Eating Well for Optimum Health


Andrew Weil - 2000
    It clarifies the mishmash of conflicting news, research, hype, and hearsay regarding diet, nutrition, and supplementation, and further establishes the judicious Dr. Weil, the director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, as a savior of public well-being. If you've ever wondered what "partially hydrogenated soybean oil" really is, been perplexed by contrary news reports about recommended dosages for supplements, or questioned the safety of using aluminum pots for cooking, Dr. Weil will make it all clear. Weil (pronounced "while") bravely criticizes many of the major diet books on the market, and backs up his admonitions with science. He warns readers to not fall under "the spell" of the anticarbohydrate Atkins Diet, but also criticizes the eating plan advocated by Dr. Dean Ornish--which has been granted Medicare coverage for cardiac patients--as being too low fat for the majority of people. (The omega-3 fatty acids missing from Ornish's diet are essential for hormone production and the control of inflammation, he says.) It's also fascinating to learn that autism, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease may be caused by omega-3 fatty acid deficiencies, while an excess of omega-6 fatty acids--very common in the typical American diet--can exacerbate arthritis symptoms. Weil's explanation of the chemistry of fats will prove difficult for most readers, but few will want to eat fast-food French fries ever again after reading his appalling reasons for avoiding them, which go way beyond their well-documented heart-clogging capabilities. After a thorough rundown of nutritional basics and a primer of micronutrients such as vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytochemicals, Weil unveils what he feels is "the best diet in the world," with 85 recipes, such as Salmon Cakes and Oven-Fried Potatoes, that are healthy, tasty, quick to prepare, and complete with nutritional breakdowns. He includes a stirring chapter on safe weight loss (he sympathizes with the overweight and comically recalls his one-week trial of a safflower oil-diet while an undergraduate). Other, equally enlightening sections include tips for eating out and shopping for food (with warnings on various additives and a guide to organics), and a wondrous appendix with dietary recommendations for dozens of health concerns, including allergies, asthma, cancer prevention, mood disorders, and pregnancy. Eating Well is an indispensable consumer reference and one not afraid to lambaste the diet industry and empower the public with information about which the majority of doctors--to the detriment of the public health--are ignorant. --Erica Jorgensen

Don't Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight


Rujuta Diwekar - 2009
    ; 20 cm.

The Joy of Half a Cookie: Using Mindfulness to Lose Weight and End the Struggle with Food


Jean Kristeller - 2015
    In this practical and paradigm-shifting book, Dr. Jean Kristeller presents a new alternative--a program for weight loss based on her successful Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training Program. Instead of frustration, depravation, backsliding, guilt, and a lack of results, The Joy of Half a Cookie provides simple, proven ways to lose weight and keep it off, using what we now know about the power of the mind.The first book to bring mindfulness to the dieting space in a truly accessible and mainstream way, The Joy of Half a Cookie will show readers how to lose weight while:ditching willpower, guilt, and cravingsloving every bite, including favorite and previously “forbidden” foodstapping into the body’s satiety signalsWritten for anyone who wants to lose weight – not just the mediation and yoga crowd – this accessible book delivers a proven way to find peace of mind and a healthier relationship with food, for life.

Healthier Without Wheat: A New Understanding of Wheat Allergies, Celiac Disease, and Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance


