Every-other-day diet book among Amazon’s Top 10

Krista Varady, associate professor of kinesiology and nutrition, studies alternate-day fasting, when dieters eat only lunch one day and whatever they want the next. “You have a day in between where you can feel totally normal again,” she said. “Your body gets used to it.” Photo: Roberta Dupuis-Devlin/UIC Photo Services

A new year brings resolutions — and a new book by UIC researcher Krista Varady, The Every-Other-Day Diet, was among Amazon’s top 10 in the U.S. during its first week of release.

Varady, associate professor of kinesiology and nutrition, based her book on solid research on diet, nutrition and heart health.

“The point was to create a diet people can stick with,” she told the Chicago Tribune.

Her interest in findings ways for people to lose weight and improve their heart health led her to a strategy of modified every-other-day fasting. On her diet, people eat one meal of about 500 calories on the “fast” day and anything they want the next day.

Varady’s research showed that on her diet, cholesterol and blood pressure improve, people don’t have difficulty exercising and, perhaps most important, most seem to find the regimen easy to maintain. Nor did they make up for the calories lost on the fast day.

Varady said it’s important to have many weight loss options, since no one diet has proved superior in helping people lose weight and keep it off.

Her every-other-day regime is generating media interest, including articles in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago talk show “Windy City Live” and The Atlantic magazine.

In Britain, where her book was in the top 30, coverage includes the Times Magazine, the morning TV program “BBC Breakfast” and the Telegraph.