Book Excerpt: 'The 90/10 Weight Loss Plan'

Jan. 8, 2003 -- In The 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan, author Joy Bauer encourages dieters who have tried to lose weight and failed to continue to eat their favorite foods, but limit these to just 10 percent of their complete diet.

Bauer, who joined Good Morning America's team of experts in its "Lock the Door, Lose the Weight," series believes that severe food restrictions set up dieters to fail. Read Chapter 1 of her book, The 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan, below.

Chapter 1:

What Do You Mean I Can Eat Fun Foods and Still Lose Weight?

Congratulations! You are about to change your life forever. What I'm going to tell you about the 90/10 Plan will enable you to lose weight while still eating the foods you love.

You may not believe me yet — but you will. And you'll love it. You're going to learn a weight-loss strategy that will even let you eat chocolate, cookies, chips, ice cream, and hundreds of other delicious goodies banned on other diet — and you'll still lose a significant amount of weight in just 14 days!

I know it sounds too good to be true, but I also know it works. And it definitely is not a gimmick. My clients would never stand for that.

I have been a registered dietitian for more than a decade and have built one of the largest nutrition centers in New York City. I've counseled thousands of people including some of the most high-profile businessmen, celebrities, models, and Olympic athletes. Believe me, the last thing they want is another fad. They know that I've spent my entire career developing sensible nutrition plans, and they come to me because they trust me to help them improve their health, their energy, and their looks — without gimmicks or risky diets.

In my years of working with so many different people with such a variety of diet problems, I've become convinced that there are no protein-to-carb ratios, food-combining methods, or pill popping regimens that will magically melt their fat away. That is why I designed the 90/10 Plan around the only time-tested principles of healthy, long-term weight loss that really work: portion control and cravings satisfaction.

The question was, how could I create a diet that would meet my clients' health needs and satisfy their taste buds at the same time? My final answer is the 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan, a scientifically designed diet that actually encourages "Fun Food" flexibility 10 percent of the time, so they'd feel satisfied throughout the weight loss process and wouldn't feel guilty for indulging in sugary or fatty snacks.

The 90/10 Plan works for fast, effective, healthy weight loss because it includes all types of foods — nutritious items as well as fun indulgences — in a healthy balance, so that you're sure to feel satisfied and motivated. All 90/ 0 menus are carefully calculated to provide ample amounts of nutrition while keeping total calories low enough to guarantee weight loss.

I call it the 90/10 Plan because I recommend to my clients that about 10 percent is the average amount of calories that should come from their Fun Food choices. But, as you will see in each of the menus, there is some room for personal choice. And although my recommendation is "approximately" 10 percent, the daily menus do offer options ranging from between 100 percent of the caloric intake from healthy and nutritious food to 80 percent healthy and 20 percent fun.

But the 90/10 Plan is not about exact math anyway. It is a food philosophy for an overall weight-loss strategy. And it's a strategy that not only works for fast weight loss but it's also, if you can believe it, even better for long-term weight maintenance!

Why? Because it teaches your mind and your body how to lose weight while learning to eat the way you should be eating for the rest of your life. The fourteen-day plan offers such a variety of delicious, nutritious meals plus treats that not only will you never feel deprived, but you'll also never get bored. And to make sure you don't, I've provided ten additional dinner recipes, so there is a total of twenty-four deliciously different main-course dinner options. That's more choices than most people who aren't on a diet would even think about.

The reason I am so confident the 90/10 Plan will work for you is that I've already seen it work for so many of my clients whom I know for a certainty lost weight and kept if off. I have also met thousands of unsuccessful dieters, and time after time I see the same pattern to their failed efforts: They have all tried to lose weight with an eating plan that is different from the way they normally eat.

Whether it is food-combination diets, high-protein diets, no-sugar diets, fat-gram-counting regimens, no-dairy/no-wheat diets, and so on, if you are not used to eating this way, you're eventually going to fall off the diet wagon. Furthermore, most leading health organizations recommend that if you're going to go on a weight-loss plan you should do it only if it's a well-rounded diet-exactly what the 90/10 Plan offers.

