Who could help it? Here was a young woman who, just a few months earlier, had weighed in at 340 pounds on the hit ABC show Extreme Weight Loss. Now for all the world to see—and merely part way into her one-year effort to pare down—she’d (literally) gone further than she’d ever expected. From barely being able to walk up the stairs to running 26.2 miles in practically no time? The body is an amazing thing. And yet … it’s no match for the brain. It wasn’t the strength of Meredith’s body propelling her across the Niagara Falls finish line—it was the power of her mind.               No one knows that better than JD Roth, who as the number one producer of TV weight loss shows has helped countless overweight people change their bodies—and lives—for the better. Viewers of Extreme Weight Loss, The Biggest Loser, The Revolution and other transformational shows have seen the “technicians”—the trainers, the nutritionists, the doctors, and other health pros who appear on-screen—but they’ve never seen the heart and soul behind these amazing makeovers. That would be JD, whose production company not only created weight loss television, but who has produced more episodes in the genre than all other producers combined. He’s the behind-the-scenes wizard who gets inside the heads of the shows’ participants, encouraging, persuading, prodding, and inspiring them to succeed. Intimately involved in casting the shows’ contestants, then seeing them through the weight loss process, he’s the guy whose picture they tape onto their elliptical trainers and angrily scream at each night—then hug out of gratitude the next morning. He’s the guy who holds them when they cry and the one who tells them they need to get back on the treadmill even though they’re crying. JD is the shows’ tough-love dad—love being the operative word. Because it’s not just TV to JD; he’s on a mission to change people’s lives. Every fat person (yes, “fat person”—there’ll be no sugarcoating here) knows that you need to move more and eat less to shed pounds. Not exactly rocket science. Yet that simple formula doesn’t get to the root of what makes someone top out at 500 pounds, or sometimes just carry an extra fifty. The missing link in transformative weight loss is mental and emotional fortitude. Mining the same problem-solving and motivational skills JD has used so successfully with reality show contestants, The Big Fat Truth gets readers to address the real reasons they’re overweight (and nobody gets away with saying it’s because they love food). With his combination of enthusiasm, empathy, no-holds-barred style, and master story-telling abilities, JD helps them unearth and tackle the unresolved issues they’ve buried under the French fries and chocolate chip cookie. Presented in three parts, The Big Fat Truth includes short straight-to-the-point chapters that help readers identify their real issues, create their own reality show, and then shake up their lives to do the impossible. Included throughout are inspiring stories, advice, and before-and-after photos from people JD has helped to lose weight (both on camera and off), along with quick tips for how to stay accountable and a 30-day plan for putting this advice into action.

    This teenage criminal enterprise ultimately shipped hundreds of thousands of OxyContins and other prescription painkillers throughout the country, making millions in the process.This true crime memoir details the three-year-long rise and collapse of the Barabas Criminal Enterprise, an opiod-pill trafficking ring founded by Douglas Dodd and his best friend on the wrestling team, Lance Barabas. Raised by an alcoholic mother and surrounded by drug-abusing relatives, Dodd got involved in narcotics at an early age. Their scheme to sell the drugs he was already consuming coincided with the explosion of prescription addicts who were traveling the “Oxy Express” to Florida for easy access to the pills they dubbed “hillbilly heroin.” Soon they were shipping forty thousand pills a month, with tens of thousands of dollars returning in hollowed-out teddy bears.In Generation Oxy, Dodd recounts his time as a wannabe Scarface: bottle service at clubs, an arsenal of weapons that would make Dillinger blush, narrow escapes from the law, hordes of young women, and as many pills as he could swallow. And this was all before he was legally able to drink a beer, while still living with his grandmother. The good times came to an end when the DEA closed in and the twenty-year-old Dodd faced life in federal prison.

    If you've tried every conceivable combination of diet and exercise and still can't shed those extra pounds, then perhaps you haven't discovered the hidden key to weight loss—proper breathing. By increasing the amount of oxygen you take in, you can help your body do a more efficient job of releasing hydrogen, the chief culprit in the storage of excess fat. And you'll be amazed at the benefits of learning to breathe the right way: -Reset your body's metabolism to burn calories more efficiently -Lose weight without complicated food restrictions or rigid exercise schedules -Feel more energized and less stressed Breathing coach Pam Grout will show you how with thirteen "energy cocktails," simple but powerful breathing exercises that you can incorporate into your daily routine, whether you're at your desk, in your car, standing in line, watching TV—nearly anywhere, anytime. Easy to learn and fun to do, the program in Jumpstart Your Metabolism will help you jumpstart the rest of your life!

