It’s an annual ritual engaged in by hundreds of thousands of teenagers from coast to coast who have chosen to embark on the next step of their educational journey–COLLEGE! Just as the dog days of summer begin to wind down and the changing of the seasons begins to take place, enthusiastic young skulls full of mush pack up their belongings, leave mom and dad in the house they grew up in, and move into that bastion of independence known as a dorm room. Anyone who’s ever spent time in a college dormitory knows all the unique challenges that await you from oddball roommates, strange smells and noises coming from nearby rooms, and the free entertainment that can happen late at night–it’s quite the adventure. And when it comes to trying to be “healthy,” you can just about forget about it! They don’t call the weight gain that happens to first-year college students the “Freshman 15″ for nothing. But Daphne Oz wanted to buck that trend by offering up some advice that helped her take off 10 pounds in her freshman year (she struggled with her weight in high school) which she wrote about in her bestselling book The Dorm Room Diet: The 10-Step Program for Creating a Healthy Lifestyle Plan That Really Works.

Click here to read my critical review of The Dorm Room Diet by Dr. Mehmet Oz’ little girl Daphne.

People who have struggled with their weight for most of the lives oftentimes claim to have a slow or damaged metabolism. They believe that if they could just heal this aspect of their health, then weight loss was be a cinch and robust health would surely follow. Oh, if it were only that simple to figure out. The fact is the functions of our body, including our metabolism, have much less to do with the genetics we were born with and more to do with what we do to it. Years of poor dieting advice in the form of high-carb, low-fat, calorie-restricted diets have only made the problem worse, not better. And nutrition and exercise science expert Maria Emmerich understands this dynamic better than most professionals in her field of work. She realizes there are consequences to consuming sugar and other culprit carbohydrates while neglecting the all-important fats our bodies need to be healthy and she shares the right way to eat and why in her book Secrets to a Healthy Metabolism.

This topic hits close to home for Maria starting off in Chapter 1 where she discusses what it was like being an overweight teenager who had to overcome the poor nutritional advice she was given to shed the pounds and get herself healthy. That drive to learn the truth has propelled her to use that experience to now help others who are dealing with weight and health issues. In Chapter 2, she explains the function of your metabolism and quickly moves into what you can do to feed it properly in Chapter 3. Ideas like eating more protein and fiber, consuming healthy fats while ditching the sugar and HFCS which she says is “destroying your metabolism” (Maria got an e-mail from the Corn Refiner’s Association lady, too!), forgoing the alcohol and fast food, and questioning the health claims about milk. The difference between what most people think is “healthy” eating and what Maria means by that phrase are worlds apart and you get to see the side-by-side comparison of what she’s advocating on pages 75-77.

Click here to read the rest of my review of Maria Emmerich’s Secrets To A Healthy Metabolism.

It’s undeniable if you look at the state of modern health around the world today that we have dug ourselves into a huge hole as a society. Obesity, diabetes, and preventable chronic diseases have spread like wildfire despite the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in finding pharmaceutical drugs to allegedly counter all of these health ailments. However, the one area most of the so-called health “experts” have conveniently neglected to invest any time and effort into examining more closely is also the most cost-effective when it comes to resolving this monstrosity that befalls us in modern times is our diet. What if we could reverse the negative impact of most chronic diseases simply by making some basic changes to our diet that could restore weight to normal levels and dramatically improve health without the use of any questionable drugs? What if all it took was going back to the diet of our ancestors which bears very little resemblance to what we refer to as “food” in the 21st century? Would it make a noticeable difference in the collective health woes we now find ourselves facing? That’s the bold thesis presented by UK-based nutritional anthropologist Geoff Brown in his historical look at the evolution of our diet detailed in the book Deadly Harvest: The Intimate Relationship Between Our Health and Our Food.