Stephen Wangen - 2009
    For millions of people, bread, pasta, and many other foods are bad for their health. Thousands of people have already come to their own realization that they are healthier without wheat in their diet, but it can be difficult to figure out when most doctors aren’t knowledgeable on the topic. This book provides validation for what these people have discovered, and explains how you too can determine whether or not wheat and gluten are making you sick. In Healthier Without Wheat you learn the difference between celiac disease, non-celiac gluten intolerance, and wheat allergies. You will discover how hundreds of health problems are connected to wheat and gluten reactions and why sorting this out on your own can be more difficult than you might think. You will also discover how you can be gluten intolerant even if you don’t have celiac disease, and why non-celiac gluten intolerance can be just as severe as or more severe than celiac disease. You will also learn how to determine if your infant or child reacts to wheat or gluten. Healthier Without Wheat also covers nutritional deficiencies commonly seen in gluten intolerance, and equally important, what to do if you are avoiding gluten but not getting better. You should read this book if you or someone you know suffers from any of the following: abdominal pain, chronic anemia (iron deficiency), arthritis, autoimmune diseases, constipation, depression, diarrhea, eczema, fatigue, fibromyalgia, frequent illness, headaches, heartburn, hypoglycemia, irritable bowel syndrome, irritability, migraines, or osteoporosis.

The Hot Belly Diet: A 30-Day Ayurvedic Plan to Reset Your Metabolism, Lose Weight, and Restore Your Body's Natural Balance to Heal Itself


Suhas G. Kshirsagar - 2014
    Suhas hears on a daily basis, from body weight chaos, low energy, and poor sleep, to headaches, unexplained congestion, and depression, all have a surprising common denominator: a weak digestive “fire.” Drawing on ancient Indian practices and principles, The Hot Belly Diet shows you how to optimize your digestive powers to foster rapid weight loss and vibrant health.At the core of this three-phase diet that makes lunch the most important meal of the day is a dish called khichadi (pronounced kitch-a-de)—a complete but incredibly easy-to-make meal that helps clear out your “ama,” or the digestive sludge that antagonizes weight loss, provokes hormonal imbalances, and ultimately triggers inflammation—the root cause of virtually all disease. This unique book also explains incompatible foods (milk and eggs, for example), why the sensation of hunger is essential, and how to time your meals throughout the day without snacking. The Hot Belly Diet changes your relationship with food to make healthy eating—and living—effortless.Whether you’re suffering from a chronic condition, looking to prevent future illness, or just want to feel your best every day, The Hot Belly Diet will re-establish your body’s natural balance, creating a thinner, healthier, and happier you.

The Abascal Way to Quiet Inflammation + The Abascal Way Cookbook for Health and Weight Loss


Kathy Abascal - 2011
    Some 15 of the adults on Vashon have taken the Abascal Way TQI diet classes a diet now going viral in Seattle and across the country. This simple but sophisticated diet quickly reduces aches and pains, improves the symptoms of chronic illnesses, ignites weight loss, and increases wellbeing. In Michael Overlakes words I came to class overweight, my joints ached, I had psoriasis, IBS, and my blood pressure was out of control even on medication. Two months later, I have lost 22 pounds, I am pain free, my IBS is gone, my skin is clearing, and I am off hypertensive medication and my blood pressure is normal. Rex is an inspiration I weighed over 300 pounds, was a type 2 diabetic on over 100 units of insulin a day, and could not exercise. Today, my doctor says I am no longer diabetic, I no longer use insulin or any other medication. I have lost 85 pounds and am able to exercise again. Dr. Ronald Singler MD, Medical director of the Highline Medical Group recommends Abascal Way classes Kathy Abascal teaches evidence-based, well researched classes on the nourishment human bodies and minds need. The facts, strategies, recipes, and shopping hints are practical and well-prepared. This is the best nutrition class I have ever experienced. I recommend the classes to family, friends, colleagues, co-workers, and patients. All who have taken the class have thanked me. For some particularly stubborn, medically needy friends, I promised to pay for the class if they were dissatisfied. So far, I have not had to pay up. For the first time, these extraordinary classes are now available in book form. The Abascal Way fits all It works for carnivores and vegans, for mainstream American and traditional ethnic diets. Calories are not counted and portions are not limited. Instead, it offers an incredibly satisfying, effective, and healthy way to quickly improve both health and appearance.

