Weight Loss & Diet Plans

The Park Avenue Diet

The Park Avenue Diet: What It Is

You don’t need to live on Park Avenue to have that well-heeled look -- all you need to do is follow the Park Avenue Diet plan, according to the author of The Park Avenue Diet. The six-week Park Avenue Diet program is more than a low-calorie diet. It includes a lifestyle makeover encompassing beauty, etiquette, poise, fitness, and fashion, designed to give you the look of the rich and famous.

"The Park Avenue Diet can help everyone be more successful by working from the outside in and inside out, because looking better is more than just eating properly," says Manhattan internist Stuart Fischer, MD, author of The Park Avenue Diet.

Dieting alone won’t do it, Fischer says. You also need to address the seven fundamental components of your lifestyle to have a better chance of physical and mental self-improvement. Those components, according to the book, are: weight, physique, hair, skin, clothing, self-confidence, and interpersonal skills.

"Two behavior modifications work on self-confidence and interpersonal skills, and the other sections focus on appearance, which is so much more than just weight. It is what everyone notices when you walk into a room," Fischer says.  

For the book, he assembled a team of experts (not including any registered dietitians), each of whom offers a chapter of advice on everything from hair styles and make-up to self-confidence.

But no matter how you slice it, this plan is a temporary, low-calorie (1,250-1,350) restrictive diet with some added advice on other aspects of life. It is not intended to be the sort of lifelong healthy weight approach that most nutrition experts recommend.

The Park Avenue Diet: What You Can Eat

The Park Avenue Diet plan is a fairly well-balanced meal plan of three meals and one snack, totaling about 1,250-1,350 calories daily. The diet includes plenty of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and seafood, as well as a limited amount of dairy products and whole grains.

The book is organized into daily menu plans with recipes and nutritional analysis so you can determine your exact nutrient intake. Anyone watching sodium intake should be careful, as many of the recipes are high in sodium.

All the recommended foods are readily available, and there are no gimmicks or strange food combination, even though Fischer served as the associate medical director at the Atkins Center for years. Dieters are told to forego sweets, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, fruit juice, and milk (except skim in coffee or tea). There are a few dessert recipes that can be enjoyed on occasion, but for the most part, dieters will need to satisfy any sweets cravings with the natural sweetness of fruit.

"We eliminate artificial sweeteners, sugar, and most sweets other than the few recipes included because, in my experience, sweet treats are like giving an alcoholic a drink, furthering the temptation for more," Fischer says.

The book does not encourage dietary supplements, yet the author sells them on his web site and at his practice (which is in Manhattan, but not on Park Avenue).