Every time I turn around, I find another product purporting to make exercise painless, melt fat away without exercise, allow me to eat like a farm animal and not gain weight, make dieting painless or any one of thousands of other angles on the weight-loss/fitness game. I've long ago quit paying attention to all but the most egregious of them.

I saw one last weekend for yet another abdominal muscle exerciser, this one looking like the bizarre offspring of a pogo stick-jackstand mating. The claim was that it would give you six-pack abs in a couple minutes a day.

Now, I'm not for a moment impugning the manufacturer's claim that this funky-looking contraption will build muscle. Pushing against resistance builds muscle ... that's physiological fact. However, no one is going to know you have that six-pack if it's still swaddled in layer upon layer of fat. Two minutes a day of exercise isn't going to make that spare tire disappear, Chester. If you want the fat gone, you're going to have to strap on your sneakers and walk or do some other exercise to get your heart rate up for 30 minutes a day.

Of course, in the world of diet foods and plans, there are just as many, if not more, "miracle" ideas. There are liquid diets, diets focused on eliminating/consuming one specific food group and all manner of other gimmicks. Embedded in this morass is a subgroup of products that actually make sense, that champion healthy eating and help you do it.

I've found just such a product in The Pocket Diet. By concentrating on the metabolism, the body's calorie-burning "speed," the PD (as I'll call it henceforth) will give you the tools, the knowledge and even the recipes you need to jump-start even the most stalled of weight-loss plans.

I know this from personal experience. I'm not about to make my first-ever diet plan recommendation without testing the bloody thing on myself first. After the holidays, I'd packed on 10 pounds that I wanted to make gone in a hurry so I could get on track with my 2006 goal of getting below 300 pounds for the first time since my early 20s. Steve, the PD representative, offered to send me a couple of packs of the pita pockets around which the diet is built, and I told him to make it a case. I sat down with the PD book, went through the Web site, and made my shopping list.

For two weeks, I integrated the PD into my 80-20 plan, sticking to it during the week and allowing myself a bit of "free" eating on the weekends. Not only did the 10 pounds come back off, but two more pounds joined them in the heap. I'm sure some of that 10 was fluid weight, but the fact is I had the kind of success I've not had since the early days of my journey.

One of the things I like most about the plan is the concentration on eating six small-to-medium meals per day, rather than three. In all my reading, this is something agreed upon almost universally: Small meals throughout the day do more to help keep your metabolism high than the traditional eating model. And there is the side benefit that if you do find yourself getting hungry, it's never all that long until your next meal. That makes it easier to talk yourself out of cheating.

I do have one caveat for those of you who, like me, head first for the recipes in the back of the book: the proofreading job on them gets a B-minus, tops. There are occasionally ingredients listed but not mentioned in the instructions and vice versa. However, I didn't find any cases where the omissions would cripple the recipe ... and in fact if you've got a bit of cooking savvy, you can figure your way around the potholes.

But you don't have to stick to just the recipes in the book. You can fill the pockets with just about anything you want! My absolute favorite thing to tuck in them so far has been the "World's Greatest Chicken Salad" from DeYoung's Fore Seasons. Readers of this column and my Short Orders scribblings know well about this spice blend and the maaahvelous things it will do for everything from prime rib and salmon to microwave popcorn. The rest of you just need to go and order some for yourselves.

I've even found myself snacking on just one of the pockets by itself, lightly toasted. The whole-grain texture and hint of honey sweetness is really good stuff. I enjoy finding wild local honeys at my farmer's market, and a tablespoon of that drizzled into a freshly toasted pocket is danged close to heaven.

And now, I've talked enough. It's time for you to go to the Web site and check it out for yourself. And be sure and let me know what you think!

Got a question? Comment? Topic you'd like to see covered? Just drop me a line, anytime!