Yes, that's six meals per day. A key concept in set-point modification is side-tracking the body's hunger-signaling mechanism. Smaller portions, better food, fewer "junk" calories, and less obsessing about what to eat next, all makes for sound advice for women—in fact, for all of us—to achieve weight control.

I liked the recipes, too. The seasoning for Spicy Chili Pork Chops, for example, is useful for spicing up scrambled eggs, ground turkey, and grilled eggplant. I took a suggestion for Tuna Salad—add mustard to reduce mayonnaise—to extremes once I discovered that the mustard was enough. And I particularly liked the "Free Foods" concept, in which certain foods (spinach, onion, zucchini, and mushrooms, to name a few) don't enter into the calorie calculation.

Heavin uses other known-successful techniques for habit modification. One is goal-setting (and goal evaluation), another is record-keeping. He includes solid information for women, who are usually the household cooks, to help them feed their families while keeping to their own diets. And he tells them how to hold to the diet even while eating out—tips which I found very useful, myself.

Arguably the most useful thing in the book, however, is the clever chart, "Seven Ways to Size Up Your Portions"—did you realize that a cup of cooked vegetables is about the size of your fist, while a teaspoon of butter is about the size of the tip of your thumb? One ounce of nuts or small candies fits in the flat palm of your opened hand, and 3 ounces of meat is about the size and thickness of a deck of playing cards.

Less useful is the constant drumbeat of Curves merchandising throughout the book. A dietary shake, vitamins, and other supplements are described as if they are essential to the plan, and the author lays out the menus with the assumption that you will buy into this requirement. If you can ignore this, though, what's left is still a solid plan with plenty of good information, tasty food, and helpful guidance for anyone who desires to be fitter and lighter.

Meanwhile, a Chicago franchise hopes to hit it big using the Curves model for a men's gym. Cuts for Men offers a 30-minute circuit of strength and cardiovascular exercises for less than $40 a month at most locations, but there are important differences. At Cuts, workout machines are placed against the walls to minimize interactions (unlike the circular conviviality of Curves). The circuit also contains more strength work and less recovery time.

"We're going after that 80 percent of male population that does not exercise at all," cuts founder John Gennaro said. He predicts there will be 70 Cuts gyms open by 2006.

I'll just content myself with my six meals a day. I wonder if I can fit a Snickers bar in the palm of my hand?