Fitness Books

I struggled with my weight especially after having a child 16 years ago. I am a registered dietitian so that made it even more humiliating--knowing what I should be doing, but not being able to do it. I picked up an earlier edition of this book 13 years ago and it changed my life. I walked 6 days a week religiously. I felt the diet was very easy to follow and loved some of the recipes in the book. After 3 years and 40 pounds later, I started running and have been running ever since. Thank you Choose to Lose for transforming my life. I love who I have become.

This is the only plan that has ever worked for me. I had always been vastly overweight and tried every diet. Just do it..it works even without salads and exercise and you are not hungry. You choose your weight with every decision on what goes into your mouth. Just do it.

I read this books years ago, and when I found out the book was revised I had to have it. This book teaches you how to make a healthy eatting change for life, or just to lose those unwanted pounds. It tells you the importance of why you should not avoid carbohydrates, and it is very easy because you choose what you eat to loose weight, as long as you dont exceed your daily calorie or fat intake per day. It also teaches you why on 1000 caloried diets dont work because your body think it s starving and you dont loose weight because of so few calories. You can also save up for splurges. I think the hardest part in following this diet is eatting more than I am use to, when most diets you hardly eat. If interested in a positive eatting change where you can eat what you want, lose weight, drop your cholesterol level, and make this change for life, this is the book for you, I just love it, and the new me, because of it. Thank you Ron & Nancy Goor M.D. and Katherine Boyd R.D. for writing and sharing this book.

This is a great book, I've lost about 15 pounds using the techniques outlined, and have gone down from a 38 inch waste to a 35!!!! And I'm Still loosing. I'ts simple, keep count of those pesky fat calories, you will see results!!! This Book is a way of life for eating.

Having been on every diet in the world,I finally came to my own conclusion that diets simply don't work. I was delighted to find that "Choose To Lose" not only agrees, but encourages you not to weigh yourself and simply eat generous amounts of good, whole, naturally low fat nutritious food. Since I threw my scale out and began following the basic guidelines of "Choose To Lose", I've lost weight, gained back my self-respect and have enormous energy with a steady stable mood throughout the day. Throw out all your diet books and choose to live right now!!

"...a masterful job of presenting the multiple aspects of caregiving in a format that is both comprehensive and reader-friendly. The important focus on physical aspects of giving care are missing from many other publications in this category."

I am the Director of The Waud Patient and Family Resource Center based out of Rush Presbyterian St. Lukes Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. I am a nurse by career choice, and a caregiver by nature. I have provided home care and hospice care to a number of family members. I found this book useful to teach family members how to take care of someone at home. It has clear illustrations, step by step instructions for those tasks caregivers do every day, and a resource listing for those items that help make the job easier. It also has introductions to other areas of care which are very informative. This book empowers people without any healthcare education or experience to understand the mechanics of taking care of another person - no matter where they live. If you have family in a nursing home, this book will help you evaluate the care they receive. Both personally and professionally I would recommend this book to any person with a loved one who needs care.

I am an Illinois legal aid attorney and owner of Southwest Medicals, an online medical supply and equipment business. If you are planning on providing home healthcare for a famiy member, you need this helpful book. The cost saving tips are especially useful. I also recommend the American Medical Association's Guide to Home Caregiving by Angela Perry.

This book was very easy to read and contained a lot of practical tips on a wide variety of subjects. I liked the tips on how to make items yourself, cutting costs on things like hair washing aids and for making your home safe and navigable. The simple illustrations make the instructions easy to follow and the abundance of listed resources for more information and support was a nice bonus.

It is a 'must have' resource and tool for anyone assuming or considering the caregiver role.

He likes it!

This is essentially a book on traditional Taoist Yoga for health. The well-known exercises are all included: Five Animal Play, Eight Brocades, etc. Also included are the Chi/Energy theory and the Chakra/Hormonal theory.
There are specific exercises for various health conditions, like losing excess abdominal fat (belly rubbing) or eye exercises (which I appreciate, being a pretty avid reader). There are also some breathing exercises and meditations for those who have advanced past the health exercises.
One additional comment I can make is that the traditional exercises (Five Animal Play & Eight Brocades) seemed simpler and made more use of
imagination than the forms of these exercises you commonly see today (1986 vs 2008). Overall, a good book, which I'm glad I bought.

