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Making a New You Possible
The dawning of a new year bursts with motivation for health and fitness. Each year, there’s the hope that this year I’ll lose the weight, I’ll be more active, I’ll take control of chronic illnesses. But just as pervasive as that new year’s hope is winter with its power to freeze enthusiasm, pin in with with hopelessness, and send any positive inertia into hibernation. These books are the remedy for this conundrum. They provide everyday know-how, long-term wisdom, and compassionate encouragement to those seeking to achieve their health and fitness goals in 2017 and beyond.
Eat Wheat
A Scientifically and Clinically-Proven Approach to Safely Bringing Wheat and Dairy Back into Your Diet
John Douillard
Morgan James Publishing
Softcover $21.95 (325pp)
978-1-68350-009-4
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Gluten-free has gone from diet craze to full-scale movement. But is gluten unequivocally a substance to be avoided? That, along with similar concerns about dairy, is the question of John A. Douillard’s book.
Through his experience, he believes that eliminating dairy and wheat are only short-term, surface-level fixes for a larger problem: when the digestive tract isn’t working well, it releases toxins into the lymphatic system. By dealing with this root issue, Douillard is able to craft a solution that has long-term results and fewer dietary restrictions. As with any modern food trend, there’s truth and there’s hype. Douillard, as a physician, deftly separates the two. For example, contrary to common understanding, ancient wheat had twice the gluten of today’s wheat, and it also had substantial health benefits. By digging deep into facts, research, and history, he silences the noise that makes it difficult to know what decisions to make. In doing so, he equips modern eaters for health and affirms their own abilities to make healthy choices.
By reexamining history, eating patterns, and the modern diet, Douillard crafts a holistic, nuanced solution that embraces moderation and the body’s own rhythms. His solution is a balance of broad principles and practical nuts and bolts (including a seasonal grocery list). Those who follow his advice will find their diet rich and diverse, and their digestive and overall health enriched.
Douillard’s approach is positive, even as he doles out information as a doctor. He doesn’t blast people who’ve gone gluten-free, even if they’ve done so for reasons that have proved ineffective. Instead, he invites all kinds of eaters to rethink their habits. Douillard’s style and wisdom appeal to those who long for health and aren’t satisfied with simplistic answers that don’t achieve real change. Empowered by the contents of this book, anyone can craft a truly healthy, balanced diet.
MELISSA WUSKE (November 11, 2016)
Epic Bike Rides of the World
Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet
Hardcover $35.00 (320pp)
978-1-76034-083-4
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
At first glance, what stands out most about this volume is its beauty—the gorgeous cover, the breathtaking interior photos full of personality, the maps that are simple and useful yet visually appealing. But that level of excellence and attention to detail simply befits the beautiful world these memorable bike rides showcase, and this volume contains information and insight that reach far beneath the surface.
The book focuses on fifty featured routes, each one paired with three bonus ideas of similar rides. The rides are organized by continent, with the Americas and Europe having the most rides (two in Africa). Each ride has a map showing an overview of the ride path and a map showing where the ride is in the country. Then, each has a luscious, engagingly personal firsthand description of the ride, with a straightforward description and the intangible flavor of the experience. The narrators are clearly travel enthusiasts, so they pay attention to culture and history as well as fun and adventure. The toolkit sidebars provide at-a-glance data on each ride, plus where to find out more.
The book has the expertise and excellence you’d expect from Lonely Planet. It is best suited to experienced cyclists, but it by no means requires the most advanced skills, readers are assured. The table of contents features icons that indicate the difficulty of each ride, and the narratives give a sense of physical difficulty of the terrain. There are rides for twenty-something trekkers as well as families and retirees. And even armchair cyclists will enjoy paging through the book. With everything adventurers and cycling enthusiasts need to get inspired and pull off the rides of a lifetime in every corner of the globe, riders will only be sorry that this book is a bit hefty to take along on their adventures.
MELISSA WUSKE (November 28, 2016)
Relax into Yoga for Seniors
A Six-Week Program for Strength, Balance, Flexibility, and Pain Relief
Kimberly Carson
Carol Krucoff
New Harbinger Publications
Softcover $19.95 (200pp)
978-1-62625-364-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Kimberly Carson and Carol Krucoff equip America’s ever-growing senior population with daily exercises and rhythms that build balance, strength, flexibility, and overall well-being. The six-week yoga course transitions into long-term daily practices so that older adults can foster and maintain health for their bodies and minds. Each week features poses geared toward goals like range of motion and spinal health, giving a clear sense of purpose and progress to increase motivation.
Each exercise has clear, simple instructions for gentle movements and frequent reminders to help prevent injuries. While most of the movements are within the capabilities of the average senior, they also address limiting factors like osteoporosis and lung disease and give instruction to help seniors move at their own pace and comfort level.
