tonight on "nightline," living the dream. suze orman is known for no nonsense and now she's tweaked her advice to suit the times. four tips for making real ooisic dreams come true. diet debate. the popular hcg diet combines pregnancy hormones and pal try meals. and some swear by it. but can imnating pregnant women really peel off the pounds? we'll take a hard look. and, meat ball madness. an unorthodox take on an ir resistible classic. we're in the kitchen with a top chef for some top chow.

>> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, this is "nightline," march 8th, 2011. >> good evening, i'm terry moran. tonight, we're going to begin with personal finances. jobs are still scarce and tax day is on the horizon, so many americans are feeling added pressure to get their financial houses in order. and for the millions of people who buy her books and watch her on tv, that's where suze orman comes in. but lately,orman has reversed some of the key points of advice she used to give. tonight, she tells vicki mabrey why. >> look how tall you're are. you're a real man. >> reporter: deonte murphy and his mom wanted to thank suze orman for making their american dream come true. last time they met was seven

years ago. >> do you get an allowance? >> yes. >> how much do you get? >> $10. >> reporter: a chance encounter on his 10th birthday, where suze taught them both about saving. >> what if i told you, if you put it in the bank, the bank will pay you to put it there. >> reporter: his mother cut back on hair and beauty treatments and had money deticketed to start a 529 college fund for her son. >> it's my only child and i wanted him to actually attend college. because you need a degree. >> reporter: deonte is now 17, a senior in high school where he plays basketball. but they didn't want to depend on athletics to get him into college. following suze's advice, she saved money from her paralegal salary. now, she's put more than $30,000 away to send her son to college. >> i didn't think at the time that i could even save any

money. >> reporter: how much are you able to put away every month? >> $570. my son's education is prepaid for four years in advance. >> she set her goal on the fact that she wanted her child to go to college. she did not want to get in credit card debt. she wanted to do it the right way and nobody was going to stop her. so, she is living the american dream. >> reporter: living the new american dream, because according to suze, the old american dream has changed. and good riddance. >> it used to be more, bigger, best. and everybody in america started to define themselves by all these things they had around them. houses with no money down, another house with no money down. three cars, two motorcycles, a boat, clothes, jewelry, vacations -- and then all of a sudden, it all came tumbling down. so, the old american dream has

died and that is a good thing. >> reporter: a good thing? >> good thing. because those values of more, bigger, bigger, all this, were false. they weren't real. they were this illusion that everybody wanted to live up to and if you live up to an illusion, eventually the illusion evaporates. >> reporter: as she says in her latest group, "the money class," this new american dream is rooted in reality. >> you're not spending every penny. you're not impressing people. you are living a life where you can sleep at night and you're actually happy. that's the new american dream. >> reporter: in the new dream, suze has reversed some of her old advice. most surprisingly, about home ownership. >> i've always said to you, real estate would be the best investment you could ever make. well, guess what? didn't turn out that way. so, now, there's nothing wrong if you are a renter for the rest of your life. i did not say that back in 2005.

>> reporter: i can't believe what i'm hearing. >> yeah. and it is important that you hear these things. we live in a new america. we live in a new time. and i think you're going to see 60% of the united states will be renters. >> reporter: and for everyone with a job, she says plan on working a long time. >> i used to sit here and i said to you, take social security at 62. now, i'm telling you, don't you dare take social security at 62. you have got to wait until you're at least 67 or if you can, wait until you are 70. because you don't have the equity in your home that you once had, you don't have the amount of money in your retirement accounts that you once had. your money has got to last until you are at least 85 or 90 years of age. >> reporter: but the transformation of the american dream should be empowers, she says. so, from her money class, here are four essential tips you need to know. live below your means, but within your needs. >> if you were to live below your means, meaning, you can

afford a 3,000 square foot home, you really can, great. buy a 2,000 square foot home. you have a car that you've been driving for three years and you just want a new one. it's perfectly good, nothing's wrong with it. you have the money to pay for it. can you just drive your car another seven years? you know, what is this thing, you're getting new cars every -- i keep my cars for at least ten years. >> reporter: i do, too. >> there's nothing wrong with that. why waste money? so, just because you can afford it doesn't mean you should buy it. >> reporter: number two, the pleasure of saving equals the pleasure of spending. >> wouldn't it be great if that rush that you get when you go buy something that you don't even need or want, that you got as much rush out of putting $300 in your rort roth i.r.a.? and you were as excited about

having money in your bank account as you were clothes in your closet? >> reporter: number three, if you are just slightly underwater on your house, keep plugging away to pay off your mortgage faster. >> if that's a home you're saying in for the rest of your life, you love that home, everything is good, don't get tired up in, oh, i'm $20,000 under water. if that's the case, just keep doing it, pay your house off and you'll be okay. >> reporter: and number four, focus on what will be gained, not lost. >> you have to stop eating out. you have to stop going and getting massages. you have to stop getting your nails done. they're like, no, please, i need those things. but it's like, are you kidding me? focus on what you do have, focus on the pleasure that you'll be able to pay your bills, so it's not a loss, it's actually a gain. >> reporter: dion and deonte followed suze's advice, they

lives below their means but within their needs. >> did you get pleasure out of saving it? >> yes, it did. i would know later on i would have that, if i ever needed it. >> and that's like the american dream. to get pleasure out of saving as spending. >> reporter: this fall, deone will be the first toin his fami to attend college. and if this is the american dream, it doesn't look so bad, does it? this is vicki mabrey for "nightline" in new york. >> go for it. the new book "the money class" is nin stores now. coming up next, the hcg diet holds out the promise of weight loss, with little or no food craving, thanks to pregnancy moth hormones. but does this really work? opportunity can start anywhere. and go everywhere. to help revitalize a neighborhood in massachusetts,