The 90/10 Plan is a reasonable, healthy, and easy-to-maintain approach that has already proven successful for countless dieters who found those trendy plans too restrictive and unrealistic for their lifestyles, not to mention unhealthy. And trying to follow an unreasonably difficult diet is not only unhealthy for your body but it is poisonous for your emotional health as well.

The more you jump from one diet to the next, experiencing failure after failure, the more your confidence plummets, and you learn to doubt your ability to ever successfully lose weight. It is awful to feel this way. I have heard too many painful stories from clients who have struggled with unreasonable diets and have emerged feeling more lost and hopeless than when they started. I vowed never to promote a diet that produced such frustration and heartache.

Instead, I worked to create a healthy, easy diet that would work and that was grounded in the known successful principles of weight loss-a weight-loss plan that takes as its starting point that people should lose weight eating the very same foods they dream about eating after the weight is off. That is my 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan. No gimmicks, no magic, just solid science and countless proven success stories.

As I mentioned, most of the currently trendy fad diets tend to focus on omitting entire food groups (foods your body needs, and will miss and crave) or on counting fat grams without paying attention to portion control. The 90/10 Plan focuses on what's truly important for permanent weight loss-behavioral changes that will transform your life.

On the 90/10 Plan, you will learn how to include all types of foods in your diet, and how to recognize and eat appropriate portions. The 90/10 Plan is designed to help you feel good about your ability to control and choose your food, while also making you feel good (never guilty!) about those daily fun indulgences. Because the foods you crave and enjoy are built right into the plan, balanced with more nutritious fare, you'll feel satisfied both physically and emotionally on the 90/10 Plan. Even after you've reached your weight loss goal, you can easily incorporate the 90/10 Plan into your life on a regular basis, because everything your body needs and wants is part of the program.

In Chapter 4, 1 will introduce you to three different caloric plans for weight loss. I will help you choose the right starting plan for you — either the 1,200-calorie plan, the 1,400-calorie plan, or the 1,600calorie plan-based on the amount of weight you want to lose, the rate at which you would like to lose it, your dieting history, and the amount of exercise you are willing to commit to doing each week.

Once you've selected your plan, you'll have two full weeks of deliciously different daily menus to choose from. There are menus for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for each of the three plans for all fourteen days — that's forty-two meals for each plan, plus Fun Foods — which means that you don't have to spend your time obsessing over what foods do or do not fit into the 90/10 Plan and how much of them to eat.

Although controlling the number of calories you consume is important for weight loss, the 90/10 Plan is specifically designed so that you don't have to make yourself crazy counting those calories. I've already done the calorie counting for you. You'll also see that the menus are the same for the corresponding days in each of the three caloric plans, but the portion sizes or accompaniments will vary accordingly.

To limit the work required on your part, all of my food recommendations are presented in portion-controlled servings. If you don't like a particular breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack, you can swap it for another day's menu. That's because all of the breakfasts within the specific plan you decide to follow are calorie-equivalent, all of the lunches within your particular plan are calorie-equivalent, and so are all of the dinners and snacks.

For example, if you're not a big fan of turkey burgers, you can select the dinner menu for grilled fish or linguini and red clam sauce or grilled-chicken Greek salad instead. Or, if you enjoy ordering steak when in a restaurant, you can choose the steak dinner menu in this plan. And if you want steak (or chicken, fish, or a vegetarian entree) three nights in a row, that's okay too.

Now, about those Fun Foods. In Chapter 9 you'll find an almost endless list of Fun Foods — literally hundreds of salty snacks, sweet treats, rich desserts, and other indulgences — all presented in portion controlled servings that are precalculated to fit into each of the three caloric plans. That means each day when you see my suggestion to "enjoy a Fun Food of your choosing," your options are plentiful. And your choice of Fun Food can be enjoyed at any time of day, whatever works best for you, given your hunger level and cravings.