This book is an absolute gift for the spiritual seeker, and anyone else who wants to maintain a calm, vital good health.

It's also a book that is not without its problems, and perhaps I ought not to give it the full five star rating. The reason I have done so is that this is the only volume I have found that contains such a huge amount of helpful stuff all in one place, things that really have made a difference in my life. Perhaps there are other places to get this information but I don't know them, I have never seen precisely this combination of exercises and ideas. The things that work in this book have become indispensable to me.

What you get in this book is a system of 'Internal Exercises', as Chang calls them. These mostly consist of simple movements and breathing. The nearest thing you could compare them to is qigong or tai chi, but they are *not* qigong or taichi, nor of course yoga or anything like that. The purpose of internal exercises is to give you energy, as opposed to orthodox exercise which takes energy away. They are designed to make you stronger, more harmonious, and better supplied with vitality.

There is a small amount of theory and then Chang goes right into the exercises. The first section of these, 'Living with the Whole Body', is by far the largest section of the book. Here you find a number of movement sets (five animals, twelve nerve exercises, etc.), three important foundational exercises (deer, crane and turtle), and a large number of other exercises covering the head, all the internal organs, and individual issues such as head or stomach aches, lower back pain, abdomen strengthening, meridian massage and so forth. Again all the moves are simple.

In the other section of the book, "Advanced Living", there are more advanced exercises, sometimes with a more meditative aspect. Finally, Chang finishes off with 'Immortal Breathing' which he describes as a very advanced form of sitting energy work, although it takes only a couple of pages to outline.

So much for the content. The important question is, does it work? And the answer frankly is that, for me, yes it does - but as I mentioned, I'm not without strong reservations, so I want to be very specific about what works versus what doesn't, and what is correct versus what isn't.

Number one, Chang sees himself as the transmitter of a huge tradition and therefore comes across as a bit of a knowall. He makes statements that are only half-true. For example, he states right at the beginning of the book that the Internal Exercises are 'not another form of meditation, because the objective of the most popular forms of meditation is to "empty" the mind - inactivate the mind. The mind cannot be emptied, for directing it to do so is itself an activation of the mind."

Well this is seriously untrue of course! As anyone who has ever meditated will tell you. But even more important, it is very very ironic that Chang would take this line, because I can tell you right now, if you have trouble with meditations from other traditions, and *especially* if you have trouble emptying the mind, the exercises in this book are *by far* the best thing I have found to help you do it. If you just can't relax the mind, if you want to do self-hypnosis or astral projection but you can't get your body to relax or control your mind or emotions - buy this book and do the exercises for a while. I guarantee this will help, and with blanking the mind not least - which obviously is really possible, needless to say, whole buddhist sects have been organized around such exercises and they do have real value.

Ironically Chang obviously represents a strain of taoism that does not focus on training the mind and is more 'medical' in its approach, but many forms of taoism do train the mind. There is nothing AT ALL anti-taoist about meditating to still the mind (read 'Opening the Dragon Gate' if you don't believe me). And of course it is amongst the most wonderful things you can do with your mind, to still the movement of thoughts - if you ever manage to do it properly you will see why it's so wonderful.

Chang is right to say that bad meditation practices can have very detrimental effects on health, but he is very wrong to say that, because of this, meditation should not be done! And he veers close to implying exactly that, based I think on zero experience. And there are other comments throughout this book where Chang plays similarly fast and loose with the truth about spiritual development in my opinion - have a care therefore to develop your own opinions when reading his.

This leads me into another problem with this book, namely, it is not authentically taoist in many ways. Particularly the movement sets at the beginning - zodiac, animals, etc. - aren't great. The 'Pieces of Brocade' have been treated elsewhere much better if that is what you are into. Also Chang focusses alot on the endocrine system and his 'big finale' Immortal Breathing is nothing more than a kind of yoga in my opinion - in other words he uses the endocrine system like yogis use chakras, in seven rising levels. Don't the taoists prefer to talk about their 'tan tiens' etc.? Well there's nothing about them here! :) And vice versa, working with seven rising levels of energy hasn't got anything taoist about it. So I don't see Chang as the purveyor of any kind of advanced spirituality. Frankly taoist energy work without tan tiens seems kind of laughable to me.

