In fact, Kozlowski claims that there are "details" in Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility that parallel almost exactly the latest discoveries in modern books on dieting, that "health" is mentioned more than a hundred times in Austen's six novels, that it's one of the recurring themes of Emma and the focal point of Austen's last unfinished novel, Sanditon, set in a seaside health resort.

Kozlowski is a chef and self-described lover of classical literature. He always felt the two aspects of his life could be combined, and as a result he turned away from a traditional cooking career to one with the goal of uniting literature and food.

Kozlowski says when he turned 30 he had an early midlife crisis while re-reading Jane Austen's six novels and realised that Austen had the answers he needed to return to health and fitness.

The basic premise of The Jane Austen Diet is that Austen's healthiest characters "embrace a set of healthy lifestyle routines" which still "hold spectacular relevance today", and "what Jane understood about our bodies is more useful, refreshing and scientifically sensible now more than ever before".

In seven chapters, Kozlowski demonstrates, using Austen's characters and words, how you can get "healthy with Jane" using a calm and civilised regime to return to " a bloom of full health. Regency style". He acknowledges Austen as co-author "because these unique and wonderful insights are hers and hers alone" - and of course, the name sells.

Before exploring Regency eating habits, which form the basis of the diet, Kozwolski establishes "Jane's universal truths - the Regency body basics repeated throughout her novels, as true today as they were in 1800". For instance, there is no perfect body. Healthy, happy bodies do not come in one size. Austen's female characters vary in shape and size. Anne Elliott has a naturally "slender form" but Lydia Bennett is a curvy "stout, well-grown girl" and Harriet Smith is "a very pretty girl . . . short plump and fair".

None of them is attractive if excessively thin. In Sense and Sensibility, as Marianne grows "quite thin", she "looks very unwell". In Pride and Prejudice, Miss be Burgh is repeatedly called "thin" and sickly", while in Emma, Miss Bates is worried that Jane Fairfax has "grown thin" and is "looking very poorly". Rather, the aim is the "bloom of full health": a natural glow to the skin; a rational relationship with food (remember, those characters in Austen's novels who starve themselves loose their bloom); a daily surge of energy, a brisk walk or a "lively" dance together with "happy spirits creating a whole picture of health".

How can we achieve this total body bloom in the 21st Century? A healthy relationship with food can be established by only eating at specific times and at a table in a dining room. Eat with family and fiends and realise there is nothing wrong or unhealthy about truly enjoying food. Kozlowski claims, "the meals that punctuate every Austen novel have timeless patterns that anyone can replicate": a rational meal plan that begins with breakfast.

In Austen's novels, however, much happens before breakfast. Anne Elliott and Henrietta Musgrove explore Lyme before breakfast in Persuasion, Bingley travels daily to Longbourne to see Jane in Pride and Prejudice and Jane Fairfax regularly walks to the post office in Emma. There is a definite two-hour gap between waking up and eating breakfast, one of the easiest ways to establish small, routine fasts in your diet.

And to eat: tea and toast.

The next main meal was dinner, served mid-afternoon. The Bennetts ate dinner at 4.30pm, the Dashwoods and the Woodhouses at 4pm. Those who ate later were usually "a bad or dubious lot". Austen disapproved of the Prince Regent not only because of his treatment of his wife but also for his late, lavish dinners. Kozlowski recommends early dinners as a sensible tactic for weight control. "A large European-style lunch is undeniably healthier than a large American-style dinner", because a large late lunch solves the problem of 4pm hunger and gives your body time to digest and work off calories before bedtime.

And to eat: meat or game and fresh vegetables, but not carbohydrates, which were considered lower-class food.

And then supper, "quite a small meal, yet incredibly important to the happiness of [Austen's] characters". In Emma, Austen observes that a long day "without sitting down to supper was pronounced an infamous fraud upon the rights of man and women". In Pride and Prejudice, a cosy supper after cards at Mrs Phillips was "very cheering" and Mr Collins spends the carriage ride home "enumerating all the dishes at supper".

And to eat: "minced chicken" or "a little bit of tart' as recommended by Mr Woodhouse, or soup and wine. which Austen herself enjoyed after a night at the theatre in 1813.

The Jane Austen Diet is a lively, engaging exploration of how "Austen's timeless body beliefs are more relevant, refreshing and scientifically sensible than ever before". Kozlowski's humour and recommendations, underpinned with sound modern scientific research and constant references to Austen's novels will appeal to Austen's extraordinarily large fan base.