If you can satisfy your taste buds while dieting, you will be a successful dieter. And one of the most important ways to keep satisfied is to follow a diet that allows for variety The 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan does just that, with meal options ranging from omelets to waffles to pasta to red meat. Such diversity should help keep you motivated and excited about the diet and, with new and different foods to look forward to on a daily basis, you may even find yourself doing something most dieters don't get a chance to do: looking forward to lunch or dinner.

Enjoying such a wide range of foods will not only keep you satisfied but it will also help you get all of the nutrients your body needs. In fact the 90/10 meal plans are specifically designed to provide you with the most vitamins and minerals possible for the controlled amount of calories consumed.

What's more, I'll bet you'll feel more energetic and positive once you start following the 90/10 Plan. That's because, even with the inclusion of Fun Foods, the 90/10 Plan was designed to incorporate the majority of nutrition guidelines set forth by leading scientific authorities, including the American Dietetic Association, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American College of Sports Medicine.

Each of the three 90/10 Plans is perfectly adjusted to provide approximately 50 percent of total calories from quality carbohydrate, moderate amounts from lean protein, and limited amounts from fat — proportions that research has repeatedly proven to be optimal for good health and disease prevention.

The 90/10 menus are also low in saturated fat and dietary cholesterol, and high in fiber, phytochemicals, and antioxidants, all of which will help to reduce your risk of heart disease and certain cancers. The 90/10 Plan will also help to improve your blood circulation and increase your energy.

Lisa: Dieting Was All or Nothing

When Lisa, a 35-year-old mother of two, came to see me she was forty-five pounds overweight. She had struggled with a weight problem her entire life, and had been on and off diets since the age of seventeen.

Over the years she had tried hundreds of diets-cabbage soup, juice fasts, big-name programs, and some of the recent trendy regimens like the high-protein/low-carbohydrate kick. Some worked, but only on a short-term basis; she always ended up gaining back the weight, sometimes more than she had lost in the first place.

When she walked into my office for the first time, Lisa felt completely frustrated and was unhappy and uncomfortable with her body. She said her energy level was so low she couldn't even play with her children (ages two and five). And she admitted that her eating habits had become out of control. She was obsessed with food and was constantly either struggling to avoid the fattening foods she loved, or bingeing on them-and, ultimately, not even enjoying her binges because she felt too guilty for eating the forbidden foods.

The main problem with Lisa's past attempts at weight loss was that all of the diet programs she tried to follow completely ruled out the fun, fattening foods that she loved and that her kids were always eating. Typically, Lisa would start off the day strong, closely following her diet-of-the-moment. But by mid-afternoon, when she was physically exhausted and emotionally drained from spending the day with her children, she would break down and start nibbling on something off limits, usually her kids' snack foods, like Goldfish crackers, chocolates, cookies, and the like.

Once she had gone off her diet, even slightly, Lisa would feel that she had ruined the entire day and would then proceed to eat anything and everything, thus turning a few bites of what she considered to be a "bad" food into an all-out food binge. Of course, she would always vow to start fresh again tomorrow. This would continue for a few days or weeks, until she gave up on that diet completely.

Soon enough she would attempt to stick to yet another restrictive diet plan, and the cycle would repeat itself. Lisa's "all or nothing" mentality had her bouncing between diets and eating frenzies for years, with no lasting weight-loss results.

Lisa was a perfect candidate for my 90/10 Plan. She needed to learn that all foods, including her favorite sweet and salty treats, could fit into a weight-loss plan — as long as they were eaten in portion controlled amounts. She did not have to cut out her favorite foods or eat healthfully 100 percent of the time. More specifically, Lisa needed to plan to eat her Fun Food in the mid-afternoon while her kids were snacking, since this was the time she usually craved a treat. Feeling satisfied, and remaining confident in herself, she would then be able to continue on with a healthful dinner.

