New This Week: The Complete Beck Diet for Life by Judith S. Beck

Though diet books are popular throughout the year, late December to early January remains a popular time to debut them. And why? Because a lot of us tend to overindulge in something over the holidays -- and often more than one something! By the time it’s nearly over, we start to realize that something’s gotta give... and it hopefully won’t be our favorite jeans.

In The Complete beck Diet for Life: The Five Step Program to Permanent Weight Loss (Oxmoor House), Dr. Judith S. Beck (The Beck Diet Solution) offers up another tome that uses cognitive therapy to help your battle the bulge. The idea is to “gain control of your eating and your weight, and once you do, you’ll be more in control of your life.”

And while I continue to love comedian Craig Ferguson’s diet advice -- eat less, move around more -- on reading Beck’s book, one can see how training your mind might help you to control what you intake. And why. Much of Beck’s advice seems so sensible, it’s no wonder the book has been screaming up the charts since release.

“This book,” writes Beck, “is your instruction manual for motivating yourself for life.”