Review of Stop Your Cravings: A Balanced Approach to Burning Fat, Increasing Energy, and Reducing Stress (Hardcover)

It's the new year. Time for those annoying resolutions - the `fridge at work is jammed with co-workers' lunches who have decided to eat healthy, the fitness club is jammed with new people lifting weights and trotting on treadmills. And the bookstores are jammed with "new you" diet books, everybody claiming to have the ANSWER that we need. Don't make the mistake of lumping Jennifer Workman's book in with the others; it simply stands alone in its own special category. At its heart is Ayurveda, a 5000-year old Indian medical practice. You can't go wrong with something so timely. Combine that with a solid fitness and nutritional background, and you have someone who can help us make it in the modern world.
The book does focus on food but it's more than that - understanding why we grab certain foods, why some foods may not work well in some situations (cayenne aggravates someone like me in the dead heat of summer while a good friend thinks it's just fine), and why certain kinds of exercise don't get the weight off and why yoga does help a lot. The food is all do-able --- from the ginger, lemon, and honey-laced green tea (OK, I gave up coffee as the first thing to my lips in the morning) to kale sauteed with garlic and onions. What we don't want to give up is taste and Workman beautifully explains how to integrate the basic principles into daily eating. Nobody looks at my lunches and exclaims, "Oh yuck! WHAT are you eating now???" It's easy to move in and out of restaurants making interesting yet delicious choices based on my metabolism and genetic makeup without even thinking about it. Yes, chocolate is part of the plan! No guilt. Just good food.
The book takes on new meaning with all the stress inflicted upon us after September 11. How do we make everything stay in balance without stressing out and gaining a few tons? Jennifer's program isn't just about eating - it is about whole life, encompassing the mental, emotional and spiritual parts, too. Everything truly does work together. Lofty? Not really. It makes sense that at the end, she addresses the big picture and world hunger. How many diet books are concerned about that? Better hang onto this one.



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Review of You: On A Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management (Hardcover)

This book taught me that you aren't really eating "normally" on most diets.Your body confuses a diet with a time of famine and is trying to keep you alive.Your body doesn't know that you can afford to lose the weight, and that the "famine" is self-imposed.It explains the role that chronic low-grade stress (work, relationships, etc.) plays on weight gain.

The book explains how to eat well for your body so that you are satisfied, not hungry, and in a way that your body knows it is OK to shed pounds.Your goal is to remain satisfied or pleasantly full throughout the day.The other part of the book that resonated with me is that variety is what is killing us.The authors suggest that you automate your breakfast and lunch, eating the same thing or from a small group of things every day.This takes the guesswork out of things.Then you should eat a handful of nuts before dinner, so that you do not overeat.It also explains the effect that "bad foods" have on your hormones and brain chemistry vs. the effect that "good foods" have - other than just the extra calories that you are intaking.This was most interesting, and what sets it apart from other diet books or plans.

The difference between the You Diet and any other that I have tried is that there was no 2-3 day period of feeling terrible or having to adjust.Just a clean-out of highly processed foods from our kitchen and a trip to Trader Joes for some healthy foods and lots of label reading.Now I just feel better and better the longer I do it.It is amazing how tasty whole grain foods can be and how much more they fill you up than processed carbohydrates.My husband is even enjoying the foods I am making!



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Review of The Fiber35 Diet: Nature's Weight Loss Secret (Paperback)

I think Brenda Watson is correct in her assessment that eating a high fiber diet can help an individual lose weight. Doughnuts, chips, and candy which are all fiberless and nutritionless tend to pack the pounds on. Eating high fiber foods like whole grains, beans, and broccoli make you feel fuller, so you eat less. Many of us know the feeling of eating junk food and feeling bloated and then hungry pretty soon after.

Brenda goes into depth in her book as to how fiber can be beneficial. She also recommends some interesting ideas such as using a sauna to speed up the metabolism and burn more calories.

The disappointment with the book is that the actual diet and the plan for life relies not on real food but on the use of bars and shakes. I don't see anything wrong with drinking a shake or eating a bar, but I would prefer to eat real food and sadly, that is not in this plan.

I noticed after reading other reviews that Brenda sells bars and shakes, so it does seem like she may have an agenda with the meal plan she proposes. Brenda does offer some great information on fiber, if she had offered a plan with bars/shakes and another plan with "real" food, this could have been a great book. But since she didn't I personally feel there are better fiber plan books on the market.



