My quest for integrative solutions to health and beauty often takes me in diverse directions. Many times my patients are my inspiration for new challenges to tackle. Such was the case with friend and colleague Maria Verel, a Manhattan-based celebrity make-up artist.

Maria is a stunning brunette with an impressive roster of clients that includes Diane Sawyer, Emmy Lou Harris, and Diana Krall. Her hectic schedule keeps her on the run from dawn until the small hours of the night. A typical day might start with a 3:00 AM wake up call and rush to the set of ABC-TV’s Good Morning America, continue with several back-to-back major magazine cover shoots, and end with Maria plying her craft backstage at a superstar concert at Madison Square Garden or the White House.

Maria confessed that her manic life style left her eating junk food on the run, missing sleep, and feeling worn out. Clearly, it was time for a major change.

I started Maria on my three-tiered program, tailored to her special needs. In addition to cutting out the high-glycemic carbohydrates (no more bagels or muffins on the run) and increasing her protein, vegetable, fruit and water intake per the recommendations in my books, I also started Maria on eight specific nutrients shown to help the body use dietary fat for energy.

Combined with my general skin and body recommendations, this regimen left Maria’s shelves overflowing with bottles of supplements, reminding me of my own cupboards at home and at the office! This inspired me to simplify people’s supplementation decisions and daily routine by putting all of my recommended nutrients—including the eight super fat-metabolizing nutrients—into convenient packets. I call this nutrient combo my Weight Management Program. The dosage is three packets a day with meals, which provides complete anti-oxidant and supplement coverage and will help you to burn fat rather than store it. And unlike drugs, nutrients maintain their effectiveness.

The third tier of my integrative program—using topical anti-inflammatory/anti-oxidants to rejuvenate skin—was already a solid part of Maria’s daily regimen for herself and many of her clients. Her success with my topical treatments left Maria confident that my food and supplement recommendations would work well for her weight and energy problems.

Happily, Maria was correct. So far, she has lost more than 70 pounds, and has been interviewed for television, newspaper, and magazine stories examining the secrets to her amazing, lasting success.

The secret is simple. The same foods and nutrients that help our skin and brain stay young also help us control our weight. And the foods that cause wrinkled, sagging skin—carbohydrates such as breads, pastas, fruit juices, and sugar—also fog our brains and cause us to store dietary calories as fat, thereby gaining excess weight.

The Perricone Program is not about calorie-counting, fat-counting, deprivation, or dieting. My daily program provides plenty to eat—three meals and two snacks that feature tasty foods like salmon, olive oil, almonds, berries, cantaloupe, and oatmeal. Foods like these, which measure below 50 on the blood-sugar glycemic index, won’t prompt inflammation and cellular aging. Together, the right diet and supplemental nutritients will increase your energy, make your skin look better than ever, and help normalize your weight. (Proper nutrition tends underweight people toward weight gain, and overweight people toward weight loss.)

The quick results my program usually produce—you may see changes in one weekend—reinforce positive feelings and boost self esteem, making it easy to stay motivated. Maria never focused on her desire to lose the weight—she focused on taking good care of herself. The results were so spectacular that she swears she will never resume her old habits.

For once in her life, Maria lost her fear of eating fat and now incorporates the beauty and health benefits of nuts and extra virgin olive oil in her daily menu. By stabilizing blood sugar, Maria was able to eliminate mood swings, PMS and carbohydrate cravings—all major demons in the average woman’s quest to maintain an ideal weight.

As I mentioned, Maria lost more than 70 pounds, which changed her life dramatically. Now, her glamour and beauty rival that of her many famous clients! And Maria enjoys a vibrant, healthy glow and extra energy that lets her maximize her creativity while sailing through a work day that often lasts 16 to 20 hours.