Eat! Next Diet and Exercise! Then eat some more!

Do you, like most Americans, have a love—hate relationship with food? You love sizzling steaks and pizzas dripping with gooey cheese, but occasionally you’re filled with remorse. Then you avoid everything but salads and exercise. After you lose a couple of pounds, you return to your old routine and regain the weight. This is sometimes called yo-yo dieting.

Funny? Sad and pathetic? Annoying, especially to me, a former professor of nutrition. Maybe, that’s why I wrote Murder…A New Way to Lose Weight.

Let me tell you a little about my new medical mystery.

Dieting is hard. So is fitting into a new job where you aren’t wanted. Linda Almquist is trying to do both as she investigates allegations against two diet doctors that they are taking shortcuts in their current clinical trail and endangering their patients. When she discovers one of them dead, the police suspect the other diet doctor. Maybe they’re wrong. The murders might be related to something in the past – something involving her boss the Dean.

One subplot in this novel is Linda’s efforts to lose weight. There are many insidious threats to her weight loss plans (i.e. tempting high-fat foods typical of New Mexican cuisine, vending machines with junk food, and humongous servings in most restaurants).

As a nutritionist, I also wanted to tell readers about a hot new area of research—gut bacteria. Scientists have found the microflora (bacteria) in the gut change with weight loss. Researchers hypothesize they may be able to help patients increase weight loss and keep weight off by altering their gut bacteria. That’s why my diet doctors are studying the gut bacteria of their obese patients in a clinical trail. However, I was careful to not make false promises. (I guess I wouldn’t be good on TV infomercials.)

Please note the diet doctors in Murder…A Way to Lose Weight do not resemble any researchers in the field, but they do have the characteristics of several overly ambitious researchers, who have had ethical lapses.  

Murder… A Way to Lose Weight (paperback & Kindle) is available from Amazon (http://amzn.com/1610092392).

When it comes to dieting, do you feel confused?

Many of us appear to have a bipolar relationship with food. We’re either feasting or dieting. Doubt me?

Flip on your TV and watch the ads. First there’s one for a restaurant with pictures of smiling, thin people and sizzling steaks or pizzas dripping with gooey cheese. Next a slender actress coos about a diet regime while she shows you tiny portions of foods that look like plastic models. After a small break for the program, the ads are back.

That’s why I wrote Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight. I thought the love – hate relationship most of us have with food was a good backdrop for a murder mystery. And Albuquerque was the perfect location. Let me explain.

There are similarities between dieting and solving a murder.

 1) Both are hard work.

 2) Both should be taken seriously. Obesity is life threatening; it’s not just a cosmetic problem. Although humorous scenes add to murder mysteries, murder isn’t funny.

3) Little things (like calories and seemingly insignificant clues) are important.

4) Patience and persistence are the keys to success in losing weight or solving a murder.

In Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight, the protagonist Linda Almquist struggles to lose weight, to fit into a new job where she’s not really wanted, and to help the police catch a killer before he strikes a third time. At times, you won’t be sure which of these activities is hardest for Linda.

Albuquerque is a great restaurant town.

I set many scenes in real restaurants (Flying Star, Hurricanes, Jason’s Deli) because Albuquerque is home to a lot of great southwestern cooking – burritos stuffed with everything but the kitchen sink and dripping in cheese, fried chili rellenos smothered in red or green chili sauce, and pork tamales with guacamole and sour cream on the side. Note southwestern cooking isn’t known for its’ low-calorie entrees. And tension builds (I hope) as the “dieting” Linda peruses menus and reluctantly chooses salads with dressing on the side.

Now let’s get’s personal and address your love-hate relationship with food.

This advice comes from a nutritionist who loves eating and cooking and doesn’t always follow this advice.

1. Learn to enjoy more activities that don’t involve eating or drinking.

2. Don’t make a stop for ice cream the reward for exercise.

3. Make a couple of new rules at your house: no eating or drinking in front of the TV or computer or in bed. Hopefully, the activities in these locations will be so interesting, you’ll choose not to get another snack. And you can tell yourself and your spouse, this will reduce messy mistakes.

