I’ve been busy reading the latest diet and health books to review for you!
They’ve been piling up behind my chair long enough now. Over the past few months I’ve been taking a look at all the wonderful new and notable low-carb, nutrition and health books that have been floating around out there which include some outstanding resources along with a few not-so-great ones. That’s one of the things I try to provide as a service to you so you don’t waste your money on a book that sounded great but really wasn’t what you expected it to be. A good many of these authors I have booked for my podcast show, so be sure to listen in the coming months if you’d like to hear more about these specific books. ENJOY!
The Statin Damage Crisis
by Dr. Duane Graveline
If anyone knows about “statin damage” in the world today, it’s got to be former astronaut Dr. Duane Graveline. As a medical doctor himself, Dr. Graveline realized that something was gravely wrong with him when he went to see his NASA physicians for his annual checkup and they diagnosed him with having amnesia as well other other neurological problems. At the time he was taking the popular statin drug Lipitor for his “high cholesterol” and was none the wiser about what this prescription was doing to him until he began researching it more for himself.
What Dr. Graveline discovered about these popular statins like Lipitor and Crestor is that they do a lot more damage to people than the FDA are letting on to the public and he sincerely believes we are in a state of “crisis” from it as a result. I used to take both Lipitor and Crestor myself prior to losing 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004 and I experienced massive muscle and joint point that was so excruciating. Even now, five years later, I STILL have trouble with my finger joints getting sore when I play recreational sports like basketball or volleyball as a result of the damaging effects of taking these cholesterol-lowering medications.
This book explains exactly how statin drugs work, what they are physically doing to your body when you take them, why “high cholesterol” isn’t the great health disaster that these pharmaceutical companies and medical professionals want you to believe it is, how chronic inflammation from consuming too many carbohydrates is a much bigger health issue to deal with regarding heart health, the role recommended diets like low-fat have played in this national calamity, and proven ways to reduce inflammation without the use of these risky statin drugs. Dr. Graveline has lived it himself, so he knows exactly what he’s talking about. Reading his story of how he is struggling to this day because of what the statins did to him in both sad and eye-opening. He has committed his life to exposing this for all the world to see.
If you or someone you know is suffering from a statin-related illness which could include ALS, peripheral neuropathy, myopathy, chronic neuromuscular degeneration, Gulf War Syndrome, or aches in your joints and muscles while taking one of these drugs, then you owe it to yourself to read what Dr. Graveline has to share in this amazing book. He is trying to save millions more from suffering the same ill effects that he has while educating them that they probably don’t need to be taking that statin prescription to begin with if they want to protect themselves against heart disease. Highly-recommended for anyone concerned about living healthy and staying healthy.
The Drinking Man’s Diet Cookbook
by Robert Cameron
At first blush, you’d think a diet book for a “drinking man” has to be some kind of joke. Nobody can seriously think they’ll lose weight drinking alcoholic beverages in their menus, right? Well, don’t tell that to award-winning photographer Robert Cameron who has enjoyed having a drink or two throughout his lifetime. Back in 1964, long before anyone ever heard of Dr. Robert C. Atkins, he wrote a book about consuming a carbohydrate-restricted diet for weight loss and health entitled THE DRINKING MAN’S DIET which went on to sell over 2 million copies.
Because of the success of that book and the desire by people to have recipes to follow on the plan, Cameron followed up in 1967 with THE DRINKING MAN’S DIET COOKBOOK. Forty years later, the book is still around and has been updated with all the contents of the original book for you to benefit from. Cameron focuses on the quality of the calories you receive from high-satiety foods while mixing it with a low-carb nutritional approach of about 60g daily.
After a fateful meeting with a nutrition expert at UC-Berkeley during his Air Force years, Cameron realized that carbs lead to stored fat and that cutting back on your intake of them will reduce the amount of fat in the body. He was taught that green leafy vegetables provide an excellent source of carbohydrate, although he was also told being in a state of ketosis is “unpleasant.” Hmmm, I don’t know what’s so bad about it, but this non-ketogenic low-carb diet seems to work for Cameron because he’s still on it to this very day in the twilight of his life.
The book is written specifically for people who enjoy having a good time going to parties, drinking a glass of wine or two with friends, and anyone who is hosting guests in their home or at an event. Frequent tips about how to cut down on the carbohydrates in your personal diet and in the food you prepare are included along with so many delicious low-carb recipes that include appetizers, seafood, meat dishes, gourmet sauces, dairy delights, the right kind of veggies, salads, soups, “your best friend” bread (since he allows for 60g carbs daily), and even desserts! Most of these are fine, although I’m not convinced his recommendations on the carb counts jive with what the most recent research is saying about this macronutrient and health.
So what about the “drinking” part? Oh yeah, there’s plenty of that with recommended wines and other alcoholic beverages to eat with each dish. Allowing for more carbohydrates gives you the flexibility to add this into your diet if you so choose. I’m not a drinker, so this wouldn’t appeal to me at all. But perhaps someone who feels they can’t give up alcohol in their life completely could benefit from Cameron’s plan.
Interestingly, Cameron notes that the largest HMO in the United States tells its members to cut down on the carbohydrates like white bread, pasta, white rice, potatoes, and sugar because those foods are packed with calories and not nutrient-dense. He describes sugary sodas as “liquid corn” alluding to the high-fructose corn syrup they put in soft drinks these days. And his overall message is to lower the amount of food you are eating to get slim and healthy and stay that way. I like his no-nonsense approach to this idea of being on a diet like his. Here’s what Cameron says:
“It’s your choice. But little by little it will become an obvious choice.”
At the end of the day, that’s really what managing your weight and health is all about — making the “obvious choice” to live a permanent and healthy lifestyle change forever and ever. You certainly can’t argue with the results Robert Cameron has seen over the years.
Fat to Skinny Fast and Easy!
by Doug Varrieur
How can you NOT love an outstanding weight loss success story like Doug Varrieur? As a former 260-pounder who was tired of living his life as a fat guy, he took action to change his life forever and shed an incredible 100 pounds off of his body by implementing some key strategies into his routine. And for those of us who are livin’ la vida low-carb and lovin’ it, this story will bring a great big smile to your face.
Half-autobiographical/half-children’s book-style, Varrieur definitely wanted to capture your attention while hopefully imparting to you everything he has learned about weight control and health over the past few years with the book. It’s quite entertaining with all the cute illustrations that hammer home the various points and the strategic use of an all-caps “FAT” anytime that word is used in the book. You can tell Varrieur has quite a creative mind for communicating his message and he does so very well throughout.
Varrieur says foods like corn, sugar, vegetables, grains, and other carbohydrate-filled foods are doing nothing more than than leading to stored body FAT. Again, he uses all-caps when sharing about SUGAR because he wants people to realize eating foods that contain it or turn to it in the body will make them FAT. On page 22 alone he capitalizes SUGAR sixteen times. I guess you could say he believes it’s a point worth repeating (and I tee-totally agree with him!).
The concept of measuring food in terms of “teaspoons of sugar” is not a new one, but it is not talked about nearly enough. Varrieur does so brilliantly yet again by looking at the SUGAR contained in French fries, soda, the bun, and a pie from a fast food restaurant. The way the numbers add up so quickly are shocking…and it’s a message people need to hear loud and clear. Obviously, if people can cut down on these “teaspoons of sugar” in their diet, then they’ll be a lot better off in their efforts to losing weight “fast and easy.”
Half of the book is filled with recipes that Varrieur himself uses on his low-carb plan as well as some key low-carb foods and substitutions in his diet that have helped him keep his “skinny” body. Eating low-carb has obviously worked for him not just for weight loss but radically improved health markers too. His triglycerides plummeted from 400 down to 70, but I was somewhat concerned to see Varrieur concerned about his cholesterol levels so much that he feels the need to take a statin drug like Lipitor to lower them.
A high-fat, low-carb nutritional approach has been shown to lower triglyceride levels well below 100, raise HDL “good” cholesterol above 50, and make your LDL cholesterol the large, fluffy, and protective kind that you don’t need to be concerned with. Sadly, Varrieur has bought into the notion shared to him by his doctor that he needs to take these risky prescription drugs with his low-carb diet to make his heart arteries “healthy.” Additionally, he cuts down on healthy saturated fats, meat and egg consumption, and opts for low-fat cheeses, fish and soy for protein instead.
It is such a shame that Doug Varrieur and so many others like him have it right about the carbohydrates being at the root cause of obesity and health that far too many people are dealing with these days, but then are still caught up in conventional wisdom regarding the unproven and disastrous cholesterol-heart hypothesis that Ancel Keys unleashed on America so many decades ago. While I’m happy for his 100-pound weight loss success, I hope Varrieur will continue to do his own personal research on what will keep his heart and health strong for many years to come.
The Best Kept Secret to Permanent Weight Loss
by Dr. Barnet and Jordan Meltzer
Being a physician for four decades doesn’t necessarily mean you know very much about what it takes to produce “permanent weight loss.” But Dr. Barnet Meltzer realized in recent years that his medical practice should be more about preventing disease from happening in the first place through deliberate strategies that target keeping weight under control while arming your body with the best nutrients to make you happy and healthy for a very long time. That’s what this book encompasses.
Dr. Meltzer realizes that in order to change your weight and health you absolutely MUST make certain changes in your lifestyle, including adding exercise, making smart choices about the foods you consume, keeping insulin levels stabilized, allowing your liver to function at optimal levels, removing unnecessary stress from your life, and supplementing with the proper vitamins daily. These are all a part of his “LYF-Style” factors that go into improving your metabolism. Detoxifying your body and setting it up for success first will get you going on the right track.