I'm no expert, but I don't think this is real taoism in actual fact, in any advanced sense. Chang *says* it is, and that the advanced things here are true taoist continuations of the basic stuff he sets out. I think he's totally wrong to claim that. If you want to work with advanced techniques for spiritual purposes you should look elsewhere, and in my opinion, you might as well look at Franz Bardon as at a taoist. My point is, these exercises are great basic conditioning for *any* spiritual practice - but they are not really a spiritual practice in themselves. They are just an intro. (I certainly don't do the exercises to 'be a taoist' - I do them because they work.)

So the 'advanced' stuff you will have to look for elsewhere, BUT - the basics on offer here in terms of the simple movements and breathings will have a real strong effect on your life. It's that simple, *those* work. I especially recommend the deer/crane/turtle triumvirate and adding in the solar plexus, then gradually any other organs etc. You will find that in a few months your health and vitality increase, and your ability to concentrate - at that point, do some meditating and see how easy it is, you will have put yourself ahead.

At the price you can get this book for nowadays, don't miss it. I'm about to get hold of some other Chang books, and I fully expect the same mix of useful stuff with over-egged 'orthodoxy'... I'll definitely review those too but it will take me a while as I like to test these things thoroughly. I've had this book two years before reviewing it, as there is no way to really get thoroughly acquainted with a book of this kind any quicker.


[PS Amazon is not treating this book well - all reviews for it should go to the pages for all editions of the book.]

I got this at a library discard sale for $[...], and was sooo pleased that I'd found it at such a discount, and practiced the exercises for several months -- and they were no help. The exercises are tedious to learn (solar plexus exercise, 12 directional exercises), and were not helpful, even after doing them religiously for about 2 months. One exercise, clacking the teeth, my dentist (who is Asian) said it cracks/"crazes" the teeth, and does not make them stronger as the author claims. The author does not say how long a typical exercise routine should be, nor does he say how long it takes before results are seen. Chinese exercises are foreign to Americans, and it's tedious to learn them and disappointing not to see results within two months. I could not find several of the exercises online, even under different descriptions (such as the 12 directional exercises), which made me question whether the author invented them or several others. Even worse, the publisher, Tao Publishing [...], claims that a section of the book was cut (it dealt with rubbing the stomach for better digestion), and said they'd send the complete cut section if I filled out a form that required my workplace phone number, job title, and other details that seemed intrusive. I didn't trust them, and I don't trust this book -- or the author. Sorry.

I've had this wonderful book for over 10 years, but only really began to apply the Internal Exercises after a trip to China. I saw a Qi Gong demonstration there and was very impressed, especially by the fact that the Qi Gong master looked all of 25 years old (I'm sure he was in his 40's at least). I began to practice Dr Chang's set of exercises faithfully on returning from the trip and have experienced increased energy, suppleness, better sleep, and clarity of mind. I was able to abandon my use of prescription antihistamines for allergies and now have no symptoms whatever. My nightly headaches, which were requiring nightly Tylenol, have also resolved. My endurance in sports, particularly alpine skiing, has increased without requiring increased preparatory workouts; and if I am diligent at doing the exercises after a workout, I experience no stiffness or soreness (something I'm starting to appreciate as an aging Baby Boomer!).
Dr Chang is clearly familiar with both Asian and Western medicine, science and culture. Although his book is very clearly written, practical and accessible, the depth of knowledge concealed in its deceptively simple language is profound. The exercises themselves are for the most part quite easy to perform (some of them do require much effort and perseverance to master, but are not physically taxing). What is quite reinforcing about them is that they produce an almost immediate sensation of energy flow in the body. They feel GOOD to perform. They struck me as being almost like a cross between yoga and tai chi, but they are certainly neither (as Dr Chang points out) and they are much less complex.
Dr Chang's other books are excellent as well!

I purchased this book recently. I have found the information in it simply amazing. Within a few days I have noticed an overall sense of well being and improvement to my health. And no I am not connected to the author in any way. It is just a very good book.

