With all these fancy ideas I’ve picked up here and there on how to lose weight, I seem to have forgotten that nothing really beats counting calories.

Gone are my Jenny Craig and Weight Watcher days when I had to maintain a very strict diet to the point that I had to weigh my foods …. still, I should have paid more attention to the calorie counting portion of both programs.

I think I got duped into the modern way of thinking that cutting out carbs, going vegetarian or even taking diet supplements can give me the edge in losing weight.

An internationally-known brand name, New York Times best-selling author, and the woman dubbed “the Lenny Bruce of Wellness” by Shape magazine, Susan Powter’s “Stop the Insanity” mantra was a self-help sensation in the 1990s. Her personal story of losing over l30 pounds as a single mother of two babies inspired millions and changed the diet and fitness industry forever. Now, recently returned to public life from a ten year self-imposed exile, in her most radical book to date, THE POLITICS OF STUPID: The Cure for Obesity (Atria Books; May 6, 2008), Susan Powter challenges food manufacturers, governments, fitness and diet industries in order to teach women how to find the motivation to alter their lifestyles in search of well-being and weight loss.