He shares about what he thinks are the proper ways to eat to be healthy which unfortunately focus too heavily on the low-fat options to resolve what is referred to as “appetitus,” but I have to give Dr. Meltzer some credence for making people become more aware of what and why they are feeding themselves the way that they do. His holistic approach to dealing with these mental and psychological reasons why people eat like they do is certainly something that makes him stand apart from the other so-called health “experts” out there. Bringing about these necessary behavior modifications are a necessary starting point for anyone regardless of what nutritional plan you choose to get there.
The book is very science-minded with a flair for explaining some oftentimes difficult concepts into layman’s language so you’re not left asking yourself “What’s he talking about?” after reading it. And Dr. Meltzer doesn’t talk down to you either — he acknowledges the hurt and pain you have gone through becoming overweight or obese and offers up real-life solutions for making that happen. Plus, he accurately identifies the addiction to food (especially sugary, high-carb ones!) and the constant overall obsession with food that far too many Americans are allowing to encompass their lives. Best of all, he offers strategies for breaking this ruthless cycle once and for all.
After you implement his metabolic changes and physical disciplines into your life, Dr. Meltzer then shows you how to revolutionize the way you think so you will create permanency in the new lifestyle you are now living. This “dynamic willpower” as he describes it is the key to keeping weight off forever. I’m not a big fan at all of the concept of willpower when it comes to weight loss, but instead having a steadfast resolve to make better choices for the sake of your health. But Dr. Meltzer makes a compelling argument for thinking much more positively in the direction of a can-do attitude regarding implementing these disciplines and applying active self-control certainly isn’t a bad way to get there.
All in all, this 450-page book is loaded with some useful information for anyone deciding the time is right to grab hold of this weight problem and get it under control once and for all. Dr. Barnet Meltzer and his son Jordan are applying the concepts that have worked with the people they’ve come into contact with and they work by “outsmarting” the typical ebb and flow that happens when you usually go on a diet. Proven-science or psycho-babble? YOU DECIDE!
Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change
by Pat Murphy
I generally only review diet and health-related books because that’s what I’m focused on in my writings. So what’s up with a book about conservation, renewable sources of energy, and being environmentally aware? Plenty! While it wouldn’t seem like the kind of book that is pertinent to nutrition and wellness, Plan C is actually ALL about finding ways to deal with the pending global food crisis that is upon us.
You may have noticed in recent years some of the things happening with the world food market, including major price increases on certain key staples, scarcity of food that has always been in abundance, an exponential rise in the world population, droughts, deforestation, global warming, and skyrocketing oil prices. There have been food riots breaking out as a result of this unrest and while things have calmed down somewhat because of the drop in oil prices over the past year, the United Nations is concerned there will be even more outrage as record-high prices are expected to return in the next decade.
This book outlines many of the issues impacting the sustainable food supply and offers solutions about what can be done regarding the problems that are on the horizon. There is grave concern that the food crisis will become inevitable by the year 2015 when global oil production will hit its peak. Why is this important for the food supply? Because most of the food is grown using these fossil fuels for energy. That’s why Pat Murphy decided to write out his own “plan” for dealing with this BEFORE it happens.
I love this quote from Murphy in the book when he says “The understanding of good food and nutrition is also disappearing” and he’s exactly right! People tend to take for granted that food will always be there, but food security is a very real concern that people need to take more seriously now while there’s still time to do something about it. Preemptive measures if implemented deliberately and strategically to counteract this can be effective with a shift in our food culture. This includes eschewing those foods that are heavily subsidized by the U.S. government like corn and wheat and instead purchasing locally-grown fruits and vegetables and grass-fed beef at your neighborhood farmer’s market, for example.
Murphy shares some key statistics in his book regarding how much energy is burned creating the food we eating, including the fact that it takes 10 calories of fossil fuels for every 1 calorie of food consumed by Americans, less than four percent of agricultural land in the United States is used to harvest fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes, and the price of fruits and veggies has sharply risen while HFCS-sweetened soda has dropped by nearly 25 percent. There’s a little bit of vegetarian bias in the book as Murphy laments that it takes 25 calories of fossil fuel energy to create one calorie of “factory-raised beef protein” and that livestock produce 18 percent of the greenhouse gasses worldwide. But he does encourage buying local from farmers who aren’t implementing these energy-wasting techniques and believes this is the wave of the future that needs to happen much sooner than later.
An intriguing aspect of this book that I think might be worth pursuing is the concept of “kicking the media habit.” Murphy says there’s a bit too much pro-corporation positive spin happening on television and in newspapers for people to be indoctrinated with the wrong messages. He encourages readers to give up some of our technological advances and get back to enjoying the life where we live by volunteering to give up a day, a week, or even a full month of Internet, television, radio, reading books, watching movies, etc. to see how you react to it. Instead, go out to hear local bands, spend long conversations with friends and family members, and get back to living life the way it used to be. I don’t know if I’m ready to take that plunge just yet, but it certainly sounds enticing.
All in all, Plan C seems to be grounded in a reality that far too many Americans are utterly clueless about. For their sake, I hope they learn about it long before it’s too late.
Sinner to Thinner: A Devilishly Dynamic Guide To A Heavenly Body
by Dr. Thomas Bynes
If author Dr. Thomas Bynes wasn’t a chiropractor, then it’s a sure bet he’d be a stand-up comedian or teacher because this is a thoroughly entertaining book to read about the subject of nutrition and health. As the brother of young Hollywood starlet Amanda Bynes (who wrote the foreword), Dr. Bynes has instead forged a career path that puts him face-to-face with people who need to do something about their weight and health before it’s too late. And he does it with solid, science-based techniques that he creatively explains within the pages of this book.
Humorous illustrations accompany some very serious education about the ways you can shed the pounds. Dr. Bynes intersperses his “Thinteresting Trivia” at the beginning of each chapter to let you test your knowledge of diet-related topics with regular “STOP: DANGER AHEAD” notations outlined in shaded boxes so you’ll pay especially close attention to what is being communicated there. Generally, it’s a startling statistic or fact to back up the claims being made in that particular section to continue impressing the message into your head even more.
Personal stories of Dr. Bynes’ patients and their miraculous turnaround will inspire you as you seek to implement this program into your own life. The “Thintastic Tips” located at the end of each chapter also give you a quick wrap-up of the take-home message you should not forget once you are finished reading the book. They are nice reminders to go back and re-read again and again when you need to reinforce and remember what was shared. You’ll quickly realize this is arguably one of the most practical books on dieting you’ll ever read with concrete example of exactly what you should and should not do. If you need structure, then this is the book for you.
So what is the overall message Dr. Bynes is attempting to communicate about losing weight? Take in smaller portions, eat regularly, journal your food intake, work the plan with all the gusto you can muster, stick with it, chill out about the day-to-day fluctuations, surround yourself with a support team, drink lots of water, choose better snack and dessert choices, healthy fiber consumption, consuming low-glycemic index foods, avoid trans fats, taking healthy supplements, eliminating toxins from your body, getting in regular exercise and more. Unfortunately, though, he also embraces some mistaken conventional wisdom health concepts such as the “healthy” whole grain foods sham, the alleged dangers that come from consuming saturated fat (described as “one of the leading contributors to heart disease”) despite modern research to the contrary, cutting your salt intake is somehow doing your body some good, and neglecting the negative impact that sugar-based foods play on insulin levels which wreak havoc on weight and health.
All in all, the book is a mixed bag with both some good and not-so-good information, but overall I think what Dr. Thomas Bynes has written is worthy of closer examination for people who currently show no interest in getting their weight and health back under control. At the end of the day, that’s who needs to be reached with the message regardless of the path they take to get there.
101 Things to Do Before You Diet: Because Looking Great Isn’t Just About Losing Weight
by Mimi Spencer
One of the greatest fascinations people seem to enjoy doing these days is dieting. It’s almost as if it’s some kind of sport of sorts for those who hop from diet to diet without preparing themselves properly ahead of time for what is to come. And the predictable weight loss failure of such a strategy only feeds into the continued pursuit of the next big miracle way to shed the pounds. Author Mimi Spencer thinks enough is enough, though.
As a fashion and beauty journalist from the UK, Spencer has stumbled across a lot of effective tips and strategies for looking great, feeling fabulous, and getting slim without getting bogged down by the whole diet industry. This book she has written is the ANTI-diet of sorts, but it’s so much more than that. She digs deeper into the psychological and emotional reasons why women especially feel such an innate call from within to hearken back to days gone by when we didn’t quite feel as “fat” as we are now.
The theme of the book is to start learning to enjoy your life more and stop getting bogged down in the day-to-day minutia of living it. This is vital for people who think they have to measure and count every little morsel of food that goes into their mouths, time precisely how much exercise you need to get in a day, and allow your diet to control you rather than the other way around. That’s not at all how life was meant to be lived and so Spencer gives you 101 specific things you can do right away to get your diet off on the right foot.
I love some of the positive reinforcing messages Spencer shares like “Love the skin you’re in,” “Laugh at celebrity magazines,” “Put on your best underwear,” “Buy more food that has no label,” “Read food labels…use your common sense,” and my personal favorite, “Tape a picture of bad Britney (Spears) to your fridge…you will put down that slice of pie.” Witty tips mixed in with experience from pop culture, you get uplifted in this effort toward living a healthier lifestyle.
At the same time, though, there are some issues I have with some of her 101 things that don’t exactly jive with what I have learned about health and nutrition. The very first one is “Don’t read diet books” but I think there’s plenty to learn when you absorb all the latest information. I can certainly appreciate that people shouldn’t encompass their lives into new diet books, but there is some benefit to reading them.
