutions to their health and weight loss goals.

What made me pick the book up: The title of course, and the review in Publishers Weekly:

With concise writing and solid clinical research, registered dietitian Somer (Food & Mood) helps readers identify and understand 10 common problems that can stand in the way of losing weight and provides the tools to change those habits. According to Somer, at least half of people's harmful habits occur not at the dinner table, but in their heads. Examples include eating without thinking, not being honest about how much one eats and using food to alter one's mood. Somer identifies practical mistakes, too, such as shopping the wrong supermarket aisles and choosing the wrong social drinks. An extremely helpful chapter uses solid medical research to debunk many of the most popular weight-loss myths. The author teaches by example and offers intelligent quizzes that help readers identify where they are faltering. What sets this book apart from the many diet books out there is that it not only works on its own to improve eating habits and encourage healthy weight loss, but its useable advice can make any sensible weight-loss plan easier to follow.

What I've learned from the book so far:

• 7 out of 10 women are overweight and 3 out of 10 are obese.
  
  
• Only one person out of every 100 of us meets even the minimum standards of a balanced diet; the other 99 percent fall dismally short of optimal.
  
  
• Most women think they eat enough produce, but they actually average only about 4 servings a day of fruits and vegetables, and more than half of all women don't eat fruit on any given day.
  
  
• We don't eat enough whole grains and we don't eat enough beans! A recent Harvard study found that people who included beans in their diets at least four times a week lowered their heart disease risk by 22 percent, compared with people whose diets included a single serving or less each week.
  
  
• Adding an ounce of nuts to the diet several times a week could cut your risk for heart disease by up to 39% as well as lower cancer and diabetes risk.

And I'm only on page 7. Partly because I've been skipping around the book, reading the quizzes, checking out all the cool shaded boxes and reading all the tip boxes. The book is rich with practical advice and practical solutions and it's laid out beautifully.