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with terry moran. >> pregnancy is not typically associated with weight loss. many women struggle to shed the so-called baby weight after giving birth. but proponents of an increasingly popular diet known as hcg draw the completely opposite connection. pregnancy hormones, they say actually sue press the appetite and cause the body to get rid of fat. well, juju chang checked on those claims and here she is with our report. >> reporter: victoria found her weight loss remedy, well, in a bottle. >> when you put them under your tongue, you basically feel a little bit of a burning sensation. >> reporter: the hcg diet is one of what seems like billions of diet options on the vast weight

loss frontier. and celeb endorsements only add to the confusion over whether a diet works. and is safe. this controversial diet involves taking drops derived from a pregnancy hormone called hcg. victoria's tried the diet three times now and has been amazed with the results. she went from looking like this to this. she told us she lost a total of 45 pounds. >> after i did the second round, people stopped recognizing me. you either do it for 23 days or a maximum of 40 days. i can do anything for 23 days. and if i can lose 15 pounds, then why not? >> reporter: here's the quick fix the diet proposes. dramatic weight loss on 500 calories a day. a normal diet consists from 1,800 to 3,000 calories.

>> i was able to follow the diet, eat 500 calories and no be ru hungry. >> reporter: the hormone is available in costly injections. more than $1,000 for a month's supply in most cases. >> they created a homeopathic version that you put under your tongue. this is safe. i would not necessarily go for it if i had to have a hormone injected into my body. >> reporter: victoria is such a believer, she sell s it. >> if hcg were able to mobilize your own fat cell, your body could use them, so you could eat less and no be as hungry. >> reporter: the claim, in theory, is that the hormone suppresses the appetite and tricks the body sbo thinking its pregnant and causes it to maintain muscle mass and reduce unwanted fat. but the fda, which approving hcg as a fertility treatment, says claims that it aids weight loss

are just plain wrong. today, they told abc news, since the mid 1970s, the fda has required labeling of hcg to state numerous kleclinical tria have not shown a correlation to weight loss. ella has purchased the drops from victoria. >> i don't want to think about what i'm eating, i don't want to think about my weight. for me, it has to be fast. it does something in your body that you can't normally do on your own. it releast releases the fat cel. >> reporter: abc news reached out to dozens today. dr. david katz is one of the skeptics. >> i think the notion that hcg even could help burn body fat was farfetched to begin with and i'm not sure how anyone came up with it. but we see no evidence whatsoever in research of it that it me forms this function. >> you can lose weight but it's the type of weight loss that quickly comes back as soon as

you go off the plan. >> you inject yourself daily with hcg, which is a pregnancy hormone, and then you eat one meal a day that's 500 calories. so, if people are losing weight on this diet, clearly it's because they're only eating 500 calories a day. >> reporter: of course, that would explain any short-term dramatic weight loss. on 500 calories a day, it's like you're starving yourself. so, leading dietitians have dubbed it the starvation diet. >> this is a prime example of starvation diets. you're talking 500 to 800 calories a day. no one should be on such a low calorie diet without medical sup supervision. and there is a tsunami of information when it comes to diets, but guess what? with the hcg diet, it is misinformation. >> reporter: the doctors and nutritionists we spoke with warned that when something seems too good to be true, it probably is. >> this isn't just nonsense.

this is dangerous. go on the hcg diet, i think you're planning russian roulette with your health and maybe even your life. >> reporter: for "nightline," i'm juju chang in new york. >> pretty blunt talk there. the experts say it's nonsense. thanks to juju chang for that report. when we come back, we're in the kitchen with a top chef as he sets out to create a meatball worthy of a last meal. just because you're born of a deep-rooted family tree doesn't mean you're content to live under it. the new 2011 jeep compass. ♪ genetically engineered with jeep 4x4 capability iconic beauty, and a red-blooded attitude all its own. we followed in the tire tracks of greatness and found a whole new direction. the 2011 jeep compass. the evolution of a legendary bloodline. ♪

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featuring american cuisine, the other, temporary thai. he experiments with classic dishing -- take meatballs, for instance. here's tonight's plate list. >> confidence has never been the problem. it's kind of always been chefs like smacking me down a little bit because, man, you are a cocky son of a bitch. we're going to cut the mint. just nice and easy. little bit of 0 live oil. we go in with a little bit of water spin gnash. then we drop in the meat balls. ground duck, basil. little bit of siracha. we drop in the pasta. drop the mint in there, chive. i like the herbs. we top it off with some grated

cheese and then we finish it off with a raw quail egg. so, there you have it. back in suffolk county, it's the burbs. grew up in an italian-american family, and there was always a lot of cooking on sundays. that's my mom's side of the family. whole bunch of those crazy gals. going to pull through some peanuts. very, very lightly. we're going to take our water crest. this is a light tempura. and then you just take this mess and drop it into the fryer. when i was probably, i don't kno know, 8, whatever, it all starts off, your teacher asks you, what do you want to be when you grow

up? i told my teacher i wanted to be a fighter pilot. and her quick response is, you don't have 20/20 vision. pick something else. i spent the next 20 years goofing off. >> we have our deep fried salad, as i like to call it. chiefs, parsely. pickled red onions. ground peanuts. and then the vinaigrette. and then we go to the plate. the fried salad. grndma gets the v.i.p. treatment. she's the only person that's ever been served white zinfandel here. she didn't like any of our choices so, chef had to go around the corner and go get a magnum of white zinfandel, served on the rocks. that's how we do it in long island. >> harrold dieterle. thanks for that. an