On her actual diet advice she provides, Spencer says to eat a decent breakfast of oatmeal followed by a “protein-rich lunch” and a “smallish supper.” Not shabby and she does give some credence to carbohydrate-restriction but noted “with all due respect to dear departed Dr. Atkins, there is a time and a place for carbohydrates.” Oh yeah, when’s that? Eat some, but not too much she says. How much is that supposed to be? Spencer doesn’t say and it’s left to the imagination of the reader.
And she’s no fan of salads that contain cheese, eggs, bacon, meat, and dressing which she describes as “salard” instead thinking this kind of meal will make you fat. Again, the tendency to create a negative image of consuming high-fat, low-carb foods like this kinda goes against the ANTI-diet philosophy she stated at the beginning of the book. I do appreciate the fact that she acknowledges how the term “salad” tends to give people a free pass to consume unhealthy ingredients like a “pasta salad,” for example. As she puts it, “A meal containing broccoli will not make you thin.” Brilliant! There is no health halo just because there happens to be one or two good things about a meal (like my brother Kevin always jokingly said when we were growing up that chocolate cake was good for you because it had eggs and milk in it).
Some interesting guidance Spencer provides in this book can be useful if you’re willing to implement them into your life. Things like stop watching The Food Network, imagine finding a bandage or fingernail in that unhealthy food you think you can’t live without (EWWWW!), give up driving your car by carpooling or walking, stop hanging out with your fat friends and family, and squeeze liquid soap on your kids’ leftover food. Odd? Perhaps, but Spencer is convinced these things work because she’s tried most of them herself. There is an equal amount of ink dedicated to looking good on the outside while doing all you can to get healthy on the inside.
101 Things to Do Before You Diet is a neat book to browse through for anyone interested in how to look and feel amazing. Ironically, if you took the advice that this book gives you, then you’d probably never read it since this is yet another diet book. Oh well, Spencer hopes you’ll suspend that one just for her book!
The Hidden Story of Cancer: Find Out Why Cancer Has Medical Science on the Run and How a Simple Plan Based on New Science Can Prevent it
by Brian Scott Peskin
This has got to be one of the heaviest books I’ve ever reviewed, but the nearly 600 pages are chock full of some of the most surprising, eye-opening information you will ever find out there on the subject of cancer. Nobody ever enjoys hearing a diagnosis of the “c” word from their doctor because it’s almost always a certain death sentence to people who get it. But Professor Brian Scott Peskin says he has found there is a “simple plan” based on the research begun way back when by Nobel-prize-winning Dr. Otto Warburg in Germany that addresses the primary cause of cancer head-on without the need for dangerous chemotherapy radiation treatments.
Peskin is no fan of the current dietary recommendations for cancer prevention such as a low-fat diet consisting of fruits, veggies, and soy-based foods when your body NEEDS and thrives on delicious and healthy high-fat, sufficient-protein, low-carb energy from meats, eggs, cheese, and raw milk. Sample menus for people who are in remission, have been recently diagnosed, or are going through radiation treatments for cancer are provided in the book for people to follow. The work of Dr. Warburg is heavily cited throughout the book and even quoted directly from his papers on the subject of cancer. To his credit, Peskin has worked hard to establish himself as the most knowledgeable expert on this cutting-edge cancer-fighting strategy today. You can tell from his writings that he is passionate about this subject and is seeking to help give people hope about fighting cancer naturally.
Billions of dollars have been poured into finding a cure for cancer and yet information like what is shared in this book is not being made readily available to the public so they can make informed decisions about how to both treat and prevent cancer from becoming a reality in their lives. Peskin puts the focus on the excessive oxidative stress being placed on the body by consuming too much omega-3 rich fish oil while neglecting the proper balance of the right omega-6 fatty acids. This runs counter to much of what has been communicated about the essential fatty acid balance equation. Consuming more parent EFAs (instead of derivative EFAs) in the form of linoleic acid or alpha-linolenic acid is critical to keep cancer at bay.
Peskin outlines his key principles to beating cancer: Get more oxygenating EFAs in your body, consume a low-carb, high-protein and fat diet, and get the proper vitamins and minerals that are lacking in the foods you eat. The details in this book will blow you away, but Peskin does his homework and gives all the references (mostly from Dr. Warburg) that back up his claims. One of the most shocking points made in the book is the cholesterol-lowering statin drug connection to cancer. We all know how these are being marketed to prevent heart disease, but can you believe they may actually be contributing to high cancer rates? Peskin shares all the dirty details in his book.
There’s even a Q&A appendix where some of the most frequently asked questions are answered about why this book was written and how to use it effectively in helping you or someone you love who has cancer or is concerned about getting cancer. There is no more thorough resource on the subject anywhere and I cannot recommend it highly enough for anyone and everyone who is looking for a dietary way to battle cancer themselves. With more widespread distribution, this book could potentially have a far-reaching impact on the lives of cancer sufferers for many years to come.
Mavericks of Medicine: Conversations on the Frontiers of Medical Research
by David Jay Brown
There are basically two kinds of people in this world: those who go with the flow, follow the crowd, and living their lives completely content with the status quo no matter what; and those who are constantly bucking the trend, charting new territory, and remaining on the cutting-edge at all times. The member of that latter group are sometimes referred to as “mavericks” and rightfully so. In the realm of medicine, there are quite a few of these rebels out there making their mark in their various fields and noted interviewer David Jay Brown spoke with quite a few of them for this book.
This was the book where I first heard about heavy metal toxicity and how chelation therapy can help remove these from your body thanks to the great work Dr. Garry Gordon is doing. I’d never even heard of him before this book and most of the “mavericks” included are virtual unknowns outside of the medical and health community. Aside from Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Barry Sears, and Dr. Jack Kevorkian, none of these professionals were familiar enough for me to realize they’re making their mark within their various fields. But all that changed after reading this book!
Brown says history has shown us how some of the biggest advancements in medicine have taken place when at first they seemed crazy by conventional standards until finally the brave men and women on the frontlines of change were later vindicated by those who came after. I’m sure if the late, great Dr. Robert C. Atkins were still with us that he would have most definitely been one of those Brown would have included in his book. Low-carb diets may be laughed at, mocked, and scorned by much of the health industry today, there is a day coming when it will be so normal that citizens of the future will wonder why we ever ate any other way.
Because science and medicine tend to be very conservative, nothing much usually changes since new ideas are routinely dismissed as quackery since we already know what works. That’s the basis for a book like this one which highlights some of the latest breakthroughs that you may not have heard about yet — but you will! While conventional wisdom may say much of the information you’ll read is hogwash, Brown if fully convinced you shouldn’t necessarily throw the baby out with the bath water. He readily acknowledges that not all “mavericks” are necessarily right, but their forward-thinking ideas begin a fruitful conversation and debate about improvements that can happen if they are simply tried.
Regardless of which side of the socialized medicine discussion in America you are on, there are opinions expressed both for and against. Additionally, you get a sense of the lack of trust in the way things are run in medicine these days, including how federal government agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who are working in conjunction with pharmaceutical and food industries rather than on behalf of the American people. One of the interviews is with a man who sued the FDA for unconstitutionally withholding health information from the public — and won! The truth is getting out there thanks to these brave leaders in medicine.
Perhaps the most controversial interview Brown conducted was with Dr. Kevorkian who gained a reputation in the 1990’s as “Dr. Death” for his physician-assisted suicide of patients who wanted to end their pain. Not surprisingly, Dr. Kevorkian believes that euthanasia is the proper role of a doctor and yet he’s currently serving a prison sentence for murder of an ALS patient. Brown cites a study that shows eight out of ten people support a patient’s right to die and yet it’s illegal. Dr. Kevorkian believes it is due to the financial interests involved.
With experts in nutrition, natural medicine, chronic fatigue syndrome, anti-aging, immortality, the mind-body connection, the spiritual component to health, and so much more, Mavericks of Medicine is an outstanding resource for anyone wanting to open their minds to much more than the same old, same old you’ve been reading about in newspapers and seeing on the television news every night. This is the wave of the future and Brown has captured a quick snapshot of what is happening behind-the-scenes that will become front-page medical news in the years and decades to come.
S.P.E.E.D.: The Only Weight Loss Book Worth Reading!
by Jeff Thiboutot and Matt Schoeneberger
Get your motor running, head out on the highway, looking for adventure, and whatever comes my way! I feel the need, the need for S.P.E.E.D.! It’s not everyday you have the opportunity to get wild and enthusiastic about something like weight loss, but this book from nutrition and fitness experts Jeff Thiboutot and Matt Schoeneberger does just that. Unlike so many other diet books that are out there, this one takes into account a myriad of reasons why weight can go up and down including the biological, psychological and social issues involved. It’s a short book by design and these guys have really done their homework.
With key references from science backing up each chapter of the book, Thiboutot and Schoeneberger methodically go through what they believe are the most essential elements of attaining the weight loss goals you desire. Obvious areas like exercise and diet come into play along with adequate sleep, an environment conducive for producing weight loss, and all the mental aspects of this process that are too often ignored. And for those people who like to have things broken down for them, there’s a convenient “Do this…” section at the beginning of each chapter that outlines exactly what you need to do to implement this strategy into your life in just a few short bullet points.
My primary area of interest is on diet since I was able to shed 180 pounds in 2004 on a nutritional approach that is outside the mainstream of conventional thought, but yet it was incredibly effective for producing weight loss and outstanding health for me. Not surprisingly, I flipped over to Chapter 6 to see what the authors had to say about this and was thrilled by what I saw. They recommend eating real food that is low-carb, moderate-protein, and high-fat about 2-4 times daily or even every other day with an intermittent fasting strategy to get the weight down. The authors are fully convinced of the science behind low-carb diets and of their long-term safety based on the evidence they have seen in research studies as well as their own clients. I especially enjoyed them taking on the “high-protein” and ketosis concerns that are bantered about by the so-called health “experts” and in media reports about low-carb.
