Forget Atkins, Scarsdale and South Beach. Attention these days is focused on two doctors, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen, who are united in a single purpose -- to teach obese adults worldwide the value of “waist management.” The authors of the best-selling book YOU: On a Diet, and favored guests of talk-show mogul Oprah Winfrey, their plan is sweeping away outdated dieting notions such as cutting out carbohydrates. Published in November 2006, their book has become an instant bestseller, largely due to its emphasis on small changes that translate to big results.

Medical research has proven that a person’s waist size is one of the best indicators of their risk for heart disease, diabetes and other major illness. And it’s a well-known fact of human nature that most people won’t stick with a weight-loss plan that’s too complicated or requires drastic lifestyle changes. Acting on these two bits of knowledge, Drs. Oz and Roizen created a program designed to teach people how their body’s fat-storing and fat-burning systems truly work. In simple terms they explain how the brain, stomach, hormones, muscles, heart, genetics and stress levels all interact biologically to determine whether you’re svelte or super-sized. Their goal is for each participant to shrink their waist down to an ideal of 32 ½ inches for women and 35 inches for men. Step 1 -- cutting a mere 100 calories per day from your diet -- can result in a pound lost every month, and is a strategy that most people can sustain throughout their lifetime.

The plan,combines equal parts of information, motivational tools and change-your-life tips. In their years of research, the two docs learned that dieters who cut 400 or more calories from their daily diet usually ended up yo-yo dieting and regaining any lost weight. Once calories are cut too drastically, the body’s metabolism slows down. Then, when a person cheats on the diet (which happens with most low-calorie plans), the additional calories are quickly deposited as fat, to counter what the body perceives as a period of starvation. By cutting a mere 100 calories per day from the average diet, walking 30 minutes a day, and eliminating five bad-for-you ingredients from your diet (high fructose corn syrup, sugar, hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, enriched flour, and bleached flour), the weight loss is sustained and much more likely to be permanent. The program also includes lengthy list of good-for-you foods, to replace the bad ones. Results, including an average two-inch loss in waist size, are typically seen within two weeks

Finally, like many websites, Drs. Oz and Roizen offer a wide range of support groups, music and motivational articles, videos and health information for every age group, including children and teenagers. Their upbeat approach to getting healthy is appealing and infectious.