Each exercise features sketches to illustrate the pose. The sketches are of real models profiled at the end of the book. The people are all older adults and vary in body type, presenting an openness to the wide variety of real-life bodies rather than projecting perfection. And the sketches themselves have just the right amount of detail to guide without distraction (much better than photos often do), and yet they still maintain a warm, human feel.
The book is accessible to those new to the body-and-mind awareness yoga requires and cultivates. Through straightforward, not overly ethereal instructions and a focus on benefits, Carson and Krucoff engage people from all physical-exercise backgrounds. They also give thorough instructions on how to prepare body, mind, and space. The audio download (and other online resources) lets you listen while you try the poses, rather than turning repeatedly to the book during a session.
Carson and Krucoff’s book is senior-focused, not simple yoga adapted for older adults. The tone is approachable, encouraging, and deeply respectful—never belittling or forceful.
MELISSA WUSKE (November 28, 2016)
Your Health, Your Decisions
How to Work with Your Doctor to Become a Knowledge-Powered Patient
Robert Alan McNutt
The University of North Carolina Press
Hardcover $25.00 (168pp)
978-1-4696-2917-9
Buy: Amazon
As a physician, Robert Alan McNutt comes from a position of knowledge and power, but he knows that the key to true health is to share knowledge rather than hoard it, to offer power rather than cling to it.
For many patients, when a doctor offers options, the patient feels immediately trapped into trying to make a decision. McNutt offers a process that helps patients communicate with physicians and know what questions to ask to end this feeling of helplessness. He uses real-life examples to help illustrate his points and to make change feel truly possible. He explains the role of studies and data on surgeries and medications, but the book is as much relational and problem-solving advice as it is medical information.
For many, becoming an empowered decision maker requires a significant shift in perspective. To help make these shifts, McNutt explains the benefits—and they’re quite significant, medically, emotionally, and otherwise—and addresses common roadblocks people face in making the change.
On every page, his respect for patients, for people, shines through. This attitude is the book’s greatest asset and the greatest gift it offers people facing health care choices, from everyday decisions to life-threatening conditions such as heart disease and breast cancer. The book’s tone is calm and positive, and the concise chapters allow patients to take the opportunity to embrace change rather than feeling burdened by the proposition.
With McNutt’s cooperative problem-solving insight, patients will feel like partners rather than pawns in the health-care system. His advice also equips parents and caregivers to be part of the decision-making process on behalf of those they love and care for. Medical professionals can also benefit from his insights as they seek to shift from positions of authority to that of guides for the patients in their care.
MELISSA WUSKE (November 28, 2016)
21 Things You Need to Know about Diabetes & Weight Loss Surgery
Scott A. Cunneen
Nancy Sayles Kaneshiro
American Diabetes Association
Softcover $12.95 (128pp)
978-1-58040-614-7
Buy: Amazon
Diabetes and obesity go hand in hand, and both are dishearteningly common health issues today. Scott Cunneen and Nancy Sayles Kaneshiro share the wisdom gained from performing metabolic surgeries—including gastric bypass, sleeve gastrectomy, and adjustable gastric band—to help people lose weight in order to maintain healthy glucose levels.
As these procedures grow in popularity, it’s easy to think of them as ready solutions, but Cunneen’s perspective is more nuanced: while these procedures can have dramatic effects, they aren’t the best fit for every situation, and they require long-term change to be fully effective. The book addresses everything patients need to know before, during, and after surgery, as well as common myths and keys to success. As a result, the information and insight presented goes beyond the physical and medical, examining the psychology of healthy change and how to set and maintain appropriate expectations—all in a slim, accessible, easy-to-understand volume.
Cunneen’s medical expertise is the bedrock of the book, but Kaneshiro’s less overt perspective helps the book feel well-rounded and approachable. She’s had a metabolic surgery and maintained long-term health, and she and Cunneen have since partnered on books and seminars to help educate and prepare people for the procedures. A chapter from dietitian Jennifer Arussi, MS, RDN, also bolsters the full-circle, whole-life benefits of the book. Plus, the book is published by the American Diabetes Association.
In a topic that can easily feel hopeless or packed with hype, Cunneen and Kaneshiro take the middle ground, offering thoughtful, sensible advice to those whose health hangs in the balance. This book is also an asset to loved ones helping make these decisions. The calm, positive, levelheaded tone of the narrative offers those struggling to lose weight and manage their diabetes the wisdom they need to confidently make the best choices for their health.
MELISSA WUSKE (November 28, 2016)
The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy
Over 800 Natural, Nontoxic, and Fragrant Recipes to Create Health, Beauty, and Safe Home and Work Environments
Valerie Ann Worwood
New World Library
Softcover $24.95 (556pp)
978-1-57731-139-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Essential oils are the latest craze in the home-party market, but these natural health products pack a much more powerful benefit than kitchen gadgets and fashion items. Worwood was an essential-oil expert well before the current trend. The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy offers decades of wisdom (this is the 25th Anniversary edition, after all) on these age-old remedies. Her book highlights the power of oils without the hype.