For all you lovers of conventional wisdom, be sure to check out the “Common Weight Loss Myths” chapter where Thiboutot and Schoeneberger take on some of the most embraced concepts about shedding that pounds…that are DEAD WRONG! Topics like a slow metabolism, eating lots of small meals throughout the day, eating late makes you gain weight, doing lots of cardio to lose weight, and so much more. There’s a lot of junk information floating around out there in the minds of people because they’ve been fed this garbage for many years. This book hopes to debunk much of that misinformation.
Although this book is called S.P.E.E.D., don’t think that the authors are promoting a super-duper fast weight loss plan that will shed something crazy like 30 pounds in 30 days off of your body. However, unlike the common notion that weight loss must be slow, they realize that’s not true either. Shedding 3-6 pounds a week is entirely possible on a plan like this and I saw that in my own experience when I weighed over 400 pounds. The weight will come off quickly and then slow down appropriately as your body weight drops. And that’s a beautiful thing! Don’t believe the hype of shows like “The Biggest Loser” which make you think you need to lose double-digits every single week. It’s not realistic to expect that to happen.
A full checklist of things to do is provided for you in this book, including a week’s worth of sample menus, tips, reminders, and workouts. I truly believe if you read this short and concise book (it’ll only take you a couple of hours) and implement the strategies Thiboutot and Schoeneberger share, then you will be well on your way to becoming the healthy and fit person you have always dreamed of being. Their intense focus on evidence-based solutions and not just scientific propaganda is one of the most refreshing things I’ve seen in a long time.
Eat This, Not That! Thousands of Simple Food Swaps that Can Save You 10, 20, 30 Pounds–or More!
by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding
This little book is all the rage in the diet world and for good reason. It visually shows you what you should be eating and juxtaposes it with what you shouldn’t be putting your mouth. These convenient little “food swaps” that only slightly alter what you really want to eat actually end up saving you on extra calories and carbs that are completely unnecessary for your body. At least that’s what the authors from Men’s Health magazine David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding hope to impart on readers.
Taking dead aim at the food served fast food and sit-down restaurants as well as the most frequently-consumed junk food on grocery store shelves today, this book is attempting to change the mindset about how Americans look at the food they eat. The authors hope to expose the hidden secrets of these restaurants attempting to pass off their calorically-dense foods as something that they are not, especially those fish meals, sandwich dishes, salads, and more. Eat This, Not That! is chock full of better choices to make when you are eating out and many of them might just surprise you.
Although I give credit to Zinczenko and Goulding for acknowledging that a burger without the bun is a better option, healthy low-carb veggies like broccoli over the potato is a good thing, and restaurants that include too many carbs in their meals unnecessarily spikes insulin levels. But flipping through this book, I can’t believe some of the food they’re having people consume on the “Eat This” side of the page. Cake Batter Ice Cream? Whole Wheat Glazed Doughnut? Peach Smoothie? Two-Scoop Hot Fudge Sundae? Jalapeno Pretzel? Sheeez! Are you TRYING to make me fat and unhealthy? How about the option when you’re in a restaurant that serves food you shouldn’t eat of saying “Eat NEITHER?” Seems like a good choice to me if you truly care about your weight and health.
While the book may be pointing out slightly better choices for people to be consuming, it seems much of the information is based on the high-carb, low-fat diet dogma that has unfortunately dominated our food culture for far too long in the United States. Yes, whole grains are better than refined ones, but does that make them good for you? And what about all the sugar that’s in those sweet treats they’re promoting people to eat as a “healthy” alternative? Are we really sending the right messages to people by marketing a book that still advocates eating junk?
Eat This, Not That! is certainly a nice concept for a book series which has done phenomenally well on the bestseller charts. My only hope is that people realize there are even better choices that both taste great and will help them achieve the weight and health goals they desire. Sad to say, they’re not gonna get it in this book!
Eat This Not That! for Kids!: Be the Leanest, Fittest Family on the Block!
by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding
On the heels of the success of the bestselling Eat This, Not That! book comes this new one tailored specifically for kids. If my disappointment in the adult version of this book was any indication of what I’d expect from this new book, then I was not looking forward to flipping through the pages of this one either. And authors David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding yet again show us that they just don’t get it.
While they acknowledge that kids are eating too much sugar, too many calories from fast food, too much trans fat, too many sugary sodas, and all sorts of unpronounceable food ingredients these days in virtually everything they stuff in their mouths, we’re still stuck with mixed messages about what is healthy for kids to consume when eating out. Yes, the No-Sugar-Added Chocolate Chocolate Chip Ice Cream cone from Baskin Robbins is better for your child than the Peanut Butter ‘n Chocolate Ice Cream cone, but why push the Chicken Nuggets from Chick-Fil-A over the Chicken Ceasar Cool Wrap? The Half Rack of Ribs over the loaded potato skins at T.G.I. Friday’s is an excellent choice, but the Kid’s Spaghetti & Tomato Sauce is better than Macaroni & Cheese at The Olive Garden? Come on! Is this REALLY the best you guys can come up with?
Plus, what’s up with showing only the calories, fat, saturated fat, and sodium on some of these Eat This, Not That! listings and then conveniently showing the carb totals on others? Are the authors trying to conceal the carbs when it makes them look bad for their “healthy” choices and sharing them openly when it makes their point? Either the carbohydrates are good or not guys. You can’t have it both ways.
One other key point the authors do not share with readers is the fact that most restaurants are more than happy to accommodate special requests and substitutions if you want to make their meals healthier. My wife and I regularly request non-starchy veggies or tomato slices instead of the bread or potato and a side salad is always an excellent alternative to just about anything on your plate that doesn’t line up with your health goals. Too many people forget that the restaurant is there to serve them and their wants and desires and that they don’t have to feel obligated to eat what is brought to them.
I suppose the most redeeming aspect of this book is the “Menu Decoder” towards the back which takes you through a generic menu at a variety of restaurants, including Chinese, Italian, BBQ, Indian, and more. Key points are circled and then explained why they are either a good or poor choice for kids to eat. Again, consider the source of the information and make appropriate corrections to the information accordingly. Zinczenko and Goulding do seem to gravitate parents towards the healthy veggies and protein sources for the most part which is odd considering the rest of their book does just the opposite.
Eat This Not That! For Kids! is another one of those books that give you both the good and the bad. Sad to say, but they still just don’t get it, though. They’re still advocating way too much junk for children which will do nothing to help solve the childhood obesity epidemic.
Holy Cows And Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer’s Guide To Farm Friendly Food
by Joel Salatin
We need more people like noted author and farmer Joel Salatin in the world. With the industrialization of the food supply in America, we’ve lost so much of what makes great food and started a vicious downward spiral that seems virtually impossible to overcome down. But this book arms you with ways to help your family get back to eating and living the way we were meant to.
Sadly, most people think that food comes from grocery stores. But real fresh food actually is grown locally by your neighborhood farmers who take a vested interest in providing the most nutritionally-superior food possible at competitive prices. You don’t have to settle for inferior grain-fed meats, unnecessarily processed milk, stressed-out chicken eggs, and lifeless vegetables anymore when you team up with your local farmers in your area to get the best possible food that money can buy.
Salatin believes the public should be properly educated about their food choices and that the mystique of partnering with local providers shouldn’t be a barrier to making that happen. He’s no fan of big farm companies that are only in business to make as big a profit as possible under the auspices of growing food. But real sustainable food sources will not come from these unscrupulous practices heading into the future which is why the few non-industrialized farmers like Salatin are doing what they are doing to share the quality of their practices with others. They are making a real difference in the lives of the people they are servicing.
For those who are unaware of what real food is all about, this book will change everything you ever thought about food on its head and help you realize why Hershey’s Kisses, granola bars, and cereal aren’t real food. Joel Salatin and people like him deserve to be honored for the great work they are doing and I am proud of the message shares through this book. It’s important work that deserves a very large platform.
Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front
by Joel Salatin
Down is up, east is west, and everything that is right seems to be wrong these days. What in the world is going on when the government becomes so entangled with the food supply that they end up paying industrialized farms not to grow certain crops while honest and hard-working local farmers like Joel Salatin are left playing the bureaucratic games thrown at them left and right? That’s exactly what you get to read all about in this book.
As the owner of the large non-industrialized Polyface family farm in Virginia, Salatin knows a thing or two about working within the bounds of the law to help his local customers get the delicious and nutritious food they deserve to eat. It doesn’t come without a hefty price at times, though, as farmers like him are forced to play this ceremonial song and dance with special interest groups who are all but uninterested in the work his farm is doing. But these farmers do it willingly because they realize the future of the food supply depends on local farms succeeding.
Polyface received national attention a few years back when it was featured in science journalist Michael Pollan’s sensational The Omnivore’s Dilemma book and immediately became the poster child for the local food movement. They actually were chosen to be included and featured in his book because Pollan attempted to order some T-bone steaks to have shipped to him in New York. Salatin refused and Pollan became intrigued. It was at that point that the heart of the mission to keep local food local was too serious to jeopardize.
You’ll quickly realize when you start reading this book that Salatin is unafraid of sharing his distinctively Christian libertarian viewpoints on a variety of issues related to his farming practices. With a smile on his face and a laugh in his heart, this brave rebel has been threatened to the point of shutting his operations down by inspectors and regulators alike, but these strong arm scare tactics have not worked. Again, the heartbeat of what farmers like Salatin do is grounded in the principled passion that food should be made available to consumers on a local level free from unnecessary government regulations.
