Slim—it’s the state everyone wishes their body was in. And it turns out there’s actually a state of slim: Colorado, the place that boasts the lowest obesity rate in America. Now leading weight-loss researchers Dr. James O. Hill and Dr. Holly R. Wyatt reveal how slender Coloradans get and stay that way and show how you can achieve the same results—even if you live in Connecticut, California, or Canada!

If you’re someone who has begun to doubt you will ever reach your ideal weight, help and hope are here. State of Slim is broken down into three phases to help you reignite, rebuild, and reinforce your body’s fat-burning engines so you develop a Mile-High Metabolism—one that’s keenly responsive to shifts in activity and diet. In the reignite and rebuild phases, you’ll learn the diet and exercise strategies that will help you drop up to 20 pounds in just 8 weeks. In the reinforce phase, you’ll continue to lose weight and solidify your new lifestyle.

Along the way, you’ll discover how to make changes in your environment and your mind-set so they support, rather than thwart, your success. With State of Slim as your guide, you won’t just lose weight, you’ll actually change your body so it’s primed to stay in a state of slim for good.

James O. Hill is Executive Director of the Anschutz Center for Health and Wellness at the University of Colorado and the author of The Step Diet: Count Steps, Not Calories to Lose Weight and Keep It off Forever. He and Dr. Wyatt co-founded the National Weight Control Registry. He lives in Denver.

Holly Wyatt, the Anschutz Center's Associate Director, is a physician and clinical researcher at the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado and the national director for the Centers for Obesity Research and Education. She lives in Denver.