- Linda Giuca
The Hartford Courant

April 1 2004

Weight control counselor Pam Oliver has nothing against the Atkins or South Beach diets. She just believes she can devise a better diet.

Oliver, whose business, Body Transformers, is in Rocky Hill, has written a diet that follows the high-protein bent of Atkins but without copious amounts of saturated fats and without eliminating all carbohydrates. Dubbed the P-A-M-O Diet, the two-week plan offers three meals and three snacks a day. "My diet is high-protein, but it's not a copycat," says Oliver who also operates a website, www.bodytransformers.com. "The saturated fat [content] is low, and there is the right touch of carbohydrates because they are brain food, energy food. You get to eat fruit and vegetables right from the start."

The diet balances reasonable portions of low-fat protein foods such as chicken, tuna, lean beef, veggie burgers and dried beans with low-fat dairy products, fruits, vegetables and brown rice. The dairy choices, in particular, are important, because low-fat or fat-free versions of ice cream, yogurt, pudding, chocolate milk, cottage cheese or hot chocolate are satisfying and help to curb cravings, she says. "I've always been a dairy queen," says Oliver, who recommends eating the dairy snack in the evening.

Linda Watson of Newington, who is in Week 4 of the diet, has lost about 10 pounds and finds the diet easy to follow. "The diet gives you a lot of flexibility," says Watson, who is trying to lose weight before knee-replacement surgery scheduled for June. "And my family will eat the meals, too."

For those, like Watson, who wish to continue the diet, Oliver suggests reversing the two-week plan for variety.

Oliver also is working with Tomasso Catricala, owner of Tomasso's Mezzo Giorno restaurant in Rocky Hill, on entrees that incorporate the high-protein, low-saturated-fat ideals. In one of the dishes, broccoli rabe with Italian sausage, Oliver suggested adding cannellini beans and reducing the amount of sausage. "We're working with bulky fiber [such as dried beans] because they're filling," she says. The other featured dishes are chicken piccata with sun-dried tomatoes and artichokes, and Chilean sea bass Livornese with tomato and black olives. Recipes for the dishes are available on bodytransformers.com.

Oliver, who also writes and hosts the television show "Healthy New England," is working on a diet book. Until the diet is available in book form, Oliver offers it on her website for $20.