4. Don’t buy your favorite snack foods. If potato or taco chips aren’t in your house, you can’t eat them. Sometimes I think the main advantage of buying some “diet” snack foods is that they don’t taste good, so I eat less of them.

5. Read more books. And make it a rule not to eat or drink while reading. Remember, resale vendors don’t like books that have food or drink stains.

Okay, these hints are great but they should make you think. How often do you eat because you bored, not hungry?

Why not satisfy your taste for mystery and suspense, by buying Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight and Coming Flu on Amazon or if you’re in Albuquerque at Treasure House (on the square in Old Town Albuquerque) or Menaul Book Exchange (at 9409 Menaul Boulevard)? 

JL Greger

Tag sales line for Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Murder-New-Way-Lose-Weight/dp/1610090624/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365534310&sr=1-1&keywords=Murder+A+New+Way+to+Lose+Weight

Tag sales line for Coming Flu: http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Flu-J-L-Greger/dp/1610090985/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363872699&sr=1-1&keywords=Coming+Flu

Website: www.jlgreger.com

THE NEXT BIG THING AFTER COMING FLU

http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/ 

THE NEXT BIG THING – a chain letter with set questions

I’ve spent so much time advertising my medical thriller Coming Flu (Oak Tree Press published it in July 2012.) lately that I’ve not thought much about my book now in review. This is a great chance to dream and hope it’s the next big thing.

What is the working title of your book?

I like the title Death of a Diet Doctor; a reading group preferred Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight. Which title would catch their eye more in the bookstore? Let me know in comments to this blog.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
First off, I wanted to write a sequel to Coming Flu, but feature Linda Almquist, the younger, more contemplative and nervous sister of Sara Almquist (the lead character in Coming Flu).

Second, I wanted my second novel to also have a science theme – but not one involving infectious diseases, as my first novel had. I particularly wanted a medical syndrome with a New Mexico tie-in, if possible. Obesity and the related health problems are common in New Mexico. But I wanted something quirkier to add to the mix. As I was searching through journal articles, I came across one that had been published by medical researchers from New Mexico in the New England Journal of Medicine. I’m not going to tell you more or I’ll give away too many secrets in the plot.

What genre does your book fall under?
Death of a Diet Doctor is a mystery set in a medical school. Coming Flu was a medical thriller.

The differences in the two books reflect the lead characters – two sisters. The feistier sister Sara Almquist, a supposedly retired epidemiologist, is the lead in Coming Flu. Linda Almquist, a physician and a newly appointed associate dean in a medical school, is the lead character in Death of A Diet Doctor. Both are in both books.

As I wrote I viewed the sisters as the “Odd Couple of Modern Women.” Sara is the messy Oscar Madison (the Jack Klugman character in the TV show The Odd Couple). Linda is the proper, neatnik Felix Unger (the Tony Randall character).

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Frances McDormand has the toughness and Midwest background that would make her a perfect Sara Almquist. However, a younger version of Shirley MacLaine might be an interesting version of Sara. Besides MacLaine lives near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Jodie Foster is a perfectionist, has an intellectual bent, and is petite. She would make a perfect Linda Almquist.

 
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

As Linda Almquist investigates scientific fraud by medical researchers, she uncovers simmering feuds among faculty members, long hidden secrets, and two dead bodies – and they’re not patients.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Oak Tree Press published Coming Flu and hopefully will publish Death of a Diet Doctor.  

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Researching and writing the first draft took one year.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

My books are similar to Patricia Cornwell’s mystery series, featuring pathologist Kay Scarpetta, but I show more of the Almquists’ personal lives and quirks. Kathy Reichs’s mystery series, featuring medical anthropologist Tempe Brennan (also of the TV show Bones) is also comparable. But my books include more science tidbits that are relevant to readers’ lives.

Who inspired you to write this book?
My students. I taught nutrition and toxicology for thirty years at Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Students generally found metabolic pathways dull and hard to remember, until I mentioned health problems caused by aberrations in the pathways. The students taught me to show not tell them about science.

Thank you.

JL Greger

http//www.jlgreger.com

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