INTRODUCTION

I USED to be a fat guy.

If you’re struggling with your weight, I know exactly how you feel.

I was a chef who ate too much of his own merchandise.

I was sampling all the food I created. I spent most of my waking hours in a great restaurant surrounded by fantastic food, and I slowly packed on the pounds, lots of them. I started feeling self-conscious. And I was failing to take care of myself.

One day I looked down and could barely see my feet. My belly was partially blocking them.

I was only thirty-seven years old, but I was carrying an extra thirty pounds around on my body! My waist was crossing the thirty-eight-inch mark, and I was on a speeding freight train to emotional disaster, not to mention a host of likely medical problems like obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, and heart trouble, to name just a few.

What was my absolute worst moment?

It was the moment I realized I couldn’t wear a regular chef’s jacket anymore. I realized I had to get one with an extra-big belly sewn into it. Talk about humiliating! It was then that I knew I had to take control of the situation.

I immediately began a journey toward discovering the secrets of fast, effective, enjoyable weight loss. Crucially, I did this from a chef’s perspective, from the perspective of someone who adores food and someone who savors every molecule of satisfaction food delivers. And that was one of the keys to my success. Savoring the healthy food I ate helped me lose the weight—and keep it off.

I melted the lard off my butt. I confronted it, crushed it, and defeated it. I clicked the Select All button on my body and reduced it by 15 percent. I deleted the extra tonnage, pressed the Empty Trash icon, and never looked back. Good-bye forever.

Today, the extra thirty pounds are gone, I’ve got a thirty-three- or thirty-four-inch waist, and I feel better than I ever felt before. I’ve felt this way for six years.

And the best part is, I don’t deny myself delicious food and I don’t torture myself over foods I “can’t have” or foods I “have to give up.” I love food, and man, do I eat it, all kinds of food, all times of day.

This book is about how you can do what I did, and do it quickly.

This is a revolutionary new diet approach that can help you lose as much as a pound of extra weight a day, and keep it off forever.

With my Now Eat This! series of books, I’ve helped hundreds of thousands of people cook their way to health with delicious, healthy recipes based on their favorite comfort foods. Those books have changed lives—so many that I’ve received tons of emails from readers. Many readers have asked for a program that delivers super-fast results—a program in which they do not necessarily need to cook and a plan that can fit into anyone’s busy lifestyle. Readers wanted a program that they could start on Monday and be thinner for the weekend.

Well, I aim to please, so I began to research a new approach to weight loss based on the latest studies. The Pound a Day Diet is the result of that research. I discovered some amazing weight loss tips and secrets that I’ve used to create a fantastic, effective program.

You’ll find the answer you’ve been searching for: lasting weight loss—without plateaus, without boredom, and without the urge to cheat. But that’s only the beginning: Five days from now, you’ll be looking in the mirror and seeing yourself trimmer, pounds lighter, and inches smaller.

This book can change your life.

It’s a completely new approach to blasting off extra weight and keeping it off for good. The Pound a Day Diet is perfect for anyone who wants to:

• Be ready for an important weekend event or big date.

• Jump-start a weight loss program with fast and highly motivating results in five days.

• Fit into a wedding dress, prom gown, or tux.

• Drop those stubborn final pounds.

• Get a smaller waistline.

• Reduce cardiovascular risk factors.

• Get to a goal weight quickly—the size at which you look and feel most comfortable.

• Rapidly shed unwanted weight gained over a holiday or vacation.

• Break through frustrating weight loss plateaus.

• Stop the insane process of crash diets, fad diets, and yo-yo dieting.

• Get motivated to continue losing weight afterward, if you have a lot of weight to lose—and keep it off forever.

First, you and I are going to knock the extra weight off, to reveal the beautiful body that lies just beneath it. And we’re going to do it fast—up to five pounds in five days. And up to twenty pounds the first month. Phase 1 of my plan is specially formulated to jump-start your metabolism and burn off excess weight, fast. I’ve also created a weekend plan that shows you how to indulge a bit more while still losing weight. My twenty-eight-day plan of super-delicious, healthy meals and recipes (including ready-made substitutions if you don’t have time to cook) totals between 850 and 1,200 calories a day. It’s based on the scientifically validated method of creating a “calorie deficit” that triggers weight loss, and in this case, using it to trigger steady weight loss over a twenty-eight-day period.

And second, in Phase 2, I’m going to ease you into a new food lifestyle you can enjoy for the rest of your life—a Mediterranean lifestyle not based on denial and self-torture over food, but on indulgence, pleasure, and pure satisfaction. It’s a lifestyle that treats strict food rules as a bad idea—and considers snacks and treats an essential food group. This is a “gold standard” approach recommended by researchers and scientists around the world for maximizing your health and staying at a healthy weight.

This unique plan incorporates the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs on healthy weight loss. These breakthroughs have been discovered only recently, not by one or two self-appointed diet experts, but by multiple elite teams of the greatest doctors, scientists, and researchers around the world, working in the world’s best universities and hospitals and research laboratories. They’ve made two stunning discoveries.

First, they’ve discovered a series of what I call Diet Booster Foods—specific “low-calorie-density” foods and ingredients that can actually accelerate the process of effective, healthy weight loss by supercharging your body to become a lean energy machine and manipulating your body’s calorie-burning power. The Pound a Day Diet is built on a foundation of these Diet Booster Foods.

And second, these teams of doctors and scientists have identified an Ultimate Diet Pattern, a Mediterranean-style diet formula that the maintenance phase of this diet is based on. This is a pattern of eating you can and should follow for the rest of your life, which not only can help you reach your perfect weight, but can also:

• Keep the extra pounds from creeping back on.

• Lengthen your life.

• Improve your brain function.

• Defend you from chronic diseases.

• Fight certain cancers.

• Lower your risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and elevated “bad” cholesterol levels.

• Protect you from diabetes.

• Keep away depression.

• Ward off Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

• Ease rheumatoid arthritis.

• Improve your eye health.

• Reduce the risk of dental disease.

• Help you breathe better.

• Lead to healthier babies.

• Lead to improved fertility.

• Continue to boost your weight loss and management efforts, and, last but not least,

• Improve your sex life!

How’s that for a highly excellent package of benefits? And it’s all based on real science, not on hype. Believe it, it works for me!

I developed this diet plan with the guidance of a medical doctor and a registered dietitian. And I based the plan on the latest research on health, nutrition, and weight loss. My calorie-corrected, carb-corrected twenty-eight-day program will help you drop your extra weight. You’ll start burning fat the first day. You’ll learn how to easily avoid the stuff you don’t need that can pack on the pounds, like excessive sugar, belly-busting portions, bad carbs, and bad fats. Trust me, though, you’ll hardly miss them at all. I don’t think you’ll even know they’re gone. I’ve included meal plans, shopping lists, and ready-made suggestions if you don’t want to cook and are always on the go. And then we’ll focus on a “maintenance” phase that you can put into action and enjoy for the rest of your life.

My sixty all-new recipes will inspire you to create delicious, healthy meals you’ll enjoy—and that will help you keep the pounds off.

Finally, this plan is based on my own personal experience that fast, healthy weight loss is a terrific motivator. There are plenty of experts who argue that slow, gradual weight loss is best, and that approach may indeed work well for many people. But if you’re like me, the inspiration and excitement you’ll feel with rapid results will push you to achieve your ideal weight faster and stay there for good. This is a new philosophy that some experts are starting to embrace as a viable option for effective weight loss, and as an effective, highly motivating pathway to staying at your perfect weight.

Now let’s get you started on your journey to fast, healthy weight loss!