Lisa and I also discussed the importance of exercise, and we planned a realistic routine she would be able to follow. With little to no solo time, Lisa wasn't able to go to a gym to use exercise machines or to take aerobics classes. Instead, I suggested that she purchase several exercise videos and play them in her living room, also encouraging her kids to jump around with her. On other days, we determined that she could put her youngest child in the stroller and take a power walk while her older child was at school.

In just fourteen days, Lisa had lost seven pounds. After two and a half months, she was twenty pounds thinner, and looked and felt fabulous. Two years later, all the extra weight plus an additional two pounds is off. Even more important, Lisa no longer views foods as "good" or "bad." Instead, she continues to follow the 90/10 Plan, eating healthy foods 90 percent of the time while satisfying her cravings for Fun Foods 10 percent of the time. With the 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan, Lisa lost weight, learned healthy yet nonrestrictive eating habits, and changed her life.

Of course, not everyone who wants to lose weight is like Lisa, with her long history of dieting. You may have started dieting only recently, in an effort to lose those pounds that inevitably creep on after age thirty.

By that time most people is eating habits are well ingrained and may seem impossible to change. After all, once you have been eating a certain way for so many years without needing to diet, changing your eating habits can seem like an overwhelming effort. But, as MY clients prove to me again and again, even the most stubborn or busy or set-in-their-ways people can learn to follow the 90/10 Plan.

They can do this because the 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan satisfies rather than deprives, and can be adapted to fit anyone's lifestyle. Best of all, the 90/10 Plan is usually not so drastically different from the way most people have been eating all along.

Steven: Diets Didn't Fit His Lifestyle

Another client, Steven, a 50-year-old businessman, never had a weight problem until he hit forty. Between 40 and 50, though, Steven gained twenty pounds, which left him feeling heavy, sluggish, unattractive, and uncomfortable in his clothing.

The weight gain had also caused Steven's cholesterol level to shoot up over 260 (a healthy cholesterol level for a middle-aged man is anywhere under 200), and he developed serious high blood pressure. He had even been put on a blood-pressure-lowering medication. His cardiologist had been nagging Steven to lose weight and to eat healthier in order to bring his numbers down to an acceptable level.

Steven tried several diets, including a vegetarian diet, a high protein/low-carbohydrate plan, and several of his own approaches, such as skipping breakfast and lunch so that he could indulge at dinner when he often had to entertain clients at restaurants.

With each diet attempt, Steven would lose a few pounds, typically two to five in just one week, but the diet didn't last long. None of the plans he tried were realistic for his lifestyle, and so he would be forced to go off them quickly. And as soon as he tried to eat normally again, the numbers on the scale would rise, often leaving him heavier than he had been before he started the last diet.

Before our first visit, I had asked Steven to keep a food diary. Looking at it, I saw that Steven's food choices during the day were typically high-carbohydrate and often high-fat, and severely lacking in protein. He would start the day with a ritualistic mug of coffee, flavored with sugar and cream, and then opt for a corn muffin or a bagel with cream cheese, along with orange juice, for lunch.

No wonder he complained of afternoon headaches and fatigue was probably suffering bouts of hypoglycemia from low blood sugar because, for his size, he didn't eat enough protein and was taking in too much refined carbohydrate and fat.

And his restaurant dinners were outright dangerous for him. After eating virtually nothing satisfying or nutritious all day, he was ravenous by dinner and would often reach right for the bread basket at restaurants, then later go on to order dessert. A typical dinner for Steven consisted of three alcoholic drinks, four slices of bread with butter, a large steak, a baked potato with sour cream and butter, creamed spinach, and a piece of cake. And again he had cream and sugar in his coffee.

I understood why Steven made the food choices he did during the day — they were easy, fast, and required little thought. With his busy work schedule, he doesn't have the time or energy to plan elaborate meals, nor does he care to do so. But there are plenty of equally accessible breakfast and lunch foods that are loaded with nutrition, low in calories and fat, and that would leave him feeling much better, more energetic, and less ravenous at dinnertime.

