FitSugar

Weekend Reading: Master Your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels

FitSugar — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 03:30:00 -0700

The key to mastering your metabolism, according to the new book by Jillian Michaels? Hormones! But not in the way you normally think of hormones.

In Master Your Metabolism: The 3 Diet Secrets to Naturally Balancing Your Hormones For a Hot and Healthy Body!, the Biggest Loser trainer explains how the myriad hormones that make up your endocrine system - including cortisol, ghrelin, testosterone, and leptin - work to keep your body healthy and balanced.

One of the new anti-diet books, this incredibly detailed guide combines personal memoir, serious science, and healthy eating recommendations to shed light on how artificial additives and other external factors can sabotage our weight-loss efforts. The book starts out incredibly academic, defining the various hormones and how they work; it was too much scientific jargon for me. But after wading through that I learned a lot. To find out what, read more.

Michaels's basic premise is that the toxins in processed foods, nonorganic produce, prescription medications, and the environment can throw our hormones out of whack, wreaking havoc on our systems. She writes, "Any and every body function you can imagine is controlled by your hormones." Her "three diet secrets" divide the book into three phases: removing these toxins from your life, replacing them with healthy foods, and rebalancing your hormones through diet, sleep, and exercise.

She offers a strict and simple meal plan that involves eating every four hours and tells you how to look at all the labels in your pantry and toss out the really bad stuff. She also acknowledges that we can't eat perfectly all the time and offers suggestions for good but not great foods. Along the way, she adds personal touches, like memories of being an overweight kid and confessing that she hates to exercise (which I have a hard time believing).

I like how the book offers different reasons for eating healthy than the ones we're used to hearing. It really made me think about how bad junk food really is and how every decision about what we put in our bodies has a ripple effect. This certainly isn't a book you can absorb with a quick skim; it's very dense with information. But I learned a great deal reading it and plan to return to it as a reference.

Trend Alert: Antidiet Diet Books

FitSugar — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:00:00 -0700

Move over, Atkins and South Beach: antidiet books are the new diet books. Lately I've noticed a slew of what might be called weight management, rather than weight loss, books landing on my desk, reinforcing the ever-growing sentiment that diets, at least in the traditional sense, don't work. But changing your eating habits does.

People like Maria Langer, who I heard interviewed on NPR the other day, are admitting that the diet books they bought over the years turned out to be a waste of money. But the publishing industry is filling the void with books about how to stop dieting and keep off the weight, among them Naturally Thin: Unleash Your Skinnygirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting by Real Housewives star Bethenny Frankel and The Big Skinny, an instructive memoir from a woman who learned to keep off the pounds without dieting. For more on the trend, read more.

Other very recent additions include The Skinny by Louis J. Aronne and Master Your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels (stay tuned for more on that), both of which purport that managing your body's chemistry and metabolism is far more effective than dieting. Similarly, some of my favorite food books of the past year, including The Daily Fix by Alexa Fishback, have focused not on short-term fixes but on changing your eating habits for the better, for good.

I'd even put in this category Michael Pollan's books The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, which have changed many people's eating habits more than any old diet book could. What's your favorite antidiet diet book?

Weekend Reading: The Daily Fix by Alexa L. Fishback

FitSugar — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 04:55:49 -0800

Alexa L. Fishback is my kind of nutritionist: one who understands that nutrition isn't always easy for young working women on the go. Her book The Daily Fix: Your Guide to Healthy Habits For Good Nutrition, released last week, acknowledges that work happy hours can tempt us from working out and that lunch meetings are a necessary but often unhealthy obligation.

To these modern-day challenges, The Daily Fix offers all kinds of solutions, depending on your lifestyle. Fishback recommends everything from keeping a food journal to setting BlackBerry reminders for your workouts and healthy snack times. She explains how to deconstruct those catered-lunch sandwiches to make them healthier and explores how one chai latte a day can really add up in terms of calories. For all the tasty details, read more.

The book is an easy, breezy, and fun read that's also packed with pointers from how to shop smart for groceries to dealing with dining out. She illustrates her lessons with real-life case studies where she solves individual women's nutritional needs. Fishback even has a chapter called "Things We Don't Like to Discuss" that deals with health issues like IBS, PMS, and other "girly" maladies. I particularly love the Savvy Girl Tips scattered throughout, such as "Make a pact with yourself not to purchase food unless you are in a grocery store or a restaurant," to avoid impulse buys at places like Blockbuster and Walgreens.

