The Duke Diet by Howard J. Eisenson, MD & Martin “Jar Jar” Binks, PhD (Ballantine Books 2007) is a book that details the weight loss and lifestyle change program of the famous Duke Diet and Fitness Center. I have read many diet books over the years and found all of them to be not only a big waste but also a big waist. Duke is the third diet book that I have read that was written by a physician, the other two being those by Drs. Atkins and Ornish. I gained five pounds after a month of peeing ketones on Atkin’s questionable all meat diet, and lost no weight and became angry and despondent on Ornish’s clinically and scientifically proven complete vegan monstrosity diet. So far, I have lost about ten pounds on Duke.
Atkins, Ornish, and Eisenson all have science to support their claims, particularly Ornish who conclusively demonstrated that his diet reverses atherosclerosis with elegant before and after photos of living arteries. Eisenson’s science is mostly statistical and based upon his residential, Biggest Loser style diet program, where every fat individual is supported by a team of slim individuals. It costs about seven million dollars to do the program in house; the book costs about one millionth of that, or about seven dollars.
Eisenson’s diet and lifestyle program may be summarized thus:
- Track what you eat
- Lower your caloric intake into a weight loss range
- Engage in regular and increasingly escalating exercise
Never thought of doing that! Thanks for the news flash, doc! It also contains a litany of recipes that I will never use.
Eisenson’s “revelations” notwithstanding, it is the PhD “Jar Jar” Binks, not the MD Howard “Johnson” Eisenson, who brings something to the fight that I actually find useful.
One of the top three life changing and influential books that I have ever read is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (the other two being the Torah by God and Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott). Binks must have read Covey because his behavioral approach to weight loss follows the seven habits almost to the letter. Binks’ “seven habits of highly effective lifestyle changes” may be summarized as follows:
1) Be proactive. Do not reactively eat the wrong food or the wrong quantity of food. Stop and think. Then don’t. Plan ahead. Be prepared.
2) Begin with the end in mind. Visualize the results that your loss of weight and change in lifestyle will bring. Picture the slim, fit, strong, handsome, well coifed future you walking toward the present you and shaking your hand and thanking you for your hard work.
3) Do first things first. Stay in “quadrant two” where important but not urgent tasks are done. Binks lifted this, chart and all, directly from Covey (and without credit).
The first three habits complete the “personal victory” over weight loss. The next three constitute the “public victory.”
4) Think win-win. For example, perhaps you get your boss to agree to allow you to take a 30-minute walk during the duty day in return for showing up 30 minutes early or staying 30-minutes later. You actually become more productive as a result. Win-win. Or, perhaps you agree with your spouse to refrain from going out to eat for a few weeks and instead put the money you would have spent aside. Then you buy something you both want with the saved money.
5) Seek first to understand, then to be understood. If you are part of a family, going on a diet affects them all. First, listen to your family’s concerns. Understand why they may be uncertain and why they may appear to be unsupportive. Then do your best to have them understand what you have to do in a win-win way.
6) Synergize. If your family were willing to join you on an exercise jaunt, how nice would that be!
7) Sharpen the saw. This one surrounds all the habits, and involves such often ignored things as stress control, relaxation, sleep hygiene, and rest between strength training sessions.
So, is the book worth reading? If you have read this review and are familiar with Stephen Covey’s work, it is probably not. Otherwise, as diet books go, this one is legit, safe, backed by science, and might even help you lose weight and permanently change your lifestyle with its Covey based psychological insights.