Bond has a personal connection to this subject since he lived in some remote African villages early on in his career where he saw firsthand how primitive tribes lived and ate for survival. This once-in-a-lifetime experience gave him ample evidence that he later used to compile much of the material contained in this book. He notes that our bodies are highly adaptable to the rigors we put them through, but they still require some elementary elements to function properly. One of the reasons Bond says we’ve gotten away from this basic nutritional concept in favor of what we have today is the onset of industrialized farming. Deadly Harvest provides all the dirty details about how and why grains (grass seeds) were introduced into our diet which began “a massive upheaval in human nutrition” that took us one step “away from our ancestral diet.” The consequences of this change are now rearing their ugly head in the weight and health of people today.

Click here to read the rest of my review of Geoff Bond’s Deadly Harvest including my one major beef with him regarding his stance on saturated fat.

Navigating through all the daily barrage of information that comes out about diet and health these days can be quite intimidating. There are thousands upon thousands of books telling you to eat this, don’t eat that, add these foods and supplements, avoid these things or they’ll kill you, so forth and so on. As a consumer living your life the best you know how, it can be extremely hard to know who and what to believe and whether any of it really makes practical sense for you and your family. How do you know who you can trust to tell you the truth about the relationship between what you eat and the effect that will have on essential functions of the body like your metabolism, heart and brain? It’s extremely rare to find someone (ANYONE!) who fits the bill when it comes to providing reliable information that is backed by solid research and not just some flippant opinion based on a whole lot of nothing. But leave it to a brain surgeon to be the one to assimilate all of the data, cut through all the complexities about it, and then make it all seem understandable and convincing for us common laypeople. That’s exactly what you get from pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Larry McCleary in his latest book called Feed Your Brain Lose Your Belly.

Dr. McCleary is the bestselling author of a fantastic book released in 2007 entitled The Brain Trust Program that closely examined the impact our diet has on brain health. But with this new book, he wanted to dig deeper into the unmistakable connection between the brain and the “other brain” commonly known as the metabolism. The thesis Dr. McCleary asserts in his book is that there is a very clear connection between the brain and the belly and that by feeding your body the right kind of nutrition to keep your brain healthy, you’ll experience a domino effect in your metabolism that will keep your hunger at bay, make you feel satisfied with the way you eat, and enjoy amazing weight loss success. And this isn’t some fast and loose diet thesis we’re talking about here–Dr. McCleary has tested this on real people who have been highly successful at shedding the pounds while improving their brain health dramatically thanks to some sound scientific principles explained within the pages of this book.

Click here to read the rest of my review of Dr. Larry McCleary’s Feed Your Brain Lose Your Belly.

Books, books, and more books! I got ‘em coming out of my ears for the Summer of 2010, so I’m doing this special series of reviews of the newest and best low-carb, health, and nutrition books that you may want to take a closer look at. Many of the authors of the featured books are scheduled to be guests on my podcast show in the coming months. My goal is to try to feature at least one new book review a day, every day all summer long. There’s a lot of great stuff out there you need to know about and I can’t wait for you to see what all is available! ENJOY!

People these days feel trapped by the obvious failure of conventional wisdom when it comes to their diet and health. They have faithfully followed everything they’ve been told is good for them down to the last bit of whole grain bread and tofu burgers that are most commonly associated with the standard low-fat, high-carb, plant-based dietary recommendations–but they still inexplicably deal with obesity and chronic disease like never before! What the heck is going on here? It’s one thing to fool around with your personal fitness and nutrition where you are expected to gain weight and have unhealthy blood sugars, lipids and the like. But what can explain these things happening when you’re supposedly doing everything 100% right? That’s the answer that personal trainer Kevin Brown and registered dietitian Annette Presley answer for readers in their counterintuitive book called The Liberation Diet: Setting America Free from the Bondage of Health Misinformation!.

