The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet

Excerpted from
The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet: Plus Dr. Tarnower's Lifetime Keep-Slim Program
By Herman Tarnower, M.D.

Why the Phenomenal Success of the Scarsdale Medical Diet

I, personally, explain the Scarsdale Medical Diet's phenomenal popularity in two words: "It works." A slim, trim lady said to me recently, "Your diet is beautifully simple, and the results are simply beautiful." I just say, "It works."

Any good doctor will tell you that what you eat is important to your health. Perhaps my background of over forty years as an internist, cardiologist, and family doctor has made me especially diet conscious. For all these years, I have been counseling patients to eat and drink sensibly and stay trim. I have listed for them quite specifically what they should or should not eat if they want to lose weight, or if I think they need to.

A number of years ago I decided to save time by having my diet suggestions typed up and mimeographed. If my mail has been any indication, those well-read, dog-eared, mimeographed sheets have traveled the length of this country and to many places in Europe and the Mideast.

Recently the media got the message and, suddenly sparked by newspaper and magazine articles, literally thousands of people from all over the world were calling and writing for Dr. Tarnower's "Scarsdale Medical Diet." I am told that no diet has ever been as spontaneously and unanimously acclaimed as this one. At first it took off arithmetically - one patient telling another person. As word of mouth increased, its popularity grew geometrically, nationally and internationally.

How the "Just-Right" Combination of Foods Was Created

Nobody could be more delighted and surprised at the extraordinary success of the Diet than I, since I am not a "diet doctor."

Early in my medical career, I became impressed with the importance, even the absolute necessity, of proper weight management for maximum individual health and well-being. This is especially true for the heart patient.

I would tell my overweight patients to reduce, as do so many other physicians. However, that just didn't work with most people. I would say forcefully, "You must take off that unhealthy fat and flab. Go on a good reducing diet immediately."

The usual reply: "I've tried all the diets I could find, and they just don't work for me, Dr. Tarnower."

I finally decided that I would have to do something about that very real problem myself. Nineteen years ago, at the time that I founded the Scarsdale Medical Center, I concentrated on creating a reducing diet that would be simple and effective. One that would keep them trim for the rest of their lives. Taking the weight off was basic, but they also had to keep it off - for many the most difficult aspect.

Studying other diets and their faults and flaws, I came to the conclusion that they were too complicated or too slow, overly demanding, or had other defects that turned people away.

Thus the Scarsdale Medical Diet (SMD) evolved. A great deal went into creating it, but essentially my guides were medical knowledge gained through years of medical practice, day-to-day experience with all kinds of patients, and just plain common sense.

Over the past nineteen years, patients who reduced and kept trim on the Scarsdale Medical Diet spread the news through their own improved appearance and well-being. The word got around that something phenomenal was happening in weight loss.

Teachers in some physical fitness classes distributed the Diet to hundreds of students, recommending exercise to firm off inches, and the Scarsdale Medical Diet to take off pounds.

Jogging groups took up the Diet. A nurse who lost 11 pounds quickly and easily, introduced it where she worked. Her husband, a policeman, lost 14 pounds and alerted overweight fellow officers in the New York City Police Department.

The Beach Point Club in Mamaroneck, New York, placed a sheet on its bulletin boards and dining tables announcing: "The Scarsdale Diet... If you're on it, Beach Point has it ... If you're not on it, you will be .. . Every lunch in the Pavilion, every regular dinner in the dining room has a Scarsdale Diet dish on the menu." A woman on jury duty took along a Scarsdale Medical Diet lunch box, and was pleased to see others in the courtroom toting the same.

Many restaurants began to make the Scarsdale Medical Diet a menu feature.

Without my knowledge, the popularity of the diet came to the attention of a writer for The New York Times Magazine. In a general article on beauty, titled "Shape-Up Time," Alexandra Penney discussed the diet briefly. "A vice president of Bloomingdale's was shown the printed diet by the owner of a fish restaurant, decided to try it, lost 20 pounds in 14 days and claims he was never hungry and never tired..."

At about the same time, Westchester Magazine ran a short item on "A Diet People Are Talking About... 'as much as a twenty pound loss in two weeks is not unusual'... those who have tried it insist it's the only one that works."

