Description: Dr. Howard Shapiro's diet book is a must read for physicians as well as their patients. Not only will it improve eating habits, it will also enhance the enjoymentof those foods you can eat. Dr. Shapiro believes that many people with weight problems are visually motivated. With this in mind, he created an innovative diet book that utilizes more than 170 full-color photographs of food equations. On each page spread, readers actually see what they are tempted to eat. Next to this is an abundance of alternative options-for the same total calories. With only a fraction of the choices from the second column, a dieter will be completely sated-and will have consumed fewer calories. Nothing is forbidden-dieters can even eat restaurant and airplane food! Without memorizing complicated lists or counting calories, Dr. Shapiro's images leave a lasting impact, allowing dieters to make intelligent food choices for a lifetime. Reviews (4):

Simple To Understand Reviewer: Augustine       07-21-2004 I read the picture perfect book whenever I am feeling sad because of my weight. I think the examples are very enlightening and easy to understand. I liked the stories of other people with my same problem

This isn't a diet book Reviewer: Unknown       07-11-2004 This is the information I have been looking for for a long time. I have been eating contantly for many years. I am one to avoid diet fads since I am an active person and it may harm my performace in my sports.When I feel hungry I tend to get tired and cranky. Sometimes I even get dizzy. That is why I eat so much. This book will really show you what to eat to get full and what to eat to reduce your overall calories. The only thing I don't like about the book is the examples in the book are for people who enjoy sweet foods and not cheeses and dairy foods like me.

It's not quite the Atkins Diet Reviewer: Polo       07-08-2004 It's not quite the Atkins Diet, it's not quite the Zone Diet. I don't know quite what to think of it other than some of the pictures were pretty startling showing the calories in a cup of cashews compared with a bunch of pineapples and some such other items. But it didn't help me lose any weight. I will admit, however, that I'll stay away from cashews.

Common Sense in Food Choices Reviewer: Ana       06-21-2004 Dr. Shapiro's unabashed slant towards soy gets irritating. I have nothing against soy, have soy products occasionaly and edamame quite frequently. His consistent pushing of soy products was a bit too much (as other reviewers here have pointed out). Granted, I have never had any weight problems in my life (was about 10 lbs. underweight up until 4 years ago) but I realized that as we age, so does our metabolism and I want to make educated choices in the foods I consume going forward. This book is very helpful in assisting you in making choices which are common sense, but lost in current noise surrounding diets, prepackaged "healthy" foods and panolpy of 'nutrition gurus'. His view of eating with moderation and without depravation is the right one. As for the protein sources, I understand( from other reliable sources) that you can have the beef, turkey, pork and chicken every day as long as it is no more than 3oz. when cooked (a size of a deck of cards) and that it is as lean, defatted and skinless as possible. Sure, the caloric count may go up a bit but as Dr. Shapiro says, just compensate the 3oz. of your "dead animal" elsewhere in your daily meal to satisfy the very human nature of consuming meat often enough (otherwise, why do we have this pair of canines in our mouth?). I am glad he is not an 8 glasses of water a day freak, because I am not (I try though). I was disheartened with his bias against fruit juices, even in a natural (non processed state). He would rather have you drink diet sodas, with all those terrible artificial sweeteners instead (is this Dr. Shapiro's idea of a joke?) because he claims the "inordinate" amount of calories from natural juices (160 for a glass of OJ) is not worth it. He also believes that canned soups with all that extra sodium are not that bad...sorry, unless it was freshly made, I don't want 800-1000+ mgs of sodium in one pop. His other strong bias is against milk and milk products. As a lifelong milk lover, I used to drink WHOLE milk up until 2 years ago when my body could no longer inefficiently break it down(and it started showing up in the wrong places). I went cold turkey to NON FAT organic milk. There is NO WAY I am going to deprive myself of milk. As Dr. Shapiro says, have what you want, when you want...just use common sense when you make the choice. In the end, the book is a good primer for reeducating yourself and your eating habits...but I would complement it with an unbiased nutrition book with calorie tables. Try as you might and what the good Dr. says, you will have to do some sort of calorie counting or know what the caloric content of the smart foods you will have to choose from...otherwise, how will you be able to do the picture perfect comparison if you don't know what is in them? The examples in the book are too limited.

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