Steven obviously needed some leeway with dinner. I didn't expect him to be able to go out for dinner and keep his fingers out of the bread basket all the time, or to give up desserts for good, or even to cut out alcohol (although I encouraged him to limit his alcoholic drinks to one per day). The 90/10 Plan could help him eat smarter and feel more satisfied during the day so that dinners out would no longer be such high-calorie, high-fat, super-sized meals.

Together, Steven and I planned out hearty, well-balanced breakfasts and lunches that were appealing to him and that were also easy and effortless. For example, he could opt for fruit and yogurt for breakfast, a salad and soup or a salad and sandwich for lunch. It was easy for Steven to see — and feel — that a turkey sandwich on whole-wheat bread with lettuce, tomato, and two slices of cheese, plus a side salad, for lunch was much more filling than his previous choice of a corn muffin and a glass of orange juice.

The new meal was also ten times more nutritious and, because it provided more protein and fiber, it helped to stabilize his bloodsugar levels, boost his energy, and relieve his afternoon headaches. To take off the hunger-edge and to further guard against Steven feeling overly hungry at dinnertime, we agreed that an afternoon snack was also in order. But we made that snack a healthy, low calorie one so that Steven could indulge in his Fun Food at dinner, when he was most apt to crave it.

For Steven, that Fun Food might be strawberries and whipped cream, a scoop of vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, a small piece of chocolate cake, or even a few extra slices of bread. He could also consider using his Fun Food allowance as two glasses of wine with dinner.

His entree could remain a moderate-size steak, although I did encourage him to alternate with a piece of grilled chicken or fish in order to bring down his elevated cholesterol numbers. I also had Steven substitute his usual fat-laden creamed spinach and sour cream-filled baked potato with a salad and plenty of steamed vegetables. And, of course, skim milk in his coffee versus the cream and sugar.

What surprised Steven the most was that even with all the satisfying foods to choose from each day, I had carefully calculated his meals so that he was eating only 1,600 calories a day, which was guaranteed to result in weight loss for him. Following the 90/10 Plan, Steven didn't have to give up all the foods that he loved, which helped motivate him to stick to the plan.

Right away he felt less irritable, more energetic, and more productive at work. He was not starving by dinner, didn't feel deprived while dining at restaurants, and knocked off the weight in no time. In fact Steven lost ten pounds in just fourteen days and watched more weight come off over the following weeks. Four years later, the weight is still off.

Not only that but his cholesterol level is down from 260 to 173, and his blood pressure has decreased enough to please his doctor and get him off medication. It helped that I convinced Steven to take the stairs at work and to park half a mile from his office, so that he would be forced to squeeze at least a little physical activity into each day (not bad for someone who swore he had no time to exercise).

Although Steven isn't getting the amount of exercise I typically recommend, he is burning more calories than usual, and the physical activity has helped him develop the positive mindset to support his healthful food choices during the day.

While exercise is an important part of any weight-loss and weight management program, even people who exercise regularly may have difficulty losing weight if their eating habits are fighting their weight-loss efforts.

For example, these days Americans are obsessed with cutting fat from their diets because they believe that is the key to weight loss. Fat-free and low-fat food products are all the rage, but such items are not the weight-loss magic bullets they seem to be. Granted, for the most part the explosion of lower-fat foods on the market has been a wonderful tool, enabling people to painlessly lower their cholesterol intake and total fat intake. But for many people the words fat-free or low-fat are an invitation to overeat those foods.

The problem: just because a product is fat-free doesn't mean it's calorie-free. And many fat-free foods can pack in just as many calories as their original fat-containing counterparts. In the end, excessive calories — no matter where they come from, be it from fat, carbohydrate, or protein — will result in weight gain, or in the prevention of weight loss.

Marcy: Her Diet Was Actually Too Low in Fat

When Marcy, a single, twenty-seven-year-old advertising executive, came to see me, she was struggling to lose seven to ten pounds. An avid exerciser, she couldn't understand why she didn't lose the weight, especially because she was careful to cat a low-fat diet.

