The South Beach Diet
by Dr. Arthur Agatston

Dr. Agatston is a cardiologist who initially developed this diet to help his patients get their cholesterol, blood sugar and weight under control.

He offers balanced nutritional strategies; low saturated fat, moderate in fibrous carbohydrates, and healthy fats while avoiding what he calls "bad" carbs like white flour, white sugar, and baked potatoes.

Phase one of his program could be considered strict, but it promises an eight to 13 pound loss in the first two weeks. Phase two allows the reader to reintroduce many of the restricted carbs in phase one (i.e., grains, pastas and fruit).

While I agree with many of his nutritional guidelines, I strongly disagree with his non-exercise approach to weight loss as well as his scale method of monitoring ones progress. It is obvious that you will lose a great deal of water in the first few weeks when you eliminate carbs from your diet in addition to sacrificing valuable metabolic muscle tissue.

Lastly, the use of words like "allowed" "restricted" and "avoid" are counter productive in empowering the reader to choose a healthy lifestyle.

Fat That Doesn't Come Back
by Robert Ferguson & Krista Clarke

Ferguson and Clarke have combined sound nutritional advice, a step by step guide to exercise, and the psychological tools to put healthy habits into practice.

There are fifteen chapters devoted to understanding the importance of evolving with your lifestyle, creating health, setting a goal to improve the quality of your life and overcoming many of the psychological barriers that often get in the way.

There are eight chapters filled with everything you want to know about nutrition and exercise, and how to customize the two to achieve your personal goals.

Ferguson and Clarke also provide you with appendixes that show you how to conduct a body composition analysis in the privacy of your home-making it possible for you to keep your muscle tissue while releasing fat, illustrations and details of proper stretching and resistance technique, as well as meal and snack suggestions.

There's one thing you won't find in this book, that is what you "should" do.

Written in plain English, you will find these 348 pages full of valuable information and the opportunity to live a diet free life. Fat That Doesn't Come Back is like having three books in one. (click to learn more)

The Ultimate Weight Solution
by Dr. Phil. McGraw

Dr. Phil takes an easy, no-nonsense psychological approach to weight loss by helping the reader decide to make some changes and take control of their life. While I believe that there is some useful information in this book, in my opinion it lacks the plan or solution to implement his ideas.

Dr. Phil includes basic exercise guidelines, but misses the specifics of how to put it all together. The reader must then employ a trainer or find another book to get an exercise program.

While he provides a list of recommended foods, many of his suggestions are loaded with saturated fat, trans fatty acids, refined carbohydrates and calories.

Also, he continually uses judgmental words like "must" "should" "right" and "wrong" throughout the book. This does nothing to empower the reader.

If losing weight was as easy as Dr. Phil makes it sound, not only would we not have such an obesity epidemic in this country, but he would be in better shape himself.

I believe that he would benefit from sticking to relationship counseling and leave weight loss to the experts.