Anyone who wants to lose weight can find a plethora of diets and eating plans, each claiming to be the secret handshake or magic potion to a perfect body size. Hollywood cookies. Cabbage soup. Quinoa. Almond Butter. Oat bran. Carbs. No carbs. Good grains. Bad grains. Starvation. But do any of these diets ever work? Which one is the best? The hardest? The least satisfying? The one to be avoided at all costs?

To answer that question, I undertook a crazy journey: 52 diets in 55 weeks. This book chronicles my quest for the Holy Grail of weight loss: the highs, the lows, and the downright bizarre.