Woman shares her success for keeping off the weight

Years ago, a book publisher told me: "Losing weight's easy; keeping it off's the hard part."

He's right. Trim calories, increase activity and most people will loose weight.

In just a few months I'll have maintained a 165-pound weight loss for two years, a significant accomplishment if I do say so myself. Yet it's small potatoes compared to Australia's Annette Sym.

From high school to the time she married, Sym. went from 183 to 210. At 37 she tipped the scale at 220. Seeing a snapshot of herself "all squeezed into my bulging swimming costume" (her words), helped Sym. turn the tide on her lifelong weight issue.

She joined a weight-loss group for support. and in an effort to improve overall health she cut out salt, caffeine and alcohol. That's also when her love affair with low-fat foods began.

In 20 months she shed 77 pounds and now 17 years later maintains her svelte form.

Since Sym's low-fat food plan, combined with an awareness of carbohydrate's glycemic index (a system for rating how quickly carbohydrates raise blood glucose levels) has worked so well for her, she's decided to share her recipes, story and tips. "Simply Too Good to be True" became a best-seller.

Now we can share Sym's success story. She has reworked the 150-plus recipes to reflect common American products and kitchen equipment while not compromising the quality. Along with pictures you'll find complete nutrition analysis, including a glycemic index rating. It matters little what weight-loss program you're on, you'll be able to do the math and make her recipes work for you.

Sym. begins with a 28-day weight-loss program that includes a specific daily menu and follows that with a variety of recipes. You'll find Asian-inspired crunchy noodle salad, Thai beef (soft) noodle salad, a seafood chowder, pizza strudel, tuna tomato casserole, Indian butter chicken, satay pork burger, chicken pesto sauce for pasta, chocolate mousse pie and a wicked chocolate cake. Hardly what one thinks of as diet food.

Sym's food tastes so good that losing weight, and keeping it off become, well, simple. No wonder she's sold almost 2.5 million cookbooks. It think she'll do just as well on this side of the planet.

Try this recipe: Before buying a cookbook, it's always nice to give a recipe a test run. This one will give you a good feel for how Sym's recipes handle the weight-loss road.