Actress Lorraine Bracco talks about health in book ‘To the Fullest’

Diet book and funny don’t usually make easy partners.

But put the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated name Lorraine Bracco on the cover, and the landscape can change. Her book, “To the Fullest,” is not just funny but honest and forthright about what she did to, as she puts it, clean up her act, lose 35 pounds and become healthy.

Bracco will talke about “To the Fullest” (Rodale Books), out this week and written with Lisa Davis, an integrative health consultant, at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 18 at 1:20 p.m., and she’ll be signing books after. (She will be talking with me, the editor of the Mind & Body section of The Times).

The book includes Bracco’s story, comments from a panel of people who tested her program, as well as recipes and exercise information. The program starts with a two-week cleanse and moves on to a diet program that encourages participants to “eat food as close to the source as possible.” She recommends going without gluten, dairy, sugar and processed foods.

That doesn’t mean she never has dessert, she said Thursday at the Santa Monica Public Library, where she spoke about the book with writer Annabelle Gurwitch. She uses a “four-bite rule,” she said. “We’re only human.” But she mostly eats fruit for dessert.

Her program is no fast track to skinny. She repeatedly told the audience that “slow and steady” is the way to lose pounds and keep them off.

Bracco, now on the televison show “Rizzoli & Isles,” is known for playing Tony Soprano’s therapist on “The Sopranos” and for her role in the film “Goodfellas.” At 60, she’s also a grandmother.