ChiRunning: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running


Danny Dreyer - 2004
    This new edition is fully updated with fresh insights and innovative training techniques from one of the sport's leading voices. Danny Dreyer teaches us how to heal and prevent injuries and also to run faster, farther, and with much less effort at any age or ability.With more than 150,000 copies in print, this groundbreaking program makes running safe and fun for beginning and seasoned runners, while also giving competitive runners the edge they seek. ChiRunning employs the deep power reserves in the core muscles, an approach found in disciplines such as yoga, Pilates, and in this case T'ai Chi. Make knee pain and shin splints a thing of the past Experience the natural efficiency of the midfoot strike Dramatically reduce your potential for injury Transform your running with our new 10-step training program ChiRunning provides powerful insight and transforms running from a high-injury sport to a body-friendly fitness phenomenon. Join the revolution!

The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor


Mark Schatzker - 2015
    The epidemics of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are not tied to the overabundance of fat or carbs or any other specific nutrient. Instead, we have been led astray by the growing divide between flavor - the tastes we crave - and the underlying nutrition. Since the late 1940s, we have been slowly leeching flavor out of the food we grow. Those perfectly round, red tomatoes that grace our supermarket aisles today are mostly water, and the big breasted chickens on our dinner plates grow three times faster than they used to, leaving them dry and tasteless. Simultaneously, we have taken great leaps forward in technology, allowing us to produce in the lab the very flavors that are being lost on the farm. Thanks to this largely invisible epidemic, seemingly healthy food is becoming more like junk food: highly craveable but nutritionally empty. We have unknowingly interfered with an ancient chemical language - flavor - that evolved to guide our nutrition, not destroy it.With in-depth historical and scientific research, The Dorito Effect casts the food crisis in a fascinating new light, weaving an enthralling tale of how we got to this point and where we are headed. We've been telling ourselves that our addiction to flavor is the problem, but it is actually the solution. We are on the cusp of a new revolution in agriculture that will allow us to eat healthier and live longer by enjoying flavor the way nature intended.

This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness & Change Your Life


Annie Grace - 2015
    They fear drinking less will be boring, involving deprivation, difficulty and significant lifestyle changes. This Naked Mind offers a new solution. Packed with surprising insight into the reasons we drink, it will open your eyes to the startling role of alcohol in our culture. Annie Grace brilliantly weaves psychological, neurological, cultural, social and industry factors with her extraordinarily candid journey resulting in a must read for anyone who drinks. This book, without scare tactics, pain or rules, gives you freedom from alcohol. By addressing causes rather than symptoms it is a permanent solution rather than lifetime struggle. It removes the psychological dependence allowing you to easily drink less (or stop drinking). Annie’s clarity, humor and unique ability to blend original research with riveting storytelling ensures you will thoroughly enjoy the process. In a world defined by ‘never enough’ Annie takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of alcohol and specifically the connection between alcohol and pleasure. She dispels the cultural myth that alcohol is a vital part of life and demonstrates how regaining control over alcohol is not only essential to personal happiness and fulfillment but also to ending the heartache experienced by millions as a result of secondhand drinking. Finally, with perfect clarity, this book opens the door to the life you have been waiting for. Read this book. You’ll be glad you did.

Get the Sugar Out: 501 Simple Ways to Cut the Sugar Out of Any Diet


Ann Louise Gittleman - 1996
    Here she offers 501 simple, resourceful, and practical tips for cutting sugar from your diet, giving you the knowledge and inspiration you need to live a healthier life. A few of Gittleman’s basic ways to cut sugar include:• Eat more meals at home, so you can oversee the ingredients and avoid hidden sugars• If you have a sweet tooth, try tricking it by chewing on a cinnamon stick• Be a food detective; don’t trust “sugar free” or “fat free” labels• Cut down on salt not only to be healthier but because it helps cut out sugar cravings• Don’t exchange sugar for artificial sweeteners; as you’ll find out here, many are harmfulWith type II diabetes at an all-time high, cutting sugar from your diet is imperative. Get the Sugar Out is your solution for treatment and prevention: a unique, practical guide to a healthy and happy low-sugar lifestyle.

