Bread Is the Devil: Win the Weight Loss Battle by Taking Control of Your Diet Demons

Stop mindlessly inhaling the breadbasket and stop shoveling in the M&M'S–Bread is the Devil is the solution to all of our diet saboteurs.

Nutritionist Heather Bauer can count on the fingers of one hand the number of her clients who don't already know what they should eat to lose weight. So why can’t they (and their best friend and their neighbor) lose weight? Because Bread is the Devil! Yes, that's Bauer’s shorthand for the inevitable, demonic pull that certain bad habits exert on people who try to change their eating routines to drop the pounds. Many of us have been there: You had a sensible, healthy breakfast, high in protein with complex carbs. Ditto for lunch—soup and a salad with a warm rush of accomplishment and self control for dessert. But now it's dinnertime and you're out with friends: enter a large basket of warm, sliced, crusty sourdough bread with a little tub of chive butter. Suddenly you're in the seventh circle of hell—the one reserved for gluttons. Bread’s not your devil? How about ice cream or chips or that big slab of buttercream-frosted birthday cake?

* Identify the top-ten Diet Devils that challenge healthy eating

* Provide specific, proven strategies that free you from these devils once and for all

* Offer up a simple, flexible guide that will help you reach your goal in twenty-one days and make eating fun again

* Suggest an easy, affordable, and doable shopping list for eating at home as well as great meal choices when eating out

Bread is the Devil will help you say good-bye to your devils, for good.

HEATHER BAUER R.D., C.D.N., is a nationally recognized nutritionist and mother of three. She has taught thousands of people how to safely lose weight and keep it off through her nutrition counseling company, Nu-Train. In 2012, she founded Bestowed (bestowed.com) a nutrition and lifestyle subscription service. Her first book was called The Wall Street Diet. She has been featured in The New York Times, People, Shape, and Ladies Home Journal, and has appeared on The Tyra Banks Show, CNN, and the CBS Early Show.

KATHY MATTHEWS lives and writes on Shelter Island and in Westchester, New York.