Eat This, Not That

Eat This, Not That: What It Is

Most diet books tout a secret formula, or mystifying scientific-sounding plan to melt away pounds but not Eat This, Not That, the latest diet book from Men's Health Editor-in-Chief David Zinczenko and Men's Health food and nutrition editor Matt Goulding. The diet is not a diet in the traditional sense, but a calorie counter's dream. Many people are clueless when it comes to the calories in the foods they eat and even when they guess, they usually underestimate the numbers.

The authors promise you will lose weight if you make smarter food choices, but don't be fooled into thinking that ordering a Big Mac instead of a Whopper with cheese will lead to weight loss as depicted on the book's cover.

Part expose, part nutritional guide, and part picture book of mouth-watering food images, Eat This, Not That comes in a handy size to take along to the grocery store, restaurant, or mall. It is loaded with calorie, fat, sugar, carbohydrate, and sodium counts designed to help you make smarter food choices.

"We chose calories as the most important criteria for the foods we chose because it is the top cause of weight gain and the gauntlet of health problems so when it comes to prudent eating, nothing matters more than calories," Zinczenko says.

The authors do an excellent job exposing the obscene number of calories in certain foods, such as Outback's Aussie cheese fries that weigh in at 2,900 calories, Chili's Awesome Blossom at 2,710 calories, and Lonestar's 20-ounce T-bone -- an astonishing 1,540-calorie steak.

Fast-food restaurants are given an overall rating based on the nutritious quality of their menus. Chick-fil-A earns an A plus with nothing on the menu more than 500 calories, while Pizza Hut gets a D minus with its pan pizza containing 650 calories per slice.

The book is laid out in an easy-to-use fashion with recommended "eat this" foods on the left side of the page and on the opposite side, "not that," foods to stay clear of. Most of the featured foods are typical American fare offered at fast-food and casual-dining restaurants along with junk food, and supermarket staples.

A menu decoder section offers quick tips for uncovering a restaurant's best bets. Each page also features tips and tidbits of useful information. Dishes with extra high fat and calories get called out as "weapons of mass destruction."

The authors also shame several restaurants for not providing valuable nutrition information to consumers. As a result, several have started listing their information online. "Quiznos, after 26 years of operation finally offered up full nutritional information in late 2007. Chipotle, who had removed its nutritional information from its web site is once again providing it, and just recently, P.F. Chang', who provides nutrition information but excludes sodium, has offered to provide us those numbers as well," Zinczenko says.

Eat This, Not That does make some unscientific and misleading claims -- saying the plan specifically targets belly fat, reshapes your body, and builds firm, lean muscle while shedding useless flabby pounds. Experts agree that building muscle requires strength training, and no diet plan is capable of targeting specific body parts.