The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World


John Robbins - 2001
    Robbins argues for adopting a vegetarian diet for personal wellbeing as well as for the wellbeing of the planet. Photos, charts & tables.

The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat


Stephan Guyenet - 2017
    And certainly no one wants to overeat for years, become overweight, and end up with a high risk of diabetes or heart disease--yet two thirds of Americans do precisely that. Even though we know better, we often eat too much. Why does our behavior betray our own intentions to be lean and healthy? The problem, argues obesity and neuroscience researcher Stephan J. Guyenet, is not necessarily a lack of willpower or an incorrect understanding of what to eat. Rather, our appetites and food choices are led astray by ancient, instinctive brain circuits that play by the rules of a survival game that no longer exists. And these circuits don’t care about how you look in a bathing suit next summer.To make the case, The Hungry Brain takes readers on an eye-opening journey through cutting-edge neuroscience that has never before been available to a general audience. The Hungry Brain delivers profound insights into why the brain undermines our weight goals and transforms these insights into practical guidelines for eating well and staying slim. Along the way, it explores how the human brain works, revealing how this mysterious organ makes us who we are.

Life is Hard, Food Is Easy: The 5-Step Plan to Overcome Emotional Eating and Lose Weight on Any Diet


Linda Spangle - 2002
    Over the past 15 years, Linda Spangle has helped thousands of clients to learn to cope with their emotions, thereby allowing them to lose weight successfully and keep it off -- permanently. In this book, Spangle shares her fool-proof method for beating emotional eating -- the method that accounts for her clients' 90% success rate! Spangle reveals how you can cope with your feelings of frustration, boredom, or loneliness, and offers her proven step-by-step program to stop your emotions from interfering with your eating habits. These 5 simple steps teach you how to identify the emotional void the food is attempting to fulfil and empower you to break your self-destructive behaviour. According to Spangle, your weight-loss success rate increases dramatically only when your emotional coping skills become stronger and incorporated into your daily life.

The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight


Satchin Panda - 2018
    Like most people, you probably wake up, get hungry for meals and doze off in bed around the same time every day. If you’ve ever experienced jet lag or pulled an all-nighter, you know that this schedule can easily be thrown off kilter. But for some people, that imbalance—difficulty sleeping at night, hunger at odd times, or sudden fatigue at noon—is a constant. If you're one of those people, Dr. Satchin Panda, one of the leading researchers on circadian rhythms, has a plan to reset your body clock.Beginning with an in-depth explanation of the circadian clock—why it’s important, how it works, and how to know it isn’t working—The Circadian Code outlines lifestyle changes to make to get back on track. It's a concrete plan to enhance weight loss, improve sleep, optimize exercise, and manage technology so that it doesn’t interfere with your body’s natural rhythm. Dr. Panda’s life-changing methods show you how to prevent and reverse ailments like diabetes, cancer, and dementia, as well as microbiome conditions like acid reflux, heartburn, and irritable bowel disease.

Disease-Proof: The Remarkable Truth About What Makes Us Well


David L. Katz - 2013
    In Disease-Proof, renowned preventive medicine specialist Dr. David Katz reveals that we can reduce our risk of any chronic disease by an astonishing 80 percent—more than any drug or intervention could ever hope to do. Abundant scientific evidence shows that four simple things—not smoking, eating well, being active, and maintaining a healthy weight—play an enormous role in our health. Drawing upon the latest scientific evidence and decades of clinical experience, Dr. Katz arms us with the skills to make lasting changes in each of these areas. Disease-Proof equips readers with the knowledge to manage weight, improve immune function, reprogram our genes, and prevent and reverse life-altering illnesses. Groundbreaking and timely, this book is for readers of The End of Illness by David Agus and Anticancer by David Servan-Schreiber.