Obe­si­ty is a major pub­lic health prob­lem in the Unit­ed States. Peo­ple fol­low fad diets, use sup­ple­ments, and avoid entire food groups because they think that these mea­sures will help them lose weight. Beth War­ren, a regis­tered dieti­cian, offers an alter­na­tive. She gives read­ers an easy-to-fol­low, com­mon-sense plan that incor­po­rates a vari­ety of foods along with exer­cise and suf­fi­cient sleep. She also keeps kosher, so her recipes and meal plans are help­ful for those who are tra­di­tion­al­ly obser­vant. She begins with an acces­si­ble but thor­ough expla­na­tion of nutri­tion basics: food groups, types of fat and car­bo­hy­drates, pro­tein. She then explains the basics of kashrut.

Warren’s diet strat­e­gy is sim­ple: eat small meals between two and four hours apart, choose fresh, organ­ic, unprocessed foods, get at least thir­ty min­utes of exer­cise a day, get six to eight hours of sleep each night; and drink plen­ty of water. She also rec­om­mends keep­ing a food jour­nal and using the plate mod­el: one quar­ter high-qual­i­ty pro­tein, one quar­ter whole grain car­bo­hy­drates, and half non-starchy veg­eta­bles. In addi­tion to this, War­ren pro­vides help­ful hints for eat­ing out at restau­rants and social gath­er­ings, a guide to shop­ping at mar­kets, meal plans, and very tasty recipes. Among the dish­es are salmon za’atar skew­ers, beet sal­ad, home­made Nutel­la and health­i­er mac and cheese. She includes exten­sive notes cit­ing the sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture for those who want to do fur­ther research. This is a very use­ful guide for any­one who wants to con­trol his/​her weight while keep­ing kosher.

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