Brown and Presley do an outstanding job of explaining the breakdown that is happening with nutrition in the 21st Century. They correctly identify what’s wrong with a “one-size-fits-all” approach to promoting the same diet to everyone without taking into account the specific individualized factors that make one way of eating better than another for certain people. Challenging this conventional wisdom on nutrition is what you get early and often from The Liberation Diet and the authors don’t hold back in blasting away at the nonsense that pervades from the so-called health “experts” and government policymakers responsible for perpetrating these lies on the unsuspecting public. The stories behind how foods like Crisco came into being are truly fascinating and should make you shudder about what the food industry is feeding Americans that we DON’T yet know about. We learn that clever marketing and a little slight of hand is all it takes to convince people to start eating something their great-grandparents would have never even entertained a thought about eating. From margarine to Cool Whip to Wonder Bread, we’re surrounded by so many “fake foods” that the message this book implores on the reader is to simply get back to eating real, whole foods again. Duh!

Click here to read the rest of my review of Kevin Brown and Annette Presley’s The Liberation Diet.

Books, books, and more books! I got ‘em coming out of my ears for the Summer of 2010, so I’m doing this special series of reviews of the newest and best low-carb, health, and nutrition books that you may want to take a closer look at. Many of the authors of the featured books are scheduled to be guests on my podcast show in the coming months. My goal is to try to feature at least one new book review a day, every day all summer long. There’s a lot of great stuff out there you need to know about and I can’t wait for you to see what all is available! ENJOY!

Millions of people are walking around right now with many of the most common symptoms of a thyroid problem–namely obesity, fatigue, depression, hair loss, constipation, cold all the time, muscle cramps, morning headaches, numbness in extremities, sleeping excessively, itchy skin, low body temperature, and more–despite the fact that their doctor tells them their thyroid is just fine since the tests he ran indicate as much. The most frustrating part for people dealing with these problems is the lack of weight loss despite all the dieting in the world. There comes a point when an alternative explanation has to emerge to account for this physical reaction happening in the body despite the fact that everything is considered “normal.” That’s where Dr. Datis Kharrazian comes in to explain that you’re not going crazy as he clearly answers the question that is the title of his book Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? When My Lab Tests Are Normal: A Revolutionary Breakthrough In Understanding Hashimoto’s Disease and Hypothyroidism.

Click here to read my review of Dr. Datis Kharrazian’s fascinating book on everything related to thyroid.

Books, books, and more books! I got ‘em coming out of my ears for the Summer of 2010, so I’m doing this special series of reviews of the newest and best low-carb, health, and nutrition books that you may want to take a closer look at. Many of the authors of the featured books are scheduled to be guests on my podcast show in the coming months. My goal is to try to feature at least one new book review a day, every day all summer long. There’s a lot of great stuff out there you need to know about and I can’t wait for you to see what all is available! ENJOY!

It all seems to make sense to the government health authorities who encourage citizens to eat less, exercise more, cut the fat and calories, eat more fruits and vegetables and all will be happy and healthy for life. Wellllll, not exactly. Although we’ve had this very advice pretty much shoved down our proverbial throats for nearly four decades, what has been the result? MORE obesity, MORE diabetes, MORE heart disease, MORE chronic disease than ever before in the history of the world. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. And this business that a low-fat, high-carb, vegetarian diet is the only way to produce optimal health is just about as insane as it gets. That’s why it’s good to know there are people like Hannah Sutter out there exposing the nutritional scam that is being perpetrated on innocent people worldwide. She hits this subject square between the eyes in her book Big Fat Lies: Is Your Government Making You Fat?

Click here to read the rest of my review of Hannah Sutter’s scathing book on governmental dietary dictates called Big Fat Lies.

Books, books, and more books! I got ‘em coming out of my ears for the Summer of 2010, so I’m doing this special series of reviews of the newest and best low-carb, health, and nutrition books that you may want to take a closer look at. Many of the authors of the featured books are scheduled to be guests on my podcast show in the coming months. My goal is to try to feature at least one new book review a day, every day all summer long. There’s a lot of great stuff out there you need to know about and I can’t wait for you to see what all is available! ENJOY!