Marcy's weight problem started in college when, during her first year, she gained the typical "Freshman 15" from all the late-night pizzas and study-session snacking. At twenty-five she finally made an effort to lose the unwanted weight.

Marcy began working out four to five times a week at the gym and followed a low-fat diet. She even read food labels and counted fat grams. The first five pounds dropped off within a month, but then the scale stopped moving. Despite almost two years' worth of effort, she was unable to knock off the last seven to ten pounds.

When I learned the details of Marcy's daily diet, I wasn't surprised that she was having difficulty losing weight. To replace the fat in her diet, she was overcompensating with low-fat and fat-free products. Her diet was actually too low in fat, which no doubt left her feeling hungry and dissatisfied, and much more apt to reach for carbohydrates and to overeat them. Plus, the number of calories she was getting from carbohydrate and protein sources was higher than she was able to burn off during her workouts. Her diet was loaded with fruit, bread, pasta, pretzels, fat-free cookies, frozen yogurt, and fat-free jellybeans and gummy bears.

Marcy confessed that she wouldn't go near "real desserts" due to the fat phobia she had developed over the years, but never hesitated to treat herself to large portions of fat-free versions. When I showed her the calorie comparison of one regular cookie with 4 grams of fat (75 calories) versus the ten nonfat cookies (500 calories) she sometimes ate during the course of one day, Marcy was shocked.

The 90/10 Plan, with its balance of carbohydrate, fat, and protein, plus its inclusion of Fun Foods, was perfect for Marcy. Following the 90/10 Plan, she felt more satisfied after her meals and snacks, and no longer felt the need to overeat fat-free and low-fat substitutions. Marcy was thrilled to be able to indulge again in ice cream and cookies. She admitted that she had forgotten how good the "real stuff" tasted, and that because of the taste and because she knew she was eating the full-fat, satisfying version, one serving was plenty.

After fourteen days of following the 90/10 Plan and continuing with her exercise regimen, Marcy lost five pounds. She was thrilled, especially since she hadn't seen the scale move in two years. She lost a total of ten pounds by week eight. A year and a half later, Marcy is still eating according to the 90/10 Plan and the weight is still off. She no longer overeats fat-free muffins and low-fat cookies, but she does regularly enjoy two of her childhood favorites — peanut butter and M&Ms.

The success my clients have had with the 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan has proven to them and confirmed to me that many of today's best-known diet gurus are wrong. The truth is that all foods can fit into a weight-loss and weight-management program, even foods high in sugar, starch, and fat.

And that's not the only diet myth I happily debunk based on what I've learned from real experience with real people. I've devoted an entire chapter to answering the most common questions my clients ask, questions such as, "Does the timing of my meals matter?" and "Are there certain food combinations that will help me burn calories more efficiently?" You will be amazed to learn the truths about some of the food and diet myths: that not only do they not work, but that they can also actually impair weight-loss and weight-management efforts.

My clients and I also worked out methods, based on the individual's personal healthy weight range, that will help you to determine how much weight you should plan to lose on the 90/10 Plan. And, because it proved so helpful for most people to keep track of their food intake and exercise, I developed the food logs you'll find in chapter 11. You'll be surprised how these food logs can help you to evaluate your personal eating patterns and solve some of the dieting problems that have kept you from success in the past.

As I said at the beginning, the 90/ 10. Plan was inspired by what I learned from working with clients for more than ten years in my nutrition practice. It was a lesson in basic human nature at work: If you tell someone no, you must not eat this or that, it only makes their urge for those particular foods stronger. But if a client's weight-loss program was very close to the way that person should be eating permanently, for the rest of their life, they were more successful at keeping the weight off.

That meant that the first step was to design a diet that didn't omit entire food groups or deprive dieters of their favorite foods. And, as you've probably guessed from the number of times I've mentioned the words health and nutrition, it was just as important to me that any diet I designed would incorporate the guidelines of the major health organizations, my own nutritional schooling, and the advice of top doctors whom I respect.

