I am rapidly becoming a fan of The Perricone Weight Loss Diet. It seems to incorporate all of the latest real science on the matter. And the only thing I see that’s medically “out there” is Dr. Perricone’s stress on cellular inflammation. I don’t know that this is BS, I just haven’t heard it elsewhere.

I’ve been something of an athlete for most of my adult life. But I became rather inactive after I contracted chronic antibiotic resistant rhinosinusitis sometime in the late ’90s – and subsequently gained a lot of weight. So I particularly like his ideas on losing weight without losing muscle mass. The only time I have really “dieted” in my life was back when I was in the Air Force. I was hitting the weight room 3 times a week, and doing a 2 mile run the other 3 (with one day off). I was a very “dense” 217 lbs. But the freaking “chart” said, at 20 years old and 6 feet tall, I couldn’t be more than 187. So I quit the workouts and the running, and cut way back on my calorie intake, and dropped the thirty pounds by my next weigh-in (it was three months later, IIRC), and avoided the “fat boy” program. But I felt like shit.

So, here’s a diet where you eat real food in satisfactory quantities (albeit in a different balance than you are likely accustomed), loose fat without losing muscle, feel good, and even have a nice complexion (Perricone’s specialty is dermatology) – sounds like a good deal to me.