Regardless of where you stand on food sustainability and the local movement that is alive and well in America today, this is a book well worth reading. It will give you an insider’s look at what it takes to put quality food on your dinner table that will keep your family nourished for many more years to come.
The Metabolism Miracle: 3 Easy Steps to Regain Control of Your Weight…Permanently
by Diane Kress
When you prominently use such a strong superlative word like “miracle” within the title of a diet book, then you had better be confident in your ability to deliver the goods. Registered dietitian Diane Kress has done her homework and identified a unique issue that inflicts upwards of 60 percent of the population and many of them don’t even know it. It’s called Metabolism B and requires a way of eating that isn’t exactly embraced by the nutritional gatekeepers of our day.
How many of us have gone on diet after diet for years without ever keeping off any weight that has been lost? I’ve done it way too many times to count, but Kress explains that for some people it may not be our fault that we have struggled so much. And the unsightly belly fat is the worst all the while walking around too tired to exercise, hungry almost constantly, and wondering if this is the best life has to offer you. It’s a depressing state that nobody should endure.
People with Metabolism B are different because we (yes, I’m one of them!) cannot eat an excessive amount of carbohydrate without packing on the pounds. Kress is also a Met B, so she understands the struggle just like we do and has developed an effective plan for combatting this once and for all. It’s not calories in, calories out, it’s not eating disgusting low-fat and fat-free foods, and it most certainly is not mustering up the willpower. There’s a three-step process outlined in this book that give you all the tools you need to lose weight and keep it off for good!
Basically, you go through eight weeks of what Kress calls “Carb Rehab” as a means for giving your pancreas a chance to slow down on insulin production, heal and detoxify your liver, and allow fat cells to begin shrinking. You do this through an intense low-carbohydrate nutritional plan which will produce weight loss, improved health markers with your cholesterol and blood pressure numbers, and energy like you’ve never experienced before! Sample menus and food ideas are included in the book.
My only concern with what Kress shares in this book is her insistence on using “lean” meats, egg whites, low-fat cheese, and such. It’s almost as if the registered dietitian in her won’t allow her to see there are health benefits to consuming the fats contained in these foods as a regular part of the low-carb regimen for people with Met B. While Kress appreciates the work people like Dr. Atkins have done to promote low-carb principles to the public, she believes their ideas are antiquated since there has been so much research to come out in recent years. Unfortunately, I think she cherry picks the science that makes her case regarding saturated fat and isn’t acknowledging the wealth of fresh new data that is out there.
The second part of the plan includes an eight-week or more “Transition…To Carbs” where “healthy carbohydrates” are added back into the diet to “gently restart your rested pancreas and liver.” This was an odd change of gears since Kress has already identified that over half of people are walking around with an aversion to carbs. So what exactly is “healthy” about them that you need to put them back into your diet again? She says the carbs aren’t the culprit, but it’s their Met B condition that needed to get back into balance again. Eating the “low-impact carbohydrate” (I’ll assume is low-glycemic load) is what will make that happen. But I think this is a recipe for falling prey to the carb creep that so often befuddles low-carb dieters.
The final phase is the “Lifetime Weight Maintenance” plan that adds even MORE carbohydrates into the diet along with the low-fat foods I previously mentioned as well as a few “treats” here and there. This is where you are supposed to live for the rest of your life, but how does this differ from any other high-carb, low-fat plan out there? What about people like me who are so sensitive to carbohydrate that they cannot tolerate more than 30-50g carbs daily? How does plan help lose weight and then keep it off forever adding back in carbohydrate no matter what their “impact” is?
As much I love the concept of Metabolism B and the low-carb solution that it offers people who are afflicted by it, I think Kress is still somewhat stuck on the idea that fat is somehow bad for you and carbohydrates play a necessary role in metabolism. Neither is true and that’s unfortunate. Her insistence on things like eating every few hours, drinking lots of water, exercising 30 minutes a day for five days a week, and other typical dogmatic diet dictates shows she still hasn’t caught on to what the latest studies are showing and is relying on her nutritional education to still guide her. I think she is on to something good, but it’s not quite all the way there yet.
The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability
by Lierre Keith
I’ve got to hand it to the organizations behind the marketing and promotion of the vegetarian diet. They’ve been phenomenally successful with their public relations efforts convincing most people that the optimal diet for health, respecting animals, and even saving the planet from destruction is a plant-based diet devoid of meat. And a good many vegans and vegetarians prance around scowling at people who don’t eat like them wondering what’s wrong with them and casting judgment on the choices they make about what foods they put in their mouths. Lierre Keith used to be one of them.
For the good part of two decades, Keith was a faithfully committed vegan and embraced the lifestyle as her own believing she was doing something positive for herself and the planet. Unfortunately, these lofty goals were based on misguided information and she believes vegetarianism is a mythical concept that is actually causing more harm than good. Ironically, the very planet she and other vegetarians have been trying to save from certain destruction by those dastardly meat-eaters is actually now in great peril because of the actions of those who seek to preserve it.
This book should be required reading for every vegan and vegetarian out there who so quickly embraces T. Colin Campbell’s The China Study and hang on every word included in what has become the vegan/vegetarian manifesto. Keith completely acknowledges the four primary types of vegetarians (moral, political, nutritional, save the planet) and addresses in specific terms why they are inadequate reasons for remaining that way based on the facts. Too often vegetarianism plays on the emotions of those involved and they can’t view the evidence facing them clearly.
Keith makes the case that a high-carb grain-based diet that is typical of most vegetarian diets is leading to significant health complications because of excessive insulin released into the body. LDL cholesterol and triglycerides are significantly elevated eating a diet like this and the deliberate addition of saturated fat in the diet from animal sources along with a reduction in carbohydrate is best for you. And the food manufacturers know this which is why they sell you cereal which costs less to make than the box it comes in! Cheap carbs lead to fat wallets for the food companies.
Notable low-carb diet and health experts are cited in the book, including Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, Gary Taubes, Dr. Loren Cordain, Sally Fallon, Dr. Mary Enig, Drs. Mike and Mary Dan Eades, Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, Anthony Colpo, Michael Pollan, Julia Ross, and Dr. Robert C. Atkins. Groups like THINCS, The Weston A. Price Foundation, Eat Wild, and others are also mentioned and acknowledged which will make Keith public enemy number one with her former vegetarian and vegan colleagues. She’s certainly done her homework and the truth was so overwhelming to her that she had to reeducate herself about what was truly healthy and eco-responsible and that’s a nutrient-dense meat-based diet.
The intensely descriptive language used by Keith in this book is inviting and convincing. Her ability to draw in the reader with both compassion and forthrightness is what makes it so compelling. You can tell she took great pains to communicate the message as clearly and non-threatening as possible so that just about anyone reading it could understand why the vegetarian myth exists. She does share some of the more bizarre beliefs that some vegans hold (like trying to do something about the killing of animals — BY OTHER ANIMALS!), that really opened her eyes to what she had entangled herself in for far too long.
Taking the emotional component out of the vegetarian argument, Keith brilliantly cuts to the chase and tells the reader what the real deal is on this controversial subject. If you ever wanted to get inside the inner-most thoughts of a vegan to know why they think the way they do about their preferred lifestyle choice, then you need to get a copy of this book. Seeing the stark transformation from vegan to meat-eater is worth the price of admission!
Stop Growing Older…Grow Younger: A Resource Guide on Reverse Aging Techniques, Nutrition and Therapies
by J. Collin Towers
Reversing the aging process is something many people would like to make happen for themselves. There are books galore on the subject and most of them haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about. But when you’ve lived it for yourself like J. Collin Towers has, it’s hard not to believe it can happen to you, too.
Here’s a 60-year old man who has done what he needs to do through diet, exercise, supplementation, sleep, and detoxification to have the biological age of a 40-something! Towers contends “aging is a choice” and he has chosen to put himself in the best position possible to keep himself fit, trim, and as “young” as he can possibly be. His methods for getting there may sound somewhat familiar to people following the latest scientific advances in nutrition and health.
- Keep insulin levels low by avoiding sugar
- Don’t over indulge on refined carbohydrates
- Stay away from starchy foods
- Avoid overcooked food and toxins in your meals
- Consume adequate fiber daily
- Use coconut oil in cooking for health and weight benefits
- Exercise regularly
- Eat enough protein to preserve muscle mass
- Get plenty of free radical-fighting antioxidants
- Beware of pharmaceutical drugs
- De-stress your life as much as possible
These are all excellent strategies to implement for anyone desiring weight loss and health improvements. However, there were a few concepts Towers shared that I thought were a bit off the beaten path from my experience. He promotes “calorie restriction” but doesn’t really say what levels calories need to be at. Is it 1500? 1000? 500? Who knows? He mentions controlling insulin levels (vitally important to this conversation), but isn’t quite as explicit in saying that it is carbohydrate control that makes that happen.
Then in a seemingly conflicting recommendation to his previous mandate to avoid prescription drugs, Towers promotes and advocates the diabetes medication Metformin as a “metabolic rejuvenator” that is an important part of the anti-aging process. While I don’t have a personal issue with this particular medication taking it myself for a 10-week period, but isn’t it contradictory to blast pharmaceuticals and then recommending one? To his credit, natural alternatives to taking Metformin are shared in the book which include eating low-glycemic index foods and taking in plenty of antioxidants through a variety of foods and supplements.
But there is ample information provided within the 500+ pages of this book about the vitamins and minerals that can help lead you on the right pathway to being healthy and younger: magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin B, fish oil, and so much more. In fact, there is so much information provided in page after page that it can seem overwhelming at times. I had some trouble trying to understand why certain things were tied together like they were thematically and wondering if maybe some better formatting might help assimilate the information better. To his credit, for the most part Towers kept it on topic.