I was introduced to this book by my doctor. I believe this is going to be exactly what I needed. I read the book 2 weeks ago and have lost 8 pounds already, very easily. This really is not a diet, but a lifestyle change, so far one which is very reasonable, not extreme like most "diets". I feel like this book is jump starting me into a new life of health. I can't wait to get all 10 steps into full swing.

THE BOOK IS WONDERFUL. I ACTUALLY HAVE HAD MY OWN FOR ABOUT 2 YEARS. I BOUGHT THIS FOR MY DAUGHTER. OUR SON HAS A KIDNEY DISEASE AND HIS DOCTOR RECOMMENDED THIS BOOK. OUR SON LIVES IN CHARLESTON AS DOES
DR. ANN. THE DOCTORS AT THE MEDICAL UNIVERSITY RECOMMEND HER BOOK. IT HAS DONE WONDERS FOR HIS CONDITION AND HIS OVERALL HEALTH. I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO EVERYONE AS THEIR "HEALTH BIBLE". YOU CAN USE HER BOOK AS A WAY TO EAT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE AND NOT FEEL DEPRIVED.

This book is fabulous. I have recommended it to many of my family and friends, and we all follow it as much as we can. I don't think of it as a "Diet" (although it works) as much as a guide to overall healthy eating. As a physician, I am wary of these things, but I am totally sold on Dr. Ann's. (Ignore the somewhat cheesy cover, though!)

This is not a "diet" plan, but rather a clear explanation of healthy eating and lifestyle. I have given it to others who also have found this book very helpfull, and have then purchased copies for friends.

Dr Ann's 10 step plan is great. It follows the same glycemic index model that the South Beach diet does, but Dr Ann's explanations of the role of blood sugar and insulin in the body really helped me understand why this diet works and is so healthy. She has a section in the book about various diseases and conditions, and specific foods to focus on. My husband has lost 15 lbs and I have lost 10 lbs in the 5 weeks since we started the diet, and we are eating healthier than ever before, and enjoying it.

This is a must read for anyone interested in non-conventional medicine.

A couple of illnesses in the family triggered my fourth re-read of this wonderful book.

I agree with all the positive reviewers here.

Dr. Fulford had wonderful insight into the medical field, questionable medical practices, life, living, and the afterlife.

One thing I didn't see mentioned in the reviews is the exercise section of the book. It has 8 unique exercises that are for overall health, nothing to do with athletic ability or conditioning.

This book is a keeper for sure, and one that you will re-read, too.

This is an excellent book reviewing the amazing Doctors way of using his Ostopathic training. It is a profound reason to consider Alternative Medicine over the oft accepted Allopathic way. A most enjoyable read.

A friend of mine who is a massage therapist and is exploring cranio-sacral work gave me this book. I have had pains in my lower back and neck for several years now; i've also been through some painful events 20 years ago, and again 10 years ago with the loss of my respective parents. My current life is very busy with famile (children), work and projects and emotionally difficult at times with a strained relationship with my husband. Overall though I'm a positive and upbeat individual believing in the spiritual and soulful nature of humans, beyond just mind and body. I've been more and more interested over the years in the relationship between body, mind and spirit since the death of my mom which has been a very difficult and painful event for me at a time that I was just starting in life (I wasn't 20 yet).
I am considering seeking treatment with a DO for my back and neck pains, and reading this book has emphasized the importance for leading a balance life and not just 'patching' some areas with perhaps a visit to the chiropractor's office that will mostly focus on the spine or taking muscle relaxant medicine or simple pain medicine. This is a great book, with a lot of food for thoughts and practical exercises for anyone to do. I am thankful to my friend for giving me this very valuable book and wish that I would have received it while Dr Fulford was still alive so that I could have thanked him for giving this testimony to us.

The reviews explain this short book very well. I really enjoyed the first few chapters. His transition into more philosophical healing ideas in the later chapters didn't do as much for me, but if your a fan of Weil or even Chopra you'll appreciate them.

Dr. Fulton really makes the reader consider Osteopathy as a medical alternative.

I got this book along with "Eat This Not That". From the excellent reviews, I was expecting something that was a little more organized and informative without digging to find information. While there is some good information such as "red flag" and "green flag" words, the layout is boring... it looks more like a manual than a food guide. All of the print is black and white on white paper, so nothing really jumps out at you. You would have to read this cover to cover to get the info you're looking for.

