The Healthy Low GI Low Carb Diet: Nutritionally Sound, Medically Safe, No Willpower Needed!

Clark argues for a 40-50gm daily intake of carbohydrate, increasing this once your body weight has stabilised. He talks through the process (and the science) convincingly, but diverges from his earlier book by aiming this one at vegetarians and people who do enjoy pasta and rice. He suggests limiting your intake of red meat, dairy products and eggs - foodstuffs which had been advocated in the earlier work.

This book contains recipes for incorporating a wider range of fruit, grains, pasta, rice and pulses into your diet. Clark, however, recognises that you will have to start counting carbohydrates if you do so.

He explains the Glycaemic Index - it's a measure of the effect of any particular food on your blood glucose levels. People tend to gain weight not because of the quantities of food they eat, but the types of food they eat. A diet rich in carbohydrates stimulates the body to lay down reserves of fat rather than burn it off as fuel - hence the weight gain, and hence the value of low GI foods.

It's good stuff, it's well explained, but I can't help feeling you're better reading this book after you've read "The New High Protein Diet". The two do complement one another. The earlier book, in fact, is better in its explanation of the science. In this latest work, Clark includes case studies of patients of his who have experienced weight loss as a result of his diet. The case studies are too clinical. They contain phrases like, "a reduction in LDL by 23 per cent from 4.06 to 3.11 mmol/l". It's hardly inspirational stuff unless you like playing around with calculators and statistics. You sense he's trying to leverage his argument, to convince you, "trust me, I'm a doctor".

In places in this latest title Clark seems too concerned to display his medical credentials and scientific status. It's a touch too clinical ... and hence my sense that you really need the earlier title as a corrective - it gives you more confidence, it's a bit more accessible, it's simply more informative because it doesn't slide into jargon at the wrong time.

But that criticism apart, Clark is clearly aware that diet is not a subject to be analysed in isolation - it relates directly and intimately to broader questions of health and lifestyle. Clark is a doctor. If his clinical advice is at times obtuse, it is nevertheless realistic.

The book offers 190 pages of recipes and meal plans. Again, I'd caution about trying to rigidly follow his suggestions. Use the recipes as a means of identifying the foods and meals you really enjoy. Use them as a set of guidelines against which to measure your weekly shopping. Use them as a means to set yourself targets and develop good habits.

It's a useful, informative book, but I have to conclude with the same information I presented in my review of "The New High Protein Diet". You want to know does Clark's advice work? Well, yes. I'm not going to repeat myself ... just take a look at the earlier review!