Today’s Diet Blog has an entry about YADB (yet another diet book) with a healthy eating focus: Eat, Drink, & Weigh Less.

Looks like a sensible book with good science behind it. That said, a commenter on Diet Blog sums it up pretty well:

Good advice, but it’s the same information that a hundred other books give us. The problem is that we won’t change our ways.

Diet Blog also points to a review by USA Today. It’s curious that what Diet Blog is pointing to (by its link text) is a sidebar criticism by a nutritionist re the meals (“My major concern with the book is people may find some of the meal plans and recipes intimidating.”) since the actual review is fairly positive.

But aye, there’s the rub. Can we actually do this?

I have a post percolating in me around this whole issue of changing our ways (I want to revisit the idea of inertia that I’ve talked about before), but that will probably show up tomorrow or over the weekend.

In the meantime, I started poking around and came across The Nutrition Source, a website created by the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, where Walter Willett is chair (he’s one of the co-authors of Eat, Drink, & Weigh Less).

The Nutrition Source looks like a worthwhile read. It’s not surprising that as it’s a school of public health, they are quite happy to take the “war on obesity” line (citing the 1999 JAMA study about 300,000 deaths due to obesity that others dispute).

But they aren’t totally toeing the corporate line. I like how they disagree with the new food pyramid and note that it is based on guidelines that “reflect the tense interplay of science and the powerful food industry.” And I particularly like their version of a healthy eating pyramid (from Willett’s other book, Eat, Drink, And Be Healthy):

I like this pyramid a lot. It does a good job of describing how I am currently eating.

I’ve pretty much been doing this for a year now, and while I’ve made some changes over time (for example, I was doing a lot more takeout a year ago than I am now), I find that I’m mostly doing the things that Eat, Drink, & Weigh Less recommends (borrowing from the USA Today):

• Choosing good fats — I’m all about healthy oils at every meal. I go with the flax at breakfast and olive oil for lunch and dinner. And I make a beeline for the guacamole whenever I get a chance!
• Choosing better carbs — I still have pasta, but I try to go for healthier choices (like whole wheat couscous or Barilla’s pasta plus). I limit it to a cup per meal, and I go for whole grains (brown rice or quinoa) as often as possible. Oatmeal is a breakfast staple for me now.
• Choosing healthy protein — This was easy for me since I’ve not been much of a red meat eater. I’m happy with turkey, chicken, and fish (I like the frozen wild salmon filets you can get at places like Trader Joe’s or Wegman’s).

I’m not quite so good at the other things yet (drinking more water and exercising), but I expect to do better now that my fibroids should be less of an issue. But what I like is that you don’t need to be perfect…you can start and improve as you get better at this.

In fact, one of these days I’m going to use the model of ski slope ratings (you know, green circle for beginners, blue squares for intermediates, black diamonds for experts) as a way to represent a better way of phasing into healthier eating compared to the hard induction phases that diets like Atkins and South Beach do.

Some people like to jump in the deep end of the pool (or go cold turkey) and some like to take baby steps. The real key is to first, figure out you really do want to go there (swim, quit smoking, or eat healthy) and then pick a way that would work well for you.

Me? I had to really minimize eating sugar and white stuff (pasta, white rice, etc). But I didn’t have to exercise at the beginning. Nor did I need to cook everything (or count anything). I figured out ow to make this easy on myself. Now, I want to cook more because I can control the ingredients better.

Anyways, I think I may pick up Eat, Drink, & Weigh Less if only to see what Willett and Katzen came up with, and since I like collecting cookbooks with a healthy eating focus. Of course, what I’m likely to do is take some of these recipes and figure out how to make ‘em even easier. As you can tell from the recipes here, I’m all about making it easy!