This exercise regimen claims to help shrink your waist in two weeks. And you'll work out only twice a week for 20 minutes, writes U.S. author Jorge Cruise. He says the problem with other strength-training programs is that they never allow your muscles to achieve maximum fatigue.

"Too often they focus solely on the quantity of the workout, and not the quality of the workout ... By slowing down each exercise to a 10-second motion and two-second motionless hold, complete muscle fatigue is achieved."

If you're overweight -- even slightly -- you probably aren't living the life you want to lead, he writes. "Even worse, extra weight around your mid-section has been shown to lead to life-threatening health problems like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and stroke -- belly fat is extremely dangerous."

McClelland and Stewart, $29.99 With ever-expanding portions and food choices, it's no wonder we've become a culture on caloric overload, writes pediatrician Kessler, a former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

With obesity rising at alarming rates, we're in desperate need of dietary intervention, writes Kessler, who is also former dean of medical schools at Yale and the University of California. His book looks in-depth at the ways in which we have become "addicted" to overeating unhealthy foods.

Using both anecdotes and research from physicians, psychologists and neurologists, he offers a common-sense prescription for changing ourselves and our culture.

The Canadian edition features a chapter specific to this country, with research gathered by Kessler during visits to chain restaurants here.

The Flexitarian Diet

By Dawn Jackson Blatner

McGraw Hill, $24.95

Blatner is a registered dietitian who uses the term "flexitarian" to describe people, like herself, who want to be vegetarians and still enjoy meat on occasion.

"I and many other people just can't be full-time vegetarians. There are too many appetizing, meaningful meat events in our lives to quit meat cold turkey," she says.

Blatner admits she enjoys Thanksgiving turkey, hot dogs at a baseball game and her grandma's pork roast made with love.

"The answer is to become a flexibile vegetarian - a flexitarian," she says.

The book, an eating guide for flexitarians, includes a five-week meal plan and recipes, including ones with meat substitutes like vegetarian burgers and sausage.