The happy result is the 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan — a diet that includes all foods in moderation, with room for your favorite snacks. So you can continue to eat your favorite jellybeans, chips, candy bars, or ice cream, and the best part is you now know that when you do, you are actually helping yourself shed pounds.

William: A Smoking Success

A 56-year-old close family friend, William, had been carrying an extra thirty to forty pounds for the past twenty years, ever since he quit smoking cigarettes. Basically he went from being a skinny man addicted to nicotine to an overweight man addicted to sugar.

"I never was a good eater," remembers William. "I rarely touched a vegetable or fruit, and I ate too much red meat and quite a bit of candy. I never even tried to lose all the weight I gained after I quit smoking, because it seemed like too much work. I'd listen to friends and coworkers talk about different diets, and it didn't seem like an enjoyable hobby. So I passed on the whole diet-and-weight-loss option and just decided to remain overweight."

He would give healthy eating a try for a couple of days or a couple hours and then sink right back into his old, comfy eating habits. He just wasn't motivated.

I found it difficult to watch William's questionable food choices and not say anything to him, especially when we ate meals together often, but unless someone asks for help, offering it unsolicited I will only make them feel uncomfortable. Losing weight and making lifestyle changes are purely personal commitments that work only when a person is ready to commit.

However, because he understood my genuine concern, and without actually nagging him, I was finally able to convince William to give the 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan a shot. I promised him that it would easy, that it would satisfy him, and, most important, that he could continue to eat his donuts, butterscotch candies, and Chuckles.

I also had the support of his thin wife, Carol. She and their three sons had been nagging William to lose weight for twenty years. Carol was concerned about his high cholesterol levels, hypertension, and a bad back — all primarily due to the extra weight. He also had a history of gallbladder attacks, which had led to the removal his gallbladder.

"I'll admit that being in pain due to my back and having to just it in bed for a week also made me want to lose weight, but I didn't like sticking to a diet until Joy promised that the 90/10 Plan would include all my usual foods, specifically Mallomars cookies," says William. "When I saw that I could still eat my Chuckles , cookies, and other sweets, I figured I could give it a try. So I called Joy and asked if she could schedule some office time with me that week to go over her 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan."

I was so delighted! I scheduled time for him to come into the office the very next day. I placed him on the 1,600-calorie plan so that he would feel very comfortable and satisfied. We went over the meals together. He liked eight of the fourteen breakfasts and felt that he could manage five of the fourteen lunches. Miraculously, William liked almost all of the dinner options, with the exception of a few. Because he is a successful businessman and dinner with clients is a frequent affair, he committed to either the steak meal or the steamed Chinese meal when eating out. At home, his very eager wife helped him along every step of the way. Thank you, Carol!

Due to his bad back we didn't start things off with exercise, and, fortunately, found that we didn't need to-after two weeks, William had lost ten-and-a-half pounds. Sometime later, with more pounds off and his back feeling slightly better, he began seeing a physical therapist, doing stretches and strengthening work.

William's entire family and circle of friends, including myself, were elated to see the positive effects of his weight loss. He seemed to grow younger and more vibrant with every week that passed. His added vigor made him become more interested in his eating and fitness in general. He started keeping articulate food logs and actually asked me to look them over every week. He even faxed the logs to my office when he was out of town. What's more, he bought a few nutrition books and even subscribed to a health magazine. Amazing!

Three and a half months after starting the 90/10 Plan, William had lost a total of thirty pounds, which was our goal.

"I'm confident that my weight loss is permanent, because I've learned, finally, how to eat healthy," says William. "It's really not as difficult as I imagined it would be. I didn't have to give up any of my favorite foods. I have learned that if I eat healthfully the majority of the time, I can have flexibility for fun indulgences. Best of all, I feel really great. My back pain is markedly better and I move easier. I would recommend the 90/10 Plan to anyone who loves to eat and hates to diet."

Exerpted from The 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan, Griffin Trade Paperback © 2002.