If you're into a healthy (but realistic) lifestyle, I highly recommend picking up this surprisingly hearty book.

Oh La La: TravelFit Paris

FitSugar — Thu, 17 May 2007 09:30:00 -0700

If you're lucky enough to be spending some time in the City of Lights this summer, you may find yourself indulging in some tasty pain au chocolat and vin rouge. This is great, but if you want to fit into all the très chic clothing you just picked up when you get home, you may want to check out this book before you travel.

The very first book in the TravelFit Guides series, TravelFit Paris ($10.17) is a great guide book for the fit and health-conscious traveler in Paris. Whether looking for a safe running route, a place to purchase soy milk, an English-spoken Pilates class, a personal trainer, a yoga studio, or the best walking tours to help burn off those French treats, TravelFit Paris will provide some great information. Heading there soon? Then buy it from Amazon.com.

Weekend Reading- Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash

FitSugar — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 03:00:00 -0700

I love to cozy up to a good book on the weekend. How about you? Being that Earth Day is coming up, I thought you might like to read something that could actually get you recycling, rather than just thinking about it. Ever wonder what happens to that plastic wrapper after it leaves your house and goes into the garbage truck? Hum, well maybe you should...

Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash ($16.47) is a book that will change the way you think every time you throw something away. The subject of the book is one that we, as a society, don't usually think about often: The massive, defunct Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, N.Y. Royte tracks her own consumption and refuse, noting how it's just not that easy to lessen how much you use and throw away. Once you read Garbage Land, you will think about Fresh Kills, along with all the other landfills that are bursting at the seams and fuming with toxic gases. Some parts of the book are rather gross and other parts are a bit technical (too technical at times), but Royte writes in a non-judgmental this is how it is form. If nothing else, you'll walk away from it wondering how you can personally produce less garbage and positively impact the earth.

Just in time for Earth Day, so buy it from Amazon.com.

Lose Pounds and Gain Shoes: The Shoe Diet

FitSugar — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:00:00 -0700

Do you love shoes? I sure do. It's a strange phenom really, women and their shoes. What else do women love (well love to hate, really)? Dieting. So, isn't it then a great idea to combine dieting and shoes?

This is just what Isabelle Shaw, author of The Shoe Diet ($12.95) has done. Unfortunately this diet is not about a special pair of shoes that curb your hunger (though I am sure we'll be seeing that in the future), it is based on the power of reward. What's a better reward than shoes? The diet is built upon a series of steps that you must take in order to earn your rewards, shoes. The first one being that you must start a food journal and begin your shoe rating system. For example, think of everything you eat just like a hotel star system, with one shoe corresponding to "not really worth it" and five shoes meaning "it was so worth it!" Soon you'll be eliminating your one shoe foods from your diet, all while keeping your eye on the ball: Your first new pair of kicks for a job well done.

I love that Dr. Shaw has realized that while we may not be willing to finally step up and eat right for our health, we will do it for a pair of hot shoes. Kind of reminds me of click it or ticket, we won't buckle up for our safety, but we'll do it to save 50 bucks. This is a diet that I think FabSugar (not that she needs to go on a diet) will enjoy. Buy the book on Amazon.com.

Weekend Reading: It's Not About the Bike

FitSugar — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 03:00:00 -0700

One of the pleasures of Spring is getting out my bike and tooling around town or going for serious rides. I love to bike. Do you? Are you looking for inspiration? Looking for a good read? Well if you haven't already you should read Lance Armstrong's autobiography: It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life.

Co written with Sally Jenkins, a sportswriter for the Washington Post, it is easy and entertaining to read. Although the book is "ghost written," Armstrong's voice comes through clearly and honestly. Most of all it is an unromanticized telling of Armstrong's life story: his early biking years, his diagnosis with stage 4 cancer, his battle with the disease, his amazing recovery and his amazing wins of the Tour de France. Just surviving cancer is amazing and just winning the Tour de France is amazing, but the combination of the two is beyond incredible.

When you finish the book you really feel like you know him, and man you really want him to keep winning. And what's great is he did.

Get it from Amazon for $10.50. Or better yet, hop on your bike and pick it up at your local bookstore.

Weekend Reading: Yoga Books With a Spiritual Flare

FitSugar — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 03:00:00 -0700

There are so many books out there on yoga, It seems like every yoga instructor in the world has written a book. Many of them contain the same information about the same postures. It gives people the impression that yoga is just a form of exercise, and that's all.