Promoting whole foods like real raw milk, berries, non-starchy vegetables like broccoli and spinach, avocados, stevia, raw cheese, butter, salt, and grass-fed animal products, this book is a walking-talking encyclopedia of information designed to take away the arguments people have of living healthy. It’s not impossible if you are willing to Stop Growing Older…Grow Younger!
The Two Martini Diet: How I Lost 100+lbs While Eating Well and Having a Drink
by Gerard Sorlucco
When you reach the age of 69 and pushing 300 pounds, you already know that you are in dire straits to do something about your weight for the sake of your health — and fast! That’s precisely the situation Gerard Sorlucco found himself in before deciding he was too sick and tired of all the diet plans that were out there and instead turned to his own program that helped him go on to shed over 100 pounds while still enjoying a martini or two. Thus was borne the concepts you read about in this book.
Sorlucco readily admits he is not a nutritional or medical expert by any stretch of the imagination so he avoids the whole “diet guru” status that many who write books on this subject try to pass themselves off as. He is simply sharing the plan that worked for him that made him healthier and slimmer than he was before. Just like my own personal 180-pound weight loss success did for me in 2004, today he is a fireball of enthusiasm about seeing people do what they have to do to get their weight under control before it’s too late for them.
Right off the bat, you realize this is a different kind of diet book because Sorlucco doesn’t include many meal plans or recipes for you to follow. Instead, he gives you the grim statistics from governmental and health organizations that lay out the problem for you to see (as if you didn’t already know!) and encourages you to do what he did to beat it in your own life. I couldn’t help but love and appreciate his insistence that people take personal responsibility for their own health and getting it in order rather than burdening the healthcare system any more than it already is. We need to overcome this individually and not expect others to do it for us.
As someone who chose a high-fat, low-carb nutritional approach to losing weight, I was appreciative of Sorlucco’s take on the whole “fat leads to heart disease” propaganda that was embraced hook, line and sinker by the American Heart Association in 1957 and has been the backbone of what constitutes a “heart-healthy” diet ever since. He believes this “all fat is bad” message is dead wrong and that it has done more damage to the obesity and disease we are seeing in 2009 America. Sadly, though, he lumps in saturated fat with the trans fats as “bad” and thus misses an opportunity to educate people about what healthy eating really is.
While Sorlucco does inform people to avoid the “comfort food carbohydrates” like white bread, potatoes, pasta, white rice, and HFCS-sweetened sugary sodas to avoid lowering your HDL “good” cholesterol, increasing your LDL cholesterol and triglycerides causing you to take a dangerous statin drug, and putting yourself on a one-way ticket to Type 2 diabetes, he also has a thing or two to say about those of us who choose to eat a low-carbohydrate diet — and it ain’t very good!
Describing carbs as “an essential part of a healthy diet” (when the reality is there is absolutely NO dietary need for carbdohydrate whatsoever in your diet unlike fat and protein), he promotes the consumption of the obligatory “fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.” Which ones, Mr. Sorlucco? Does it matter if I choose bananas over berries, beans over broccoli, whole grain bread over a low-carb wrap? I certainly think so and it’s just a copout to tell people to eat more of those things without specifying that there are better choices even within that subset of carbohydrate-based foods.
I give him credit for saying Dr. Atkins was “half right” when he acknowledges that the late, great one was the first in the country to warn of the dangers of an insulin surge from the consumption of refined carbohydrates. But he turns right around and scorns Atkins dieters for choosing this way of eating because “over time most gain it back as their bodies seem to sense the loss of essential micronutrients” while beginning to eat carbs again. Sorlucco instead says people should choose a more “balanced approach of healthy carbohydrates, protein, fats, and exercise.” Well, yippee skippy for you, but that doesn’t work for everybody. He also gives grief to other lower-carb plans like Dr. Arthur Agatston’s The South Beach Diet while praising Dr. Barry Sears’ The Zone Diet for providing “some good ideas that [he] incorporated” into his weight loss plan.
So what about the “two martinis” and the actual diet part of this book? Well, other than a little wine for his Sunday brunch with his wife and a glass or two here and there of various other alcoholic beverages, I didn’t see much of it in this diet. And he even acknowledges too much of it can be detrimental to weight loss. This is curious since the book shows a couple of martini glasses. The diet itself is centered on eating a portion-controlled amount of food, stopping when satisfied, eating very slowly to savor the taste of the food, and selecting lower-fat, whole-grain based foods eschewing meat in favor of salads and veggies. Okay, that’s fine, but I’d be starving my head off if I even tried to eat this way.
I’m proud of Jerry Sorlucco for finding the plan that works for him and following it to great success as a permanent lifestyle change for him. But this diet would drive me nuts!
Tender Grassfed Meat: Traditional Ways to Cook Healthy Meat
by Stanley A. Fishman
More and more people are beginning to realize the benefits of consuming healthy cuts of meat that come from grass-fed cows, bison, and lamb to maximize their health. Unfortunately we live in a day and age of industrialized farming that would rather “fatten up” these cattle on unhealthy grains and other such feed that does nothing beneficial for your body. Although grass-fed meats can cost a little more, the quality is far superior to anything you’ve ever eaten in your entire life!
However, there is one thing about grass-fed beef that many people (myself included!) have had trouble with — COOKING IT! Unlike regular meats you purchase in your local grocery store, these meats require a special tender loving care that requires them to be cooked differently than traditional ones. Attorney Stanley Fishman learned this the hard way when he first attempted to cook some of this meat and “ruined” it by overcooking the meat. Now he knows better!
As a cooking connoisseur, Fishman realized that grass-fed meats needed to be treated differently than other cuts to avoid the chewy meat that can wear your jaw out. That’s not the way grass-fed beef, bison, and lamb is supposed to taste and he shows you exactly how to make the most tender, melts-in-your-mouth foods you’ll ever eat in this book. Using his dogged research style to find out exactly what he did wrong the first time around, Fishman read through hundreds of old cookbooks from around the world to see how these meats were cooked way back when. The knowledge he gleaned from those many hours of study are what comprise this book.
This book is a virtual primer on why grass-fed meats and meat byproducts are actually better for you than the grain-fed, industrialized ones. Fishman shares all about the cooking utensils and techniques that you will use with the meats to prepare them for meals of all kinds, including grilling, broths, soups, and recipes galore. Although they are meat-based, not all of the recipes included in the book are necessary low-carb. But they can each be adapted to fit within your specific dietary needs.
Natural real whole food advocates will LOVE this book!
The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide
by Elisabeth Hasselbeck
Everybody these days knows who Elisabeth Hasselbeck is as one of the co-hosts on the popular daytime television talk show The View as well as her stint on Season Two of the CBS-TV reality show Survivor in the Australian Outback. But what they may not know is how her claim to fame actually helped identify the reasons why she was so sick to her stomach and chronically fatigued all the time. Seeing doctors, nutritionists, and every other medical guru she could find, nobody could figure out what was wrong with her.
It wasn’t until she was forced to live on little to no food while enduring through the grueling Survivor experience that she noticed something remarkable happen to her — all the health ailments that usually plagued her day in and day out had vanished. As a result, Hasselbeck was able to identify that the culprit in her symptoms was dietary and more specifically found in the grains she was consuming as part of her regular menus. That’s right, she had Celiac disease, an intolerance to just about anything containing gluten (barley, oats, wheat, and rye) and didn’t even know it!
That’s when she started learning about the gluten-free lifestyle to discover the weight loss and health benefits that come from eating that way for people like her with this condition. Like any effective lifestyle change, first you find out why it is important to make the changes, then you seek the best ways to integrate those into your life, and finally you keep doing them. That’s what you get from Hasselbeck in this book as she shares the fruits of her research, lists of foods to avoid and embrace, recipes, shopping lists, eating at a restaurant, and living this way for the rest of your life. If you have Celiac disease, then this isn’t an option if you want to get healthy and stay healthy!
It’s not always been an easy road for Hasselbeck as she shares her moments of “self-sabotage” here and there. But you can tell the concept of going “G-Free” is certainly something that has worked for her and she’s more than willing to share her knowledge with others to help them defeat their gluten bug, too! I can appreciate someone with the star quality of Elisabeth Hasselbeck bringing national attention to the dangers of consuming gluten and she makes a very compelling argument for avoiding foods with gluten in them for health, weight loss, and even to ward off autism in children. Fascinating!
My favorite part of this book is something very practical that is a brilliant way to help educate servers and cooks at restaurants to be sensitive to the needs of people with Celiac disease. While many national restaurant chains have a special gluten-free list of menu items for people to choose from upon request, Hasselbeck includes a tear-out “G-Free Dining Card” in the back of the book that explains why making sure the food served is gluten-free and it is done in a non-threatening yet educational manner that will hopefully encourage the people preparing food for you at a restaurant to be sensitive to your dietary needs. What a concept and I hope it catches on!
Kudos to Elisabeth Hasselbeck for using her celebrity to advocate on behalf of something so vitally important for the future of health in America and around the world. Whether people realize it or not, a whole lot more of us have some level of gluten-intolerance than we’d like to believe. And the sooner we start eating “G-Free” the better.
Suicide By Sugar: A Startling Look at Our #1 National Addiction
by Nancy Appleton and G. N. Jacobs
I love Dr. Nancy Appleton! She doesn’t pull any punches in her writing style while sharing the truth about the danger that sugar has become to the health of Americans. She’s been doing it for a very long time and is back yet again pulling the cover off of the #1 addiction in the United States today!
