If you want to lose weight without counting calories, I have just the book for you.

I just finished reading "The Portion Teller Plan: The No-Diet Reality Guide to Eating, Cheating and Losing Wweight Permanently" by Lisa R. Young.

The premise of the book is that portions have grown far too large in America and the amount of food, not the calories, is at the heart of our obesity crisis. The New York University professor says that by learning to estimate the servings you are eating, you can drop weight without having to count calories, points or anything else.

Young uses "The Handy Method" involving the palm of the hand, a fist, fingers, fingertips and so on to calculate portions. For example, 3 ounces of meat equals the plam of your hand.

The references are handy, but can easily be found on the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute's website, which I blogged about in September (Coping with Portion Distortion).

What Young does offer are measurements for many common foods, tips on common eating issues such as stress eating and a tracking system to help you watch your intake. She also has a very interesting history of portion sizes, where you can literally follow the expansion of food sizes - and our waistlines.

Not a bad book, overall. Check out the Portion Teller website for more on Young and her book.

-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com