    No machines. No space. No hassles! With Your Body is Your Barbell, a reader will have no excuse not to get into the best shape of his or her life…simply, easily, and in just 4 weeks in the convenience of his or her own home. How? Using nothing more than what God blessed—a body with unlimited potential.Metabolic training expert BJ Gaddour, CSCS, who Men's Health magazine calls one of the "100 Fittest Men of All Time," has created a remarkably efficient and effective body-transforming diet and workout program based on just a handful of simple moves, the Bodyweight Eight. These no-equipment-required exercises are all one needs to build a strikingly symmetrical, perfectly proportioned, and classically beautiful physique, just like BJ's. (Not long ago, he was a fat guy with bad knees and an addiction to ice cream sundaes.)But it doesn't stop there. Once readers master each legendary fitness feat with perfect form, he will use BJ's "Sweat Spectrum," scalable, step-by-step progressions to go from ground zero to super hero. From these exercise variations, readers can construct hundreds of personalized workouts. Dozens of sample workouts are already demonstrated through big, bold how-to photographs within the book, and organized by goal, duration, intensity, and targeted body zone. This is the only book a man or woman needs to achieve the body he or she has always wanted anywhere…and without gear.

    This is a book about surviving it." I felt like a babyless freak. No matter what we tried, I couldn’t get pregnant, even after standing on my head after sex. I was pretty sure I was the only woman on the planet going through infertility, certainly the only one jamming needles into my butt on commercial breaks during my favorite TV shows. Everyone was getting pregnant around me and no one was talking about what happened if you couldn’t. After my experience, I wanted to write a book for other infertile women and couples who feel alone, the book I wish I’d had when I was going through it, filled with dark humor and illustrations of quirky ovaries and whimsical sperm. If you’re like me, you want blunt, honest conversations about all the crazy stuff you’re going through with someone who’s been there and understands at least some of what you’re dealing with and how you’re feeling. And if it can somehow give you permission to laugh without diminishing the pain you’re feeling? Even better. This is the funnest book you’ll ever read about the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. Each chapter covers a different challenge with infertility and is broken into sections, a little of my story and concerns, a blurb from my husband, Alex, kind of a window into his dudely brain, and practical tips on how to cope. Read it yourself, read it as a couple, and if you’re struggling to explain your feelings to friends and family, hurl a copy at them and run away. I really wish you didn’t need this book, but since you do, come on over. You’re not alone.

    This is for the mothers out there that want to run the home and raise the children in a stress-free and affordable way. This is for the wife that would like to be the hostess with the mostess, but not toil and fret all day and has no talents in making radishes into roses. This is for the real housewive's that are a little funky, want to be frugal, want the adorable home, maybe a little farm in their Urban backyard, purposely don't match their sheets, like fun accent walls in each room, want to homeschool their children, need to do a major household budget, and downsize, but won't compromise on a good life. This is for the families that want to cut the grocery bill big time and still have their organics and non-GMO popcorn. This is also for the families happy to ditch the car and walk to save money and the environment but won't give up their entertaining and gatherings. This book is loaded with great advice and tips on everything from a household budget, making your own cleaners, going a little country in the city, throwing parties with a few dollars, and having a good life on very little.

     Christopher McKinlay has been featured in Wired Magazine for his groundbreaking analysis of OkCupid. For the first time he’s showing non-experts how to turn Internet dating on its head. This concise guide will show anyone (straight, gay, male or female) the procedure McKinlay used to meet his fiancee and how the same ideas can transform their lives and bring them from browsing to contact. One summer evening while logged into a supercomputer in Colorado waiting for a large computation, McKinlay was killing time on OkC when he was troubled by a problem: what if large groups of people responded to OkCupid’s personality questionnaire in statistically similar ways? He created custom software to scrape data from the site, collecting over 6,000,000 answers to OkC’s “match questions” from more than 20,000 real users. This data made clear he’d been using the site the wrong way. Based on his findings, McKinlay (a mathematics PhD), optimized his own profile. The transformation was profound. He went from showing a “match percentage” of 90% with a few hundred women in the L.A. area to showing 90% or higher with over 30,000 local women. Unsolicited messages from attractive strangers began flooding his inbox. With a foreword by Jon Finkel, McKinlay’s insightful how-to will teach you how to benefit from the buried statistical patterns of online romance.