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"I don't like to focus on numbers and weight goals," Adele Puhn told us when we interviewed her about her new best-seller, The 5 Day Miracle Diet (Ballantine Books, New York, $22). But that's exactly what she does throughout the book. Even in the introduction, she talks about a woman who "kept losing and gaining the same twenty pounds" but "within five months...lost thirty-five pounds" on the 5 Day Miracle plan.
Her "revolutionary" eating program that can help you "lose weight permanently" and "banish hunger forever" is nothing more than a crash diet that keeps its followers obsessing over food by the hour. Worse yet, it's filled with a morass of skewed logic and misinformation.
The central tenet of the book is that most people live in a state of "bad," or low, blood sugar. But by eating the right amounts of the right foods at the right intervals, they supposedly can "stabilize" their blood sugar levels in just 5 days, thereby "conquering food cravings" and going on to lose weight. Texture is key here. Hard-chew snacks, such as raw broccoli, celery, and pears, have to be eaten in the morning within 2 hours of starting breakfast. A second hard-chew must be consumed within 2 hours of the first The steady chewing, according to Ms. Puhn, "provides a slow release of sugar from the blood," which...