Using a word like “suicide” might be considered strong when you’re talking about something as innocuous as sugar consumption, but think about it. In light of all the health and weight problems that we know sugar causes (and that Dr. Appleton so readily points out for us in this book!), isn’t that exactly what people are doing to themselves albeit ever-so-slowly? My brother Kevin died at the age of 41 because of his severe addiction to sugar and while his actual cause of death was heart failure, it makes you wonder if they’ll give any credence to “suicide by sugar” at some point in the future. The shoe certainly fits.
Dr. Appleton arms you with facts, figures, statistics, and information that quite frankly you’re just not gonna get from the mainstream health organizations like the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, or the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. None of those groups seem to care about the health of people enough to give them this information and explain why it is so important to remove sugar from your diet for good. Issues like obesity, hypoglycemia, metabolic syndrome, brain disorders, cancer, and epilepsy are all addressed in Suicide By Sugar.
Unlike the so-called health “experts” out there who say there’s a problem but refuse to do anything about it, Dr. Appleton has a clear-cut set of practical solutions for beating your sugar addiction once and for all. It includes various tricks and tips for making it happen, tests, menus, new habits, and delectable recipes to keep your sweet tooth at bay. All in all, whether you think sugar is good or bad for your health, you owe it to yourself to read this book from one of the best in the business!
Over the Counter Natural Cures: Take Charge of Your Health in 30 Days with 10 Lifesaving Supplements for under $10
by Shane Ellison
With the price of healthcare continuing to rise and the idea of universal health insurance for all Americans is being debated by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, talk of natural cures to many of the most common health woes that plagued us has increased. There are a glut of so-called “natural cures” books out there that only seek to prey on your desire to get healthier by trying to sell you a bunch of expensive supplements and other products that line the pockets of the authors who write about them. But The People’s Chemist Shane Ellison said enough is enough!
He wrote Over-The-Counter Natural Cures so that average, everyday hardworking people who can barely afford to pay their bills can begin adding inexpensive and yet incredibly effective ways to improve their health for less than $10 a month! In this economy, I can appreciate someone who cares enough about people to share this invaluable information about the most important nutrients your body needs to lower cholesterol, detox your body, improve cardiovascular health, lowering anxiety, ward off prostate problems, defeat cancer, overcome the obstacles that obesity and diabetes throw your way, and so much more. Best of all, you can accomplish these things WITHOUT THE USE OF ANY PRESCRIPTION MEDICATIONS! Unlike the pop-a-pill advice you get from the medical community, Ellison knows there are natural ways to accomplish the same if not better results.
Interestingly, Ellison is no fan of the low-fat, high-carb diets that have been pushed on the American people for far too long now. He sees the enormous health benefits that carbohydrate restriction in conjunction with a higher fat intake can have on people willing to buck the trend of conventional wisdom and start taking action for themselves. Foods like grass-fed beef, seeds, nuts, butter, avocados, pastured eggs, coconut oil, fish and so much more will lead you on a pathway to health vitality like you’ve never seen before. Eating this way helped me lose 180 pounds in 2004 and I’ve eaten this way ever since to KEEP my health as vibrant as it has ever been in my entire life. It’s the basis for many of the “cures” you read about in this book.
THANK YOU Shane Ellison for sharing your insights on what it takes for people to grab back control of their health through amazingly simple lifestyle changes. This book will empower people to do just that and then share that knowledge with everyone they know! Pick up your own copy and give this book to your doctor, nutritionist, and anyone you are concerned about their health. It very well could save their life!
Nicki Anderson’s Single-Step Weight Loss Solution: 101 No-Nonsense Tips for Healthy Living, Weight Loss, and a Diet-Free Life
by Nicki Anderson
Anyone who comes into contact with Reality Fitness owner Nicki Anderson will immediately notice something very obvious about this woman: she is arguably the most passionate and caring fitness expert you’ll ever meet and isn’t afraid to share exactly what it takes to beat your obesity and whip your body into tip-top condition. I’ve had the privilege of speaking with Nicki on the phone interviewing her for my “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show” podcast and we’ve had many e-mail exchanges over the past few years discussing many of the concepts you will read about in her Single-Step Weight Loss Solution book. Years of working directly with clients who she has seen results with give her the confidence that these are things that can and will work for you too if you are willing to put forth the effort to make them happen in your life.
Many of the “101 No-Nonsense Tips for Healthy Living, Weight Loss, and a Diet-Free Life” she talks about in the book look familiar to anyone who has attempted to lose weight in the past — eat breakfast everyday, drink plenty of water, eat only until you are satisfied, consume lots of fiber, exercise regularly, and be patient through the process. These are all things we’ve heard before, right? But Nicki doesn’t leave us with the same old, same old and nothing revolutionary.
Some of the more interesting advice includes stop dieting, stop counting calories, eat more protein for weight loss, eat for your health and not for weight loss, quality of calories is more important than quantity, embrace interval training, create healthy expectations that are attainable, and so much more! There’s a fresh nugget of information on each one-page tip. You could almost read this book like a daily devotional and focus solely on these concepts one-by-one. Learn it, love it, live it!
My favorite part of Nicki Anderson’s Single-Step Weight Loss Solution is where she addresses the most common nutrition and exercise myths that people believe for whatever reason. Things like eating at night is bad for you, consuming yogurt is great for weight loss, all fats are bad, eating vegetarian is healthy for your weight loss efforts, eating nuts are fattening, eating red meat will harm you and prevent weight loss, doing hours of cardio will shed body fat, muscle weighs more than fat, eat lots of small meals to lose fat, no pain no gain, running on the treadmill will produce quick weight loss and all kinds of other stupid dogmatic beliefs people have. Nicki busts them all and backs it up with proven science that she has researched for herself and seen directly in her clients over the past three decades.
If ever you needed a cheerleader in your corner as you take on the weight loss challenge in your own life, then Nicki Anderson is just what the doctor ordered. Sporting her cute but ever-so-true pink “Dieting Sucks!” T-shirt on the front cover of this book will remind you of the enormous changes that are about to happen for you as you embark on a real journey to better health like you’ve never experienced before. Let Nicki guide you on the pathway to success!
The Dakota Diet: Health Secrets from the Great Plains
by Dr. Kevin Weiland
The more we see the onslaught of modern diseases as a result of our poor nutritional habits over the past 50 years or so, it has spawned a movement of getting back to the original diet of our early ancestors. We’ve seen a lot of paleolithic diets that hearken back to the days of the caveman, but even the diet consumed by native Americans such as the Plains Indians in the Dakotas was filled with a much healthier selection of foods than what we see in the Standard American Diet (SAD) today. That’s the basis for The Dakota Diet by Dr. Kevin Weiland.
The diet itself includes an excellent selection of high-quality food that helps to bring the omega-3/omega-6 fatty acids into the proper balance. Dr. Weiland accomplishes this by promoting healthy fat consumption that comes from grass-fed buffalo, flax seeds, fresh fish, and wild game. He claims that the lower-fat content of these good fat sources provide fewer calories in conjunction with nutrient-dense foods like fruits, vegetables, soy, whole grains, and fiber-rich foods including beans, barley, and oats.
Overall, I think the message of choosing better quality meat choices from bison and even beef is a good one. But I’m concerned with Dr. Weiland’s commentary about high-fat low-carb diets such as Atkins. As someone who lost 180 pounds on that particular plan created by the late, great Dr. Robert C. Atkins, I was stunned to read what he had to say about this healthy way of eating. He claims the Atkins diet is too high in saturated fat and too low in fruits, whole grains, fiber and calcium. Ummm, what’s wrong with saturated fat since science is showing it is a perfect fuel source for your body when you remove the excessive carbohydrate from your diet? As for fruits, I eat blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, cantaloupe, and honeydew all the time. Whole grains are a crock! And calcium is plentiful in the cheese and cream you consume eating low-carb.
Dr. Weiland believes that a diet high in saturated fat such as Atkins “causes your body to produce too much LDL cholesterol and reduces HDL cholesterol in the body.” With all due respect, this information is just dead wrong. When you consume a deliciously healthy high-fat, moderate-protein, low-carb diet, your LDL may rise, but the preponderance of the LDL particles will be the large, fluffy and protective kind, not the small, dense and dangerous ones. As for HDL “good” cholesterol, it goes way up. My HDL went from the lower 20s when I weighed 410 pounds up to an incredible 72 after my 180-pound weight loss success on Atkins. This is the kind of health benefits that people who eat this way get to enjoy.
The scaremongering over diets like Atkins and Protein Power is just unnecessary Dr. Weiland. I think your diet is certainly an improvement over what is being promoted as “healthy” out there today. But rather than slam these other more successful diet plans to try to make yours look good, why not embrace the lessons we have learned from the success of the people who have been on them? This is an awful trend happening among new diet books to throw jabs in at Atkins at how bad it is supposed to be just to prop up their nutritional program. Tell us what’s good about your diet and let people decide what is best for their dietary needs.
If you want to improve your menus from your current SAD diet, then certainly The Dakota Diet can set you on a better path. But you can just about ignore all of Dr. Weiland’s unnecessary negative opinions about livin’ la vida low-carb because he is not citing all the preponderance of the evidence in support of saturated fat consumption, the concerns with carbohydrates even from so-called healthy whole grains, and the misinformation he is providing about the popular low-carb diets. It’s shameful and disgusting to make the kind of negative health claims about Atkins and other low-carb regimens that Dr. Weiland does in his book. I would only hope that future editions of this book provides just the facts about The Dakota Diet and leaves the pontificating over the diets to others.
