New crop of diet books looks at digestion ‘The Lean Muscle Diet’ ‘The Plan Cookbook’ ‘The Swift Diet’

Diet fads come and go, so it will be interesting to see what will happen to the latest weight-loss focus. In the past, fat, carbs and sugars have sat on the throne of evil dietary figures. The newest crop of books to feed your health resolutions focus on something much more basic: digestion.

The newest “DASH Diet” volume, plus “The Swift Diet” and “The Plan,” all focus on gut bacteria — rather, replacing the bad bacteria with good bacteria and getting rid of inflammation — for better health that will help you lose weight naturally. Men’s Health brings you a muscle-bound focus, and Chris Kesser helps you individualize his Paleo diet plan.

Here’s a roundup of some of the newest titles focusing on health and weight loss: By Lou Schuler and Alan Aragon Rodale; $27.99; 320 pp.

The Men’s Health machine churns out endless magazines, books and other materials to help people lose weight and get fit. Its most recent, “The Lean Muscle Diet,” promotes what your trainer — and many others — already know: Your body burns calories more efficiently when it has more muscle and less fat.

Instead of offering a plan to cut calories, carbs or anything else, authors Lou Schuler and Alan Aragon want you to use their information to devise a plan to help you keep extra weight off forever. The amount of food and workouts you choose will shape the body you want, they say.

The authors even urge you to jump around their book, starting at different points depending on whether you’re most interested in the basics, your weight/ body fat, or the workout.

For the food portion, they want you to eat a diet of 80 percent whole and minimally processed foods you like, 10 percent more that you don’t necessarily like but don’t hate, and the remaining 10 percent can be whatever you want — junk included.

This book offers plenty of scientific explanation, but most of its language is styled with common sense in an engaging, conversational way. By Lyn-Genet Recitas Grand Central Publishing; $26; 224 pp.

One year ago, Lyn-Genet Recitas published her diet/ health book “The Plan,” proposing that many foods we think help us gain health and lose weight — think oatmeal, salmon and even Greek yogurt — actually do the opposite. She urges followers to eat foods that reduce inflammation and inherently boost metabolism and weight loss.

Her second volume is a companion cookbook with more than 150 recipes to back up her original eating plan. That plan would have you drink more water, exercise a reasonable amount, manage stress, eat less sodium and eat foods that are not reactive. (Reactive foods are those that cause inflammation. You’ll know they’re reactive if after you’ve eaten them you gain weight, have digestive issues and suffer from headaches, depression and sinus issues.)

She offers lists of foods that are problematic, prioritized so you can figure out easy swaps — rice milk instead of almond milk, wild white fish instead of farm-raised fish, pears instead of bananas — and urges a three-day cleanse to reset your palate.

This plan may not be for everyone, but if you’ve ever wondered why you eat so little of healthful foods and can’t lose weight, it might be worth a read. By Kathie Madonna Swift and Joseph Hooper Rodale; $25.95; 352 pp.

Kathie Madonna Swift’s “flexitarian” approach to eating will help you improve your gut bacteria. Mountains of anecdotal information about digestive complaints have made “the belly of the American woman the proverbial canary in the coal mine,” she says in her book.

Women are her primary audience, and Swift also focuses on why many women overeat — how their anxieties and eating habits are often intertwined. Being less fearful and more mindful are two strategies she writes about.

On this diet you’ll worry less about calories than you do about the quality of the food you’re eating. You’ll start by removing sugar, gluten, dairy, processed foods and artificial sweeteners from your diet and limit grains, alcohol and caffeine. After two weeks you’ll reintroduce dairy and other foods to test which ones you can tolerate.

A chapter of recipes, organized by meal, will keep you from getting bored. This is where you’ll learn to make herbs and seasonings your new best friend. your diet, testing what you can tolerate, then moving forward with sleep, exercise and the rest of your life.

Paleo food plans were first dubbed “Caveman Diets” because they essentially removed refined grains and other foods from our diet and focused on what our ancient ancestors lived on. In this plan, fat — saturated and monounsaturated fats — are the fuel you burn, and it will make up 40 percent to 70 percent of your calories. Carbohydrates — fruits and vegetables — will comprise just 15 percent to 30 percent of your calories. You’ll eat whatever amount of pro- tein you naturally crave, and pasture-raised animal protein will dominate this category. You’ll avoid grains, legumes and sweeteners.

Your diet will tap into foodie buzzwords because you’ll look for things that are whole, unprocessed and unrefined. Produce will be local, seasonal and organic.

Kresser promotes his “Paleo Cure” as a health book, but he notes that along the way you’ll not only feel better, you’ll lose weight and look better, too. diane.cowen@chron.com twitter.com/dianecowen