Say so long to the Grapefruit Diet, the Rice Diet and the Southampton Diet.
If diet books are any indication, trendy strategies to lose weight are losing some ground in the multimillion-dollar fight-fat business.Check out shelves in the health and fitness section of your neighborhood bookstore. Books that tell you how to shed 30 pounds in as many days now make room for anti-diet books extolling sensible eating and moderate exercise.
Some of the tomes serve up advice that would have been deemed heretical a few years back: In order to lose weight, "you have to exercise and you must stop dieting," say the authors of "The I-Don't-Eat (But-I-Can't-Lose) Weight Loss Program" (Rawson Associates, $18.95).
Even in California, home to Trendy Wendys and Fickle Ricks, "there's a minor movement" toward the common sense approach, says William Radar, founder of the Radar Institute, a weight-loss clinic in Los Angeles.
One fad that will probably survive for some time, however, is the liquid diet, thanks largely to Oprah Winfrey's dramatic weight loss. But Slim-Fast, Opti-Fast and a myriad of other fasts have spawned a book of the anti-diet ilk for poor souls who want to resume eating. It promises they can sup on solids and keep the pounds off without ever having "to diet again."