Coconut Cures: Preventing and Treating Common Health Problems with Coconut
by Dr. Bruce Fife
When you stop and think about how much coconut and especially coconut oil has been vilified by all those pompous health gurus out there thumping their chests with an arrogance that merely shows their ignorance, it just makes you shake your head. Why? Because not only is coconut one of the most incredible superfoods in the entire world, it is also a very tasty one that sadly has been given a bad rap because of the fat content. But Dr. Bruce Fife brilliantly lays out the growing proof that coconut is actually a miracle supplement in Coconut Cures.
Now, when you use a strong word like “cures” in the title of a book, then you had better have the evidence to back it up. Dr. Fife does just that as he delves into the “healing power of coconut” for such ailments as heart disease, kidney stones, erratic blood sugar disorders and diabetes, warts, insect bites, acne, cancer, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, slow metabolism, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome, and aging with plenty of references that come straight from the scientific journals. Additionally, you’ll read seemingly unbelievable stories of real people who have benefited from coconut and coconut derivative consumption.
My favorite chapter because of its creativity is Chapter 4 entitled “Coconut Oil On Trial.” Dr. Fife takes on the most common complaints about coconut oil and puts them on trial with opening arguments, testimony from expert witnesses, and closing arguments from the “Prosecution” and “Defense.” Such controversial topics as saturated fats and cholesterol, atherosclerosis, high blood lipids, and heart disease risk are taken on and treated fairly. The verdict from the judge whether coconut oil is guilty or not guilty? Well, you’re gonna have to read page 98 of Coconut Cures to find out.
If you’re even a little bit curious about coconut, coconut water, coconut milk, or coconut oil, then you owe it to yourself to pick up this primer on all things related to the flavorful fruit. There’s help on how to find a good coconut, an “A to Z” reference on all the benefits to your health that come from coconut, and even some super-easy recipes designed to specifically treat health conditions. Whether you believe Coconut Cures is a health panacea or not, it’s hard to argue against the case that Dr. Bruce Fife makes in this book.
Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories: 15 Secrets from a 3,000-Year-Old Food Culture
by Lorraine Clissold
Counting calories is widely considered in the United States as a means for managing your weight and health. But try telling that to the Chinese people who find it incredibly strange to obsess over every calorie you put in your mouth. Instead, they put the focus on the enjoyment of the food itself, eating to satiety, and experimenting with flavors and spices to tantalize your culinary desires. This is the point of Lorraine Clissold’s Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories.
Clissold takes her love for recipes and her personal experience living in China for 15 years to educate people about the secrets to the Chinese diet. She even had her own television cooking show to educate the Chinese people about their historic traditions in the art of food preparation. Many of these concepts are shared within the pages of this book.
The 15 “secrets” from China were certainly eye-opening in places, including stop counting calories, think of vegetables as dishes, fill up on staple foods like noodles, rice, and bread, eat until you are full, consume liquid foods, bring yin and yang to the kitchen, balance your flavors, become a master of your ingredients, choose “live” over “dead” or processed foods, respect the body’s climate, use food to keep you fit, make an occasion of meals, drink green and herbal teas, engage in restorative exercise, and avoid extremes in all areas of life. While much of this is cutting-edge information for people who hope to do something productive for their health, some of it can be misleading for people who aren’t designed to eat like someone who lives in China. That’s one of my biggest concerns about the message of this book.
While I enjoyed being educated about Chinese food culture, I could never eat the way Clissold describes in her book. I know that carbohydrates like bread, rice, and pasta will balloon up my weight, raise my blood sugar and insulin, and lead me down a path of morbid obesity and disease. And while I can respect a vegetarian-styled diet for someone who chooses to eat that way, I believe it is unhealthy to omit the tremendous health benefits of consuming meats like grass-fed beef, free-range chickens, lamb, bison, and wild game. One glance at the “Further Reading” in the back of the book shows a deference for vegetarianism with T. Colin Campbell’s The China Study cited.
It would have been great if Clissold had openly discussed why the Chinese people tend to be thin eating a very high-carb diet. As a connoisseur of this culture and the food consumed, it would have been a perfect opportunity to make the case for why carbohydrates do not seem to produce any negative effects on the weight and health of the people of China. Research studies combined with anecdotal stories would have certainly hammered home the overall message of the book, but it was nowhere to be found. That’s truly unfortunate.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book because it gives a pretty decent historical perspective of the 3,000-year old Chinese food culture. Clissold does not get caught up in the subtle nuances of the diet debate and simply shares from her firsthand knowledge of her experience studying and living in China. Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories is worth checking out for anyone wanting to find a comprehensive look at Chinese culinary cuisine.
DietMinder Personal Food & Fitness Journal (A Food and Exercise Diary)
by F.E. Wilkins
By now, most people are realizing the tremendous benefits of journaling in their weight loss and weight maintenance efforts. When I lost 180 pounds in 2004, I kept track of my food and exercise plan religiously because it was THAT important. And even to this day, I STILL journal my menus and fitness routine to help keep me accountable in my continuing journey to stay healthy for life. That’s why I love both the DietMinder and MaintenanceMinder journals.
If you are just beginning your healthy lifestyle change, then you need to get the DietMinder first. In this specific journal, you will have the ability to set goals, chart your health markers, include your before and soon-to-be after pictures, and keep a comprehensive list of your food, supplements, and exercise each day. In the back of the journal, you’ll see information on some of the most popular foods listed in alphabetical order, including blank spaces for you to enter information on YOUR favorites. You can even chart the differences in inches lost on various parts of your body on a weekly basis.
Once you reach your weight loss goal, it is vital that you continue to do your due diligence to reward all of the hard work you have invested in your body. That’s where the MaintenanceMinder comes into play. This journal is “for those who’ve made it” and “want to remain that way.” I especially liked the fact that there was a focus on NOT obsessing over your weight in a bad way, but rather remaining steadfast in keeping your goals for life. This is accomplished by daily weigh-ins.
The MaintenanceMinder journal allows you to have daily weigh-ins first thing in the morning, outline your plan for staying on track for the day, an assessment guide about how your day went nutritionally and physically, and a quick yes or no box for you to check whether you followed plan or not. At the end of each week, there is a review that asks you to reflect on your “biggest challenge,” “biggest triumph,” and any reminders for the next week. There’s also a “notes” section for you to keep a diary of sorts about how your week is going. This journal helps to keep you mindful of why you eat and exercise the way that you do so you don’t slip back into old unhealthy habits.
Whether you are just beginning on a diet plan or if you’ve already accomplished your weight loss goals, you owe it to yourself to get the DietMinder or the MaintenanceMinder journals. They will indeed keep you accountable in your healthy lifestyle change so that you’ll create new habits to keep you that way for the rest of your life. Use these invaluable tools to bring about the big changes you’ve always wanted.
That third book up there, the Drinking Man’s Diet Cookbook, now that’s a book I that we here at the beef and whiskey institute can hardily endorse!
When you hear what it’s about, Mr. Freddy, you’ll LOVE it even more!
–Jimmy
I am surprised that you have Eat This Not That books on this site. There is nothing low carb about them. If there was a big steak there and a small bowl of pasta with some sauce on it, I think it would say to eat the pasta! Not books that I would want!!
Pam, this isn’t a “low-carb” book list, but rather a list of the newest and most notable diet and health books that are out there. I’m writing my personal review of each of these books, so wait until you see what I have to say about them.
–Jimmy
ooops, its the second book up there, not the third. I have the orginal Drinking Man’s Diet book by the same author, from the fifties, it’s a classic!
I assume this cookbook is just a companion cookbook, right?
The beef and whisky institute may also have to take a look at that two martini book too…
Actually, this book is all-inclusive of the contents in BOTH books, Freddy. ENJOY!
–Jimmy
The Dietminder has been my food journal since day 1 of my low-carb journey. You could use anything, I suppose, but I like the organization & format, the spiral binding, it’s just well thought-out. When I filled the first one up, I got another.
It’s a useful tool indeed! Glad to hear it’s worked for you, Chris.
–Jimmy
[At the end of the day, that’s really what managing your weight and health is all about — making the “obvious choice” to live a permanent and healthy lifestyle change forever and ever.]
You (and Cameron) are exactly right, getting your mind wrapped around the fact that it has to be permanent and a healthy lifestyle change!
I’ve read “The Metabolism Miracle”, which I thought was very good and also “Carbs from Heaven, Carbs from Hell”.
Thanks for all your hard work, Jimmy!
THANKS Nan!
–Jimmy
Hi Jimmy. Interesting books on Your list. I specially liked Tender Grassfed Meat.
I totally agree with the author, that grain and corn is very bad for the cows to eat. They have been eating grass since the beginning. I will order that book from Amazon.
I just found this article http://www.thelocal.se/22278/20090924/
about Low Carb High Fat in Sweden.
It’s a lot of debate going on in Sweden right now, about the official recommendations about how we should eat. The government recommend 50-60% carbohydrates per day. Thats a lot of carbs.. Greetings from Sweden./ Birgitta
THANKS Birgitta! I highlighted what is happening in Sweden in my big news update last week and it’s so exciting for you guys. It’s funny how they describe it in the news accounts as something “new” eating a high-fat, low-carb diet. Nope, it’s not so new, but it’s still pretty effective. Keep shining the light on the truth over there and thanks for your comments!
–Jimmy
Wow, this has to be one of the most extensive posts I’ve ever seen! It looks like you’ve really done your research and thank you so much for sharing it with us
As for cooking grass fed meat, you are going to have to order Dr. Eades’ new sous vide appliance. http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/good-eating/sous-vide-supreme/
“Grass fed beef, though tasty, isn’t always the most tender of selections. If, however, you put a couple of grass-fed beef steaks in a sous vide bath before you go to work, by the time you get home, they are as tender as a mother’s heart while still retaining all their taste.”