"Eat Out, Eat Right" is a must-have for every person and family on the go. Hope Warshaw, Registered Dietitian, offers sound, practical advice that is easy to understand. This book covers everything you need to know about eating out, from Smoothies to Sushi. As more people dine out more often, it is nice to know that a true nutrition expert has spelled out how to eat out in a healthy way. The "Nutrition Snapshot" meal comparisons and "Special Requests" tips for modifying your food choices are what my clients find most helpful.

"Eat Out, Eat Right" is a great resource to keep using each time you eat on the go. It is small enough to fit most anywhere, yet packed with valuable tips and hints. I recommend it to all of my clients, because we all eat on the go. It is worth every penny of its very reasonable price!

I thought Hope Warshaw's previous edition was superb, then this one came along to do even better. It is an excellent summary of restaurant info and healthy eating tips for the average person. I especially appreciated her down to earth explanations of lingo for various ethnic cuisines. Because Hope Warshaw is a Registered Dietitian, we can trust that her information is accurate and balanced. On top of all of that, the book is physically perfect...the right size to fit in a purse or book bag, the right feel to make you want to hold it, and the right font to make it appealing to the eye! If you have this healthy dining book, you really need no other!

This is a great book to help everyone eat out in a healthy way. The size of the book is easy to carry with you, keep in your car or your breifcase. With this book the challenge of eating out is much easier. Each chapter covers a different cuisine - so makes it useful for a variety of people. I recommend it to my clients as a good reference book.

This is a handy book for anyone who eats out. My favorite part is the suggested meals to order for each type of restaurant (Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Pizza, etc.). The author's tips are practical and straightforward. I like that she makes it possible to eat well when eating out by choosing the right foods, instead of discouraging eating out altogether.

My husband loves Mexican food and so that chapter was especially helpful to me in finding healthier foods to order. It was also a good reminder to avoid the chips!

I like the Healthy Eating Guidelines at the beginning of the book that can be put into use at home as well as eating out. She includes tips for choosing healthy options for kids as well. With the increase of children eating out on a regular basis, this section is especially helpful. It's a great book full of useful information that I highly recommend to anyone!

This book was great. It made my son feel special and helped him be more comfortable at preschool snack time. (I think it was hepful for the teachers, too.) It's the one MUST buy Celiac book. The rest I'd get at the library.

My daughter loves this book! She's 5 years old. She was very excited about bringing this book to share with her pre-k class. It has really helped the kids in her class to understand and be supportive of her severe gluten-allergy.

I recently bought this book for my 33 month old daughter, who has CD, and she loves it. I think she likes to see that there is someone who eats like her. I would recommend the book. I also bought one for her daycare, so that they could read it to the other kids, and maybe help them understand a little.

I bought the book for my grandson, Connor. He is 9 (4 when he was diagnosed with celiac) He loved the book. A book that was written for kids with celiac was just what he needed to read. He has decided to donate it to the school library. I thought this was a good choice. A book others could read that had celiac or just to read to understand about the celiac person and how he copes with the celiac.

I am a preschool teacher and have a student with Celiac in my class as well as 3 other students with food allergies. I read this book and all of my students loved it! They have asked to hear it again and again. My gluten-free student actually had tears in his eyes the first time I read it and hugged me afterwards. All 15 of my students are aware of their classmates food allergies and this has been a springboard for discussion of all aspects of restricted eating. I highly reccomend this book for classroom use.

My discovery of Edward Bach's Flower Therapy came on me suddenly. In the midst of writing a novel, my lead character decided to enhance her floral shoppe inventory with self-sewn natural plants and seeds. Within twenty-four hours of beginning my search for herbal practices, I ran into Bach's 38 key plants employed for prevention and cure of a multitude of ailments. This book is a beautiful reference and has been an endless reference for me while developing plant and human characters. I'd absolutely recommend it to anyone who wishes to discover how your personality quirks might be tamed by God's wildflowers.

I am a Reiki person, A massage person, An Herb person, A Gardner, So Bach just seem to be the next natural course of events. This is a good Starter book. It talks about each indiviuial flower. The basics. The foundation. This will be a reference book for the future. I am intending on buying other books about Bach.