One of the most honest and accurate health writers and speakers on the planet today has got to be the amazingly prolific and one of the all-around lovable good guys–Dr. Jonny Bowden. His stellar writings which are featured through a wide multitude of various nationally-syndicated columns such as on AOL, The Huffington Post, iVillage as well as his bestselling line of books make him a highly sought after expert on all things related to nutrition, diet, and living a healthy lifestyle. Back in 2003, he penned what many in the low-carb community considered the quintessential magnum opus book on the awesome benefits of carbohydrate-restriction that has ever been written in a readable style that was palatable to anyone interested in learning more about what this way of eating is all about. The book was called Living The Low Carb Life: From Atkins to the Zone Choosing the Diet That’s Right for You and it was an outstanding book that literally allowed you to compare all of the most popular low-carb diet plans side-by-side with a brief synopsis of each one along with the pros and cons to decide which one is best for you. Dr. Bowden has always maintained the philosophy that people need to find the diet that is right for them.

But when the low-carb diet supposedly fell out of favor with the public in 2005 after the big low-carb food marketing craze subsided, Dr. Bowden’s publisher discontinued printing the book despite strong sales. Then in 2009 there was such a great demand for this book by people sincerely interested in learning more about what low-carb living was all about and the emergence of a whole host of solid scientific evidence supporting low-carb diets that the publishers had no choice but to contact Dr. Bowden requesting that he update his classic book with all of this brand new information that has released since the publication of his original manuscript. The end result of that updated and expanded version of his 2003 book is what we have in the 2010 edition renamed Living Low-Carb: Controlled-Carbohydrate Eating for Long-Term Weight Loss.

Click here to read my review of Living Low Carb by Dr. Jonny Bowden that is the one book about low-carb I would recommend to anyone interested in learning more about this way of eating.

Books, books, and more books! I got ‘em coming out of my ears for the Summer of 2010, so I’m doing this special series of reviews of the newest and best low-carb, health, and nutrition books that you may want to take a closer look at. Many of the authors of the featured books are scheduled to be guests on my podcast show in the coming months. My goal is to try to feature at least one new book review a day, every day all summer long. There’s a lot of great stuff out there you need to know about and I can’t wait for you to see what all is available! ENJOY!

There’s something appealing about a woman who feels confident enough to show off her arms in public. Feeling comfortable in your own skin and even flaunting it a bit is the dream of so many women and yet most of them think it’s just a pipe dream to even think about trying to wear a tank top or some other sleeveless top in a public place. But celebrity fitness and health coach JJ Virgin says it doesn’t have to be that way and she shows you how in her latest book Six Weeks to Sleeveless and Sexy: The 5-Step Plan to Sleek, Strong, and Sculpted Arms.

Click here to read my review of JJ Virgin’s latest book on getting those “sleeveless and sexy” arms thanks to a healthy low-carb lifestyle!

Books, books, and more books! I got ‘em coming out of my ears for the Summer of 2010, so I’m doing this special series of reviews of the newest and best low-carb, health, and nutrition books that you may want to take a closer look at. Many of the authors of the featured books are scheduled to be guests on my podcast show in the coming months. My goal is to try to feature at least one new book review a day, every day all summer long. There’s a lot of great stuff out there you need to know about and I can’t wait for you to see what all is available! ENJOY!

I enjoy reading books that stretch my intellectual boundaries beyond any preconceived notions that I have about a subject. That’s where true knowledge can be formed when you surround yourself with information that may run counter to what you already believe is true so that you can either strengthen your opposition to it or find a new way to look at it from a different perspective. That’s certainly what I attempted to do by reading British baker Andrew Whitley’s book on the carbiest of all carbohydrates entitled Bread Matters: The State of Modern Bread and a Definitive Guide to Baking Your Own.

Click here to read the rest of my review of Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley and find out why I support his worldwide campaign for real bread.