Impressively thorough, well organized, and with a clear table of contents, Worwood’s book is easily navigable to find information symptom by symptom, oil by oil, or topic by topic (such as workplace or travel). There are chapters dedicated to men’s, women’s, and children’s health. Each section has a brief background on the condition or issue being discussed and in-depth instructions on how to use essential oils to help: what oils to use, how to mix or apply them, and what results to expect. And essential oils are not just for superficial or minor conditions: Worwood showcases their benefits for life-threatening or chronic conditions like cancer or multiple sclerosis.
Worwood’s tone is positive and pragmatic. With benefits for whole-body health, home, and beauty, the promise of essential oils seems too good to be true, but Worwood’s research, experience, and diligent instruction, along with her calm voice, prove the might of natural oils.
While even essential-oil experts can learn from this book, it’s beginner-friendly as well, with background information on what essential oils are, where they come from, and how they can be used. This book is a vital resource for anyone looking for simple, natural, effective ways to live a healthy life, from parents to teachers to health professionals or alternative-health professionals (like massage therapists and fitness coaches)—truly, any health-conscious individual can benefit from Worwood’s insights on essential oils.
MELISSA WUSKE (November 28, 2016)
Human Heart, Cosmic Heart
A Doctor’s Quest to Understand, Treat, and Prevent Cardiovascular Disease
Thomas Cowan
Chelsea Green Publishing
Hardcover $24.95 (176pp)
978-1-60358-619-1
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Heart disease is a national crisis, and the most common treatments don’t lower the risk of death in most cases. Rather than despair, Thomas Cowan meets these devastating realities with the firm belief that there must be another solution.
Through many years of research and medical practice, he challenges the common notion of what the heart is for—to pump blood. Through observation, geometry, and scientific insight, he proposes that the heart is a hydraulic ram rather than pump because it uses suction rather than force to build the momentum of the blood. And he makes it clear that this change of perspective makes all the difference by exploring heart attacks, what they aren’t and what they are.
The treatment Cowan advises in Human Heart, Cosmic Heart is personal and holistic (whole-body remedies), driven by the patient’s own life story in order to show the whole of the nervous system. The result is a refreshingly balanced approach focused on responding to the needs of the body rather than reacting to the problem experienced in the heart.
Throughout the book, Cowan shares his personal journey of learning, making the book approachable and warm as well as logical and authoritative. By sharing his learning process, he conveys a deep understanding of the cardiovascular system and its needs.
Cowan, a self-proclaimed doubter and nonconformist, brings a voice of skepticism and hope into a genre packed with dry, black-and-white thinking. His insights are relentlessly rooted in research, and he explains medical science in an accessible way, including clear diagrams and step-by-step explanations that move at just the right pace for educated adults without moving too slowly for medical professionals.
This book is life-changing for those trying to understand their own bodies, or those of loved ones, and it’s truly transformative in the hands of medical professionals, especially young doctors.
MELISSA WUSKE (November 28, 2016)
Yoga for Athletes
Ryanne Cunningham
Human Kinetics
Softcover $21.95 (224pp)
978-1-4925-2261-4
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Yoga’s reputation is often soft and feminine, all yoga pants and calming breathing. As a result, many skilled, dedicated athletes see yoga as something outside their realm, but Ryanne Cunningham shows how the intensity and adaptability of yoga are good, even essential, for all sorts of athletes. Through dedicated practice, yoga can bring balance to the body that is an asset to competitors from cyclists to basketball players.
Cunningham begins with the basics—benefits of yoga and how to get started—then ventures into poses and practices for ten specific sports. This approach takes people from basic knowledge to truly transformative routines quickly, because for athletes, yoga is a means and not an end in itself. Each pose has concise action- and benefit-oriented instructions, and Cunningham demonstrates strong knowledge of the needs of each sport.
The book’s tone is clear and positive, like that of a coach—not surprising, given Cunningham’s experience as a trainer, but essential for anyone trying something new. The pace of the book, overall, and in each chapter and section, moves forward quickly so athletes can integrate yoga into their training schedules and see results.
This book is well-rounded, conveying what works and why it works in a way that’s applicable to all kinds of people. Cunningham has deep knowledge of yoga and impressive experience training athletes (including Green Bay Packers players), but her wisdom is also broad, covering massage, physiology, and more. Clear photos make the positions easy to emulate, and they portray a range of body types, many of them men’s. More medical diagrams, such as those of muscle groups, offer deeper understanding to promote safety along with good results.
Athletes from amateur to elite will find Cunningham’s insights up their game, and coaches, especially of younger athletes, will find new tools to help those they coach perform their best by building and maintaining strength, balance, and flexibility.
MELISSA WUSKE (November 28, 2016)
Melissa Wuske