This book truly is an "encyclopedia."
Everything you could want or need about the Bach Flower Therapy system.

This is an excellent companion for anyone who uses bach flower therapy. It is very informative providing in depth information on each flower, history, photos, the negative as well as positive side aspects the particular flower is used for and what I find particularly helpful are the focus ideas at the end of each chapter for refocusing your thoughts. Extensive questionairre, index, glossary.

It may be a bit more than a person needs if you are just curious or have not begun using bach flowers.

I found this a difficult read. There was never anything to really get excited about and no new amazing insights. It simply repeated the accepted wisdom on Bach flowers. Her description of each flower remedy was a long discussion of the negative state given in the Bach Flower brochure. It's her opinion that it is the separation from the higher self and not listening to your inner voice that causes this negative state.

For instance, when it comes to Chestnut Bud she focuses on the fact that they make repetitive mistakes. Chestnut Bud people have laser like focus, and can obsess on a tiny area of the universe. This makes them brilliant, but they miss many things outside of their field of interest, hence the mistakes. They are like the classic "absent minded professor". They have extreme talent in one area, but very little common sense. Many people with Asperger's will benefit from this remedy.

If you ask a Chestnut Bud if he makes repetitive mistakes, he will answer with an emphatic "No!" because if he makes a mistake in his area of focus, he learns from it, and does not make the same mistake twice. Where he makes repeated mistakes is outside his area of focus, which he doesn't see, and often doesn't care about. But if you ask him "Can you focus intensely on something you're interested in, finding answers that no one else can think of?" He will answer, "Absolutely!" So yes, he makes repeated mistakes, but that's not how you need to approach him. Instead focus on his intelligence and problem solving capabilities, and show him how to balance it.

She is very picky about how many drops to use, what kind of alcohol, and how to drink the water. They are flower remedies. They're an energy medicine. Finding the right remedy is much more important than how many drops to use.

When it comes to selecting the correct remedy she treats it like a homeopathic consultation, with a long interview process, and questionnaires that once again focus on the simplistic negative states given in the brochure. She off handedly dismisses any type of energy testing, saying that people new to Bach Flowers use this approach. I have used Bach Flower remedies for years, and I find energy testing to be quite important. Just because somebody has Asperger's does not mean they need Chestnut Bud. Contrary to popular belief, a flower remedy can be wrong, and can stress a person.

Frequently energy testing will point to a remedy that I dismissed, and when I look at it more closely I think, "Oh, I hadn't thought of it that way." Energy testing has actually taught me more about the remedies because I've learned what types of people can benefit from certain remedies outside of the simple issues in the brochure. It's fun to meet a client for the first time, with basically no knowledge of their personality, and be able to describe their most pressing issue. They say "Wow, how did you know that?" It also increases their faith in your ability to help them.

The focus on the negative aspects also felt over emphasized. Natural leaders will often test for Vine, which does not mean they are tyrants. It means they are natural leaders and it strengthens those qualities.

If you are interested in the Bach Flowers, I recommend Advanced Bach Flower Therapy: A Scientific Approach to Diagnosis and Treatment. I also really like Practical Uses and Applications of the Bach Flower Emotional Remedies.

I'm at something of a loss as to what to say about this book. I couldn't decide if I should give it five stars or one, so I cut the difference and gave it three. This book is bizarre. If you can wade through the sections of repetitive, juvenile, slang-ridden, poorly written diatribe there is a lot of very helpful medical information which every endometriosis sufferer should know. I learned so many useful and helpful things about reproductive endocrinology, the immune system, the digestive system, and endometriosis itself. Yet the authors could easily have gotten the same amount of information into the book using half the words. Some parts of this book are clearly and concisely written and very helpful, while other sections of the book read as if the authors wanted to make the details understandable to a five-year old. I was definitely annoyed and somewhat insulted, as I think the authors ought to assume that the people reading it are going to be adults with functioning brains. However, I cannot help but recommend this book. The information in there is good, if you can put up with the useless junk and find information in the midst of verbosity.

After three years of infertility due to endometriosis, we had given up hope. After eight months on this diet we were expecting our first child with no medical intervention. Even if you aren't trying to conceive, this diet DOES help you feel a lot better.