The New York Times followed with an article by Georgia Dullea headlined "If it's Friday, it must be Spinach and Cheese." It reported in part, "The Scarsdale Diet: This is where the losers live, the real losers. This is the home of the famous 14-day Scarsdale diet... Weight losses of up to 20 pounds in two weeks are reported here. Rarely do dieters feel hungry or cranky. .. . The Scarsdale diet is spreading... Requests are coming from as far away as California and Mexico. Now London is ringing up about the Scarsdale diet. . . Everywhere you go people are talking about the diet..."

A Family Circle magazine article stated, "Here's the diet that took the town of Scarsdale, N.Y. by storm, and now may well be sweeping the country. With it you lose up to 20 pounds in 14 days - without ever going hungry.

"This is the no-hunger, no-hassle diet that in-the-know big losers have been passing on to their friends coast-to-coast. It's the easiest diet ever. In exactly eight days, I had lost exactly eight pounds!

"It's an enormous relief not to have to count calories or weigh food or worry about quantities . . . you lose weight without a lot of fuss."

Sunday Woman, the new newspaper supplement magazine, in a report by Anthony Dias Blue, called it "THE ULTIMATE DIET ... so named by a friend who had been on every diet ever invented . . . she looked relaxed, slim, crowed, 'I've been on Dr. Tarnower's Scarsdale Medical Diet, AND IT WORKED! I lost 18 pounds in 14 days, and I'm able to KEEP IT OFF!'

"The diet is tasty and filling; you can order it in any restaurant and follow it easily at home.

"... Why the popularity of the diet? BECAUSE IT WORKS!"

Most Meaningful for YOU: Reports from Overweights

As soon as the newspaper and magazine stories appeared, thousands of letters and comments poured in from women and men who had lost weight on the Scarsdale Medical Diet. Their reports are all-important as proof for everyone, notably you, that the diet that worked wonderfully for them can work for you. Finally, there has been added demonstration and encouragement that SMD dieters not only can take off pounds and inches, but also keep them off.

Please realize that the enthusiastic media reports and personal "testimonials" received have been unsolicited. The people involved, aside from my patients, are primarily unknown to me. They are from about every state of the Union, including Alaska and Hawaii, and from other countries. These people are not unusual. They vary in overweight from a relatively few pounds to 50 or more.

Add to these the many formerly overweight patients who have been in my care for years. Their records prove that they keep trim year after year on the program that I have named the Scarsdale Lifetime Keep-Trim Program - all yours in this book.

Here are just a handful of typical comments that have come to me from thousands of dieters - some in person, from my patients, and others by mail.

"I have completed 14 days of your diet and lost 14 pounds. This is the first diet that has worked for me that isn't ridiculous starvation. It is a healthy diet that I can stick to until I reach my goal and get all my excess weight off."

(A patient): "It's three years now since I went on your Diet and slimmed down from 152 pounds to my desired 118 pounds. I've kept trim on your simple Two-On-Two-Off program without any trouble. As for my health, as you know from my regular checkups, most of my medical problems have disappeared. I feel better than ever. My husband keeps saying how wonderful it is to have a slim, attractive wife again, but he can hardly match my own delight about the 'new' me."

"A friend raved about how she lost weight quickly on your diet. I wasn't eager because I'm not the diet type. I was never fat until change of life, getting older, getting heavier. I had no discipline, always good intentions that weren't good enough. I went on your diet - IT WORKED! Thank you!"

"I didn't have more than 10 pounds to lose, which I lost quickly on your diet. Results were almost immediate, I found that the daily food combinations on your menu didn't leave me hungry in the least. Best of all, I had no craving for food at night - that's always been my biggest problem. I thank you for the time and energy put into something that works and is fun."

(A patient): "Now that I have maintained my 165-pound weight quite steadily for over two years, it's difficult for me to believe that I was a fat man who topped the scale at over 210 pounds. Since I took off the terrible load of fat and have kept it off, I breathe easily, and my vigor and endurance have been restored. I'm incredibly better at tennis and other sports. I assure you, Dr. Tarnower, with the help of your diet I'll never be a fat man again."

"I lost 14 pounds in the first two weeks on your diet and our grown son lost 20. That's 34 pounds in our family already. You are really and truly responsible for the shedding of a lot of unwanted pounds in this area. We're absolutely delighted with the results of the diet.

Not a "Fad" Diet

Most people hear about a diet from a friend, or read about it and try it. This is not always wise. There have been more than enough fad diets, some of them actually quite dangerous to your health. But nineteen years of successful, safe weight loss by multitudes of users of the Scarsdale Medical Diet have proved beyond question that it is not a passing fad.