If you read enough diet books, you soon realize that most follow the same recipe.

For the first 100 pages, the authors tell you how you are killing yourself with bad food choices, using lots of studies and statistics.

For the next 100 pages, the authors tell you why their approach is different. They do this by brainwashing — aka mentioning the title of their book over and over — and introducing you to many people who have tried the technique with phenomenal results.

But there is one thing the authors won't tell you — the secret to this success.

To learn the secret, you will have to carefully read the next 100 pages; then, and only then, will all be revealed. Consider it the DaVinci code for fat people. A quest through Middle Earth to find the answer to the mid-life spread.

Sometimes, the authors will come right out and tell why you can't yet learn the secret — you aren't ready. To tell you the secret too early would spell disaster, they say.

But someday — after proving yourself worthy by getting through 300 hard-fought pages — you will finally know the secret.

The sacred truth?

I have fallen for this ploy over and over. We obese people are always convinced there is a golden key that will free us from our chains of fat. We are undying optimists, which is a fancy way of saying "suckers." We are children who still put out the milk and cookies for Santa Claus despite years and years of only getting socks from Aunt Martha on Christmas morning.

So you can see why, after decades of reading hundreds of such books, it was strange for me to pick up one — called God's Diet — that started this way: "Now if you want to spend good money for this book, go ahead. But if you understand the chapter title, spend your money on something else."

And when I tell you the chapter title, you'll understand the secret to weight loss. It's that earth-shattering. It's so simple yet so profound.

You probably want to know the name of the chapter title now, but I'm not sure you are ready to hear that yet.

First, you should carefully consider the following words: Here is an author telling us to not to buy the book. That doesn't happen in the world of diet books. They are all about profit. It's a $500 million-a-year industry. It all started in the 1972 with a little book called Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution, which eventually, along with its spin-offs, sold more than 21 million copies. Since then, the search has been on for the "next diet craze."

But I bet you're still waiting to hear the chapter title. To be honest, I'm not getting the sense that you are ready to hear such a groundbreaking secret, so I'll tell you about the author of God's Diet next.

Her name is Dr. Dorothy Gault-McNemee and she lives in, strangely enough, Santa Teresa, N.M., just outside of El Paso. (I had no idea she was from our beautiful state when I read the chapter title and thought to myself, "This is the first diet book that makes sense to me.")

Now, about the chapter title ... Sorry. I have to admit I'm still not convinced you are ready to hear the chapter title. So, let me tell you more about Gault-McNemee.

In 1996, at the walk-in clinic she runs, she decided to make a handout for patients about dieting ideas she had learned the hard way — by struggling with her own weight. The handout made the rounds and people started to ask for it, so in 1999 Random House published it. In her very short book, Gault-McNemee offers plenty of case histories and recipes. And the entire explanation of how to make her method work is contained in only 12 pages.

But the real secret can be found in that chapter title, which I think you are finally worthy to know.

Are you ready? Are you sure? Well, then, prepare yourself. Here it is (imagine a drum roll): "If God didn't make it, don't eat it."

Ta da!

I know it sounds simple, but I think it's how we all should approach eating. As the book says, "if you can't pick it from a tree or vine, or pull it out of the ground or kill it, then you probably shouldn't eat it." No counting points or popping strange supplements.

"God made it simple for us," said Gault-McNemee. "Adam and Eve did not have a scale."

But this is not a religious book. (You can replace the word "God" with "nature" and get the same result.) In fact, Gault-McNemee was an atheist when she wrote it. But that changed after the book was published.

"Because of the book, I had to look at God," she said. "Because the book made so much sense, there had to be a higher power. It brought me back to my faith."

In a way, God's Diet was one of the first books to stress that natural food is best, which now is the cornerstone of most diets.

But Gault-McNemee looks at the influx of these new diet books with skepticism, knowing that behind every cover may be a gimmick.

"It's very frustrating seeing them setting people up for failure," she said.

And though she also knows she could have parleyed her book into more of a financial success and maybe become the Next Big Thing, that was never her goal.

"I just want people to know about it," she said.

It know sounds simple, but I think it's how all diet book authors should approach writing.

God's Diet is out of print, but you can still find copies of it online at amazon.com.

To learn more about Dr. Gault-McNemee and how to contact her, go to Christine's blog at etastesantfe.com.