Yoga is so much more. It's all about the emotions and sensations that come from turning your awareness inward. It's about listening to your inner voice, and about expanding your heart.

The thing that is so amazing about yoga is that it's been around for thousands of years and it has an astounding and rich history.

All of these books listed below are wonderful reads if you are looking to learn more about the spiritual and historical aspect of yoga.

Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness by Erich Schiffmann (available through Amazon for $11.53) is one of the 1st books I picked up. It does illustrate postures, but it also focuses on using the practice of yoga as a way to meditate, and listen to your inner heart to find guidance and support.

If you want to see the others, then read more

Open Body: Creating Your Own Yoga by Todd Walton is a beautiful book. There are amazing artistic drawings of postures and delicate words describing how to tap into your emotional and creative self through yoga.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, was translated by Sri Swami Satchidananda and is a complete manual for the study of the spiritual practice of yoga. It's a must-have for people wanting to learn about the foundation and basis of yoga. Get it for $10.68 through Amazon.

The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice by T.K.V. Desikachar is available through Amazon for $13.57. This is an exceptional book written by the son of the great Krishnamacharya, who by the way, taught Sri BKS Iyengar (founder of Iyengar yoga) and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois (founder of Ashtanga yoga). That alone should inspire you to pick up this book. It describes so much about the study of yoga, and in the back, even includes the complete text of the Yoga Sutras.

I hope these books help to explain more about the important aspects of yoga. It's not just about twisting yourself into a pretzel and standing on your head. It's about listening to the voice within, becoming aware of and experiencing the truth, wisdom, and love inside your heart, and sharing what you discover with the world.

Weekend Reading: The Four Day Win

FitSugar — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 07:00:00 -0700

Sometimes it is hard to see turning your life around in terms of forever, because forever just seems like a long, long time to be going to the gym every three days. Well, what if you approached looking at your fitness or health goals in just four days?

Dr. Martha Beck, recognized lifestyle coach, believes that the first four days on starting any lifestyle change are the hardest four days. After four days, it should start to feel normal. In The Four Day Win ($17.13), Beck reveals her thoughts on why willpower-based dieting is doomed to fail as well as how to step out of the conflict between the rule-making commander (who bans all our favorite foods) and the rule-breaking resistor (who gives in to cravings) and reach the watcher (who is our happiest self). The book also details the latest research into the mind-body connection revealing how our emotions affect our eating.

My favorite part of this book is that there is no end-all-be-all (fall off the wagon and you're doomed) approach that we so commonly see in fad diets and fitness programs these days. It is very comforting to know that if you have a relapse, or as I like to call it a bad day, you're only 4 days from turning it back around. Buy it now from Amazon.com.

Weekend Reading - Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders

FitSugar — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:00:00 -0800

During National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, I think that it's important that we take more away from it all than anger at the fashion industry, misunderstanding and confusion.

We all like to point fingers and speculate about eating disorders but the only ones who really know the truth behind it are those with eating disorders. Aimee Liu had anorexia in her 20s and conquered it, or so she thought. In her 40s, she stopped eating again. She wrote the book Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders ($16.49) to chronicle her own struggles and dispel myths but also to tell the stories of 40 other people with eating disorders too. Liu believes that societal pressure, popular culture and family dysfunction do not make someone anorexic; it takes a particular genetic predisposition and temperament. The book will teach you who is susceptible to eating disorders and why, how these diseases can waste sufferers' lives in ways that have nothing to do with food or weight and why recovery requires more than good nutrition.

To read an excerpt from the book, read more

In my lifelong habit of biting my nails. I glanced across the table. Yes, Candace also chewed her nails, although, tellingly, she had succeeded in restricting herself to her left ring finger.

Was anorexia nervosa merely another symptom of this internal constraint’ The more Candace and I talked, the more we did seem to have in common. Our similarities went way beyond where and when we were raised: we both dreaded making a mistake; both hated being the center of attention, even though we craved praise and needed to excel; we didn’t laugh easily or openly or trust ourselves to relax. I imagined the two of us standing side by side, question marks tattooed on our foreheads.

That night I said to Candace, "If we went back and talked with the other women we knew who had eating disorders in high school and college, I think we'd find we all have more in common - even today - than we have with the rest of our classmates."

But Candace was not so sure. "Don't you think people change’"

"I think they can when they know what needs changing.

Gaining weight was only a first step - for me, at least." ....

I'm totally going to add this to my list of weekend reading. You can buy the book from amazon.com.

Excerpt from MSNBC.com