As a stage IV endometriosis sufferer, the diet recommendations dramatically alleviated menstrual cramps and especially bowel pressure and pain through the removal of wheat/wheat gluten, minimizing red meats, and maximizing vegetables, fruits and nuts. I found that starting this diet within a few months post-laparoscopy was most helpful.

I've been reading this book since before I had surgery last week and am going to give the diet a try. The explanations of unbalanced hormones and lack of certain vitamins/minerals causing my symptoms and horrific PMS make alot of sense. I dropped out of biology in college because it seemed to be over my head, but this book explained body chemistry and cell production in a way that I can relate. Through the nutritional advice in this book, I am hoping to get pregnant and not have to have surgery again.

This book is written in a friendly and easy to read manner. It has a lot of information to absorb, but is what every woman with Endo should know. If you want to learn more and want to follow the guidelines provided then I strongly recommend this book. In only three months my life has changed. I understand my body like never before and am excited that following the suggestions in this book will lead me to my dream - pregnancy. After having purchased numerous books on Endo, it was nice to have one that finally answered my questions and was enjoyable.

I'm not typically a fan of the "categorization" approach to understanding, they tend to be overgeneralized and unspecific. That is the approach this book takes. The assessments let you understand what areas of behavior you should emphasize on - based on your tendencies for self abuse.

Basically it outlines 6 weight gain triggers:

1. Lack Of Structured Meals
2. Toxic Food Choices
3. Portion Distortion
4. Sedentary Lifestyle
5. No Regular Exercise
6. Stress

And certain "Phenotypes" lean toward certain behaviors that cause you to gain weight. The assessments are to identify your particular leanings.

An okay approach, but I didn't find it highly motivating or insightful.

I did find some information very helpful. The fact that some body chemistry types don't process pleasure signals properly. Thus, in order to get the sensation of pleasure from food, these types tend to overload their systems to get pleasure to trigger. This intellectual understanding is very helpful and does provide a reasoning behind waiting a bit for those pleasure signals to make it through before continuing on a binge.

In the end though, the basics of eating well, having an active and energized life will get you where you want to be. The book was okay, not sure it was worth the entire read but some information was useful.

I have to say that I am a diet novice so I do not have much to compare it to. That said, I love this book! When I was really frustrated about losing my post-pregnancy weight, this helped me tremendously and I never actually "dieted." It helped me to identify in which areas I needed to improve and gave me great suggestions on minor dietary changes that made a huge difference. For example, since my type is hormonal, eating more low-fat dairy (which was really easy for me) was all I needed to do and I started to see/feel improvements immediately. I really liked what an easy read it was, too. . .determine what your type is, read that section and you're off! The only thing that I do not like about it is the title; it sounds so hokey and I find myself wanting to pass it on/tell others about it but I am hesitant because of the title.

If you have a history of alcoholism or drug addiction, or binge eating, take a look at the Phenotype A food plan. Genetically, Phenotype A people may have low levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine or serotonin. Their "feel-good" genes don't work, leading them to alleviate their "lows" in some other way.

I have found this food plan really helpful because it doesn't feel restrictive. It balances out the protein/carb/fat ratio and tells you exactly what types of food to eat and when. It suggests certain supplements for depression. Rather than being a short-term weight loss diet, it is a long-term food plan designed to alleviate cravings and mood swings. It pretty much follows a hypoglycemic diet, except for the caffeine. (For info on the link between hypoglycemia and alcoholism, see the Hypoglycemic Health Association of Australia.)

This book is the best thing that has ever happened to me!! It is short, simple and to the point. The Doctors outline exactly what you should be eating according to your phenotype and also help you recognize what triggers your weight gain and how to combat it! If you are ready to make a change in your life, this is the book to help you do it.

By following the plan in this book, I have lost a total of 22 pounds (so far) and improved my health, mood and energy level.

Finally, a book that offers help, not hype, in dealing with weight loss and health. Grounded in the most advanced science of today (genetics), but easy to read and understand even by me. I was ready to give up thinking I would never lose weight and be able to keep it off. Everyone with a weight problem, no matter what the cause, needs this book.