A fat lot of diet books for 2014

We'll be tightening our belts in more ways than one following the expense and over-indulgence of the festive season, as the New Year brings a flurry of resolutions to lose weight and get fit.

There's no shortage of books to help you do it, from diets which claim to have helped celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Megan Fox, to advice on cutting out sugar, low carb regimes, 5:2 frenzies and programmes which replace sugar with honey.

If the so-called experts are to be believed, you can eat yourself beautiful, lose five pounds in five days, and feed your family on gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free without noticing. Meanwhile, a new Atkins Made Easy book claims to simplify the world famous diet to guarantee quicker, easier weight loss.

We'll be encouraged to look inside ourselves and learn to face our inner demons to help us tackle obesity and give us Freedom From Emotional Eating (Bantam, £12.99, January 2), courtesy of Paul McKenna, while actress and presenter Nadia Sawalha will be offering us the Greedy Girl's Diet: Second Helpings (Kyle, £14.99, January 2).

The dieting market is as voluminous as ever, with sales of fitness and diet books up by 57% compared with the previous year, according to the trade magazine The Bookseller.

Consumers have bought into the intermittent fasting (IF) phenomenon, led by Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer's The Fast Diet - and there's more of that to come.

Part of the reason for the weighty increase in sales is the fact that more men are buying diet books, says Susanne Ard, non-fiction buyer for Waterstones.

"It kicked off with the Hairy Dieters book in August 2012, which sold phenomenally well. Diet and fitness still tends to be a female-led area but that book appealed to men as much as it did to women," she says.

The Fast Diet (Short, £7.99) has been the massive hit of 2013, spawning a plethora of other books on the subject.

"Even now, sales of that book don't seem to be slowing down and it is still dominating the market. It remains the bestselling book in this category for the entire year. Nothing has come close," says Ard.

"5:2 has always been a plan that has appealed to both men and women. It's quite an easy diet to apply to your life."

Mosley now has another book out, Fast Exercise (Short, £7.99), co-written with Peta Bee, which focuses on the new concept of high intensity training, based on the theory that it's more beneficial to do very short intensive bursts of exercise rather than spend hours in the gym.

Juicing is back thanks to American Joe Cross, whose documentary Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead, which aired on Channel 5 in the summer, prompted a craze across the country.

Cross weighed 22 stone, was in constant pain and suffered a debilitating skin disease. In desperation, he tried to regain his health through juicing and filmed the attempt, trading in his typical junk food diet for nothing but fresh fruit and vegetables.

In 60 days he lost six stones and became - for the first time in years - free of medication.

"Juicing is something that's been around for years but has enjoyed a massive resurgence because of the documentary, which was Channel 5's biggest for three years," says Ard.

As the UK's widespread obesity problem shows no signs of slowing down, so the diet market will surely continue to flourish.

Here are some of the diets to watch in 2014.

The Paleo diet

Also known as the 'Caveman Diet' and favoured by the likes of Ray Mears, Megan Fox and Miley Cyrus, the main rule of thumb with this one is to eat the foods the human body has evolved to eat, as our Paleolithic, hunter-gatherer ancestors did. It's full of specific foods - meat, fish, vegetables, nuts, seeds, fruits and roots. It won't allow highly processed foods such as sugar, refined fats and dairy (unless raw). No calorie counting either. Titles covering this include The Paleo Diet by Daniel Green (Kyle, £14.99, January 16), The Paleo Diet Made Easy, by Joy Skipper (Hamlyn, £7.99, January 6) and Your Personal Paleo Diet by Chris Kresser (Piatkus, £13.99).

Intermittent fasting

The 5:2 plan has become the talk of weight-loss nationwide and so the trend continues into 2014, with a plethora of books out in January exploring the theme. IF, as it's known, is based on the theory that you can eat pretty much what you like for five days and then fast for two to achieve the weight loss you want. New, tasty recipes designed to make fasting easier are featured in Jacqueline Whitehart's The Complete 5:2 Cookbook (HarperCollins, £7.99). Variations on the theme include The Every Other Day Diet by Dr Krista Varady and Bill Gottlieb (Hodder & Stoughton, £13.99, January 2), who claim that 500 calories is the perfect and safe intake for Diet Day, which is always followed by Feast Day, when you can eat what you want and still lose weight. There's also 5:2 Vegetarian by gastronome Celia Brooks (Pavilion, £9.99), in which the IF convert, who lost 20lbs in four months, offers a feast of veggie fasting recipes for non-meat-eaters.

Just juicing

There are two big books hitting the shops in the New Year which are likely to fly off the shelves. One is The Reboot With Joe Juice Diet (Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99, January 6) in which Joe Cross shows you how to power up your system through juicing. The other is that of Jason Vale, juice master to the stars, whose bestselling book 7lbs In 7 Days is being boosted with another guide, 5lbs In 5 Days (HarperCollins, £9.99, January 2), in which he introduces a new programme to reshape and reinvigorate your body in five days. Lose the weight you've always dreamed of without restricting what you can eat or drink at the weekend.

Shelve your sugar

We've read so much over the years about cutting out saturated fat and lowering our carb intake, well now it's the turn of sugar to take some flak. A new book, The Sugar Detox, by Brooke Alpert & Dr Patricia Farris (Bantam, £8.99, January 2) claims that the white stuff not only causes obesity but is also linked to other serious health conditions including poor brain development in children, cataracts and even Alzheimer's. The diet, developed by a nutritionist and dermatologist, involves a three-day detox to rid your system of sugar and a three-day skin fix to help you look and feel great. A four-week eating plan with recipes aims to help you lose - and keep off - unwanted pounds.

In another quest to cut out sugar, The Honey Diet by nutritionist Mike McInnes (Coronet, £13.99, January 2) aims to replace sugar with honey to help you lose weight, sleep better, think more clearly and restore the immune system. His research has found that honey is absorbed by the body in a different way to sugar, helping to reduce your craving for 'bad' sugars during the day and to burn off excess weight at night.

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