After years of complaining about diet books, Dr. Richard Lipman has written his own. Or maybe it's an anti-diet book. In The 100-Calorie Secret, Lipman suggests forgetting most of the diet advice you've heard for the last four decades.

Follow his plan, he says, and you don't have to give up bread or even exercise to lose weight.

While outlining what's wrong with most diets, Lipman takes aim at what he considers ''diet myths,'' including that eating late in the evening makes you fat, that eating healthy food helps you lose weight and that diet soda is bad for you.

Lipman, an internist and endocrinologist who practices in South Miami, has worked with patients with obesity and metabolic disorder the last 25 years. He bases his diet advice on the experiences of his patients. Plus, he lost about 60 pounds himself about 15 years ago and has kept it off.

''Most of these diet books were written by skinny people, who think people should eat what they eat,'' he said. But, what works for skinny people doesn't necessarily work for the rest of the world, he says.

The key to a diet that works, he says, is keeping it simple. And eating less, of course. We asked Lipman about his diet and his book.

Q: What is the 100-calorie secret?

A: ''Everybody had different reasons for gaining weight,'' he says. ``Everybody needs a different diet.''

Rather than following a lot of complex rules, Lipman recommends finding places you can cut 100 calories from your daily diet, whether it's a sugary soda (130 calories) or a tablespoon of olive oil (120 calories). Find three such cuts a day, and you can lose 30 pounds in a year.

Q: Your diet recommends a lot of the same healthy tactics recommended in many other diets: adequate protein, a healthy breakfast, fewer carbohydrates, less sugar, less fast food, lots of fruits and vegetables. Why isn't eating healthy foods the whole answer?

A: ''Of course, healthy food is great,'' he says. But, ``nobody gets the portions right.''

Brown rice has more calories than white, he noted; just because it's healthy doesn't mean you can eat unlimited quantities and lose weight. A handful of nuts can have several hundred calories. A glass of juice is more than 100 calories. Those ''healthy'' foods can add pounds.

And replacing white bread with whole wheat bread? The ingredients aren't that different, he says. You won't lose any weight by eating whole grain bread instead of white bread.

Q: What do you think about artificial sweeteners?

A: ''I think they're great,'' he says. ''No one has ever died from Diet Coke.'' He notes that aspartame has been studied exhaustively, including in a 2006 National Institutes of Health study, and that study after study has found artificial sweeteners to be safe.

Q: Why do you recommend people eat cold food for lunch? Does the temperature really matter?

A: ''I think all of the mistakes are made at lunch,'' he said. ``Cold lunch excludes all fast food, anything you might have for dinner, pizza, bad sandwiches like Reuben, Cuban, tuna melt.''

He points out that a cold sandwich, say turkey on white bread, is a much lower-calorie choice than half a chicken and a Caesar salad. Plus, a sandwich is an easily identifiable small serving. And food that's served cold, unlike much food that's served hot, usually doesn't have any oil in it. Soup is the exception, and is a good choice as long as it isn't a cream soup.

Too many people eat too much at lunch, thinking it's going to be their big meal of the day, then go home and have another big meal later. Just eat a small lunch, he says.

Q: Why don't you think that exercise is important for weight loss?

A: ''Exercise is good for everybody,'' he says. But, if you give someone who doesn't like to exercise and has trouble finding time a diet and exercise plan, the diet plan is often abandoned along with the exercise. It's better to start with the diet and add exercise later, Lipman said. But it's possible to lose weight without exercise.

Q: How is your diet different from the South Beach diet?

A: ``I'm not telling anybody what they have to eat. It sounds very simple and it is.''

Q: Is there a place in life for double chocolate cheesecake?

A: ``Yes, once a year on your birthday. Or twice a year. It's not what you do once a year. It's what you do every day.''

Health Q&A appears every other week in Tropical Life. To suggest a topic or someone to be interviewed, e-mail tmears@mindspring.com.

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