Product Description

The New York Times bestselling diet guide that will help you safely lose weight, look your best, feel more energetic, and stay healthy for life!

If you are

- fed up with short-term fad diets that offer no lasting solution

- craving a healthy alternative to high-fat processed foods and refined sugars

- searching for a way to take control of your health and feel vibrant every day

the Fiber35 Diet is for you!
It's time to revolutionize the way you think about dieting! New York Times bestselling author Brenda Watson has an incredible secret that helped her transform her body and vastly improve the quality of her life -- the Fiber35 Diet. This incredible program will show you how to lose those unwanted pounds and maintain optimal health by taking advantage of the extraordinary power of fiber. Fiber is one of the most useful and beneficial ingredients on the planet. In addition to helping prevent many of the major diseases of our time -- including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer -- fiber helps to curb appetite, increase satisfaction, and actually flush calories out of the body. Brenda Watson will show you how to incorporate it into your diet easily, sharing how to turn this little-known secret to ideal weight and longevity into a lifetime eating system. Loaded with delicious recipes, meal plans, and even a comprehensive workout program, The Fiber35 Diet makes adopting a healthy lifestyle effortless.

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Review of Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating (Paperback)

Review Summary:You would have a hard time finding someone in a better position to write this book.Dr. Willett is chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and he heads some of the most important long-term studies of how nutrition affects health.In this up-to-date book, you will learn what the latest research shows about how eating, alcohol use, exercise and not smoking can help you avoid some diseases and birth defects.The book also explains how to read the latest health headlines and interpret the studies they are based on in the future.The lessons are summarized into a Healthy Eating Pyramid that you will find easy to understand, apply, and remember.The book contains a lot of helpful information about how to shop for more nutritious and healthful foods, and easy-to-follow recipes.I was particularly impressed with the summaries of the data on how weight and eating relate to various diseases.The book's only obvious flaw is that it does not attempt to refine the overall research into subsegment groups like those with different blood types, different genetic tendencies, age levels, and so forth.
Review:Like Sugar Busters! this book takes a serious look at overcoming the tendency for having too many fast-absorbed carbohydrates (whether as baked potatoes or as a soft drink) overload your blood with sugars and depress your metabolism.Unlike the "avoid fat at any cost" diets, this one says to avoid bad fats (especially trans fat and saturated fats) and to use helpful fats (like unsaturated fats that are liquid at room temperature).You are also encouraged to seek out nuts as a source of vegetable protein.There is also a good discussion of the healthiest ways to acquire your protein.The beef v. chicken v. fish discussion is especially helpful.He is skeptical about the need for much in the way of dairy products (I was shocked to realize how much glycemic loading, creating sugar in your blood, is caused by skim milk), but favors vitamin supplements as inexpensive insurance.He shows that calcium supplements may not do as much as you think to avoid fractures.Exercise and not smoking are encouraged.Raw foods and ones that are slow to digest (whole wheat, for example) are encouraged among the fruit and vegatables, in particular.
The pyramid is contrasted to the one that the USDA adopted in 1992, which seems to be almost totally wrong.Apparently, it was developed based on a very limited research base.Since then, much has been learned.
I enjoyed reading about all of the long-term studies being done now to understand the connections among eating, lifestyle, and health.The next 10 years should radically revise the lessons summarized here, as Dr. Willett is quick to point out.The conclusions in this book, for example, are based on individual studies of eating, drinking, exercise and health rather than the long-term studies that he supervises and follows.So even those studies may show new things.
In one part of the book, he discusses the pros and cons of some of the popular diets.Some simply have not been tested for health effects, and he is candid in sharing what is not known as well as what is.
This book will be especially valuable to those who like to get their information from highly credible sources, especially from within the medical community.I think I'll give a copy to my physician, who has been advising me to reduce fats in the wrong way!
Although I don't consider myself very helpful in shopping for or preparing food, I learned a lot from the book about how our family can acquire better building blocks for a healthier diet.After you finish reading this book, think about where else in your life you may be following outdated information.How can you check?A good example is probably related to what you think it costs parents for children to go to graduate school and get a Ph.D.In many schools, all the costs are subsidized, and the students even get a living wage.How does that change your plans for encouraging your children's education?




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