Friday, October 30, 2015

Review # 302: Stop the Diet, I Want to Get Off! by Lisa Tillinger Johansen

Description: (book-jacket)

          The Paleo.  The Zone.  The Gluten-free.  Another day, another diet.  We’re caught in a never-ending merry-go-round of weight loss plans, fueled by celebrity endorsers, TV doctors and companies angling for a piece of a $60 billion industry.  But do these diets really work?  And how healthy are they?

          Registered Dietitian Lisa Tillinger Johansen examines dozens of the most wildly popular diets based on medical facts, not hype.  And along the way, she reveals tried-and-true weight loss strategies, relying on her years of hospital experience, weight-loss seminars and community outreach efforts.  With insight and humor, Stop The Diet, I Want To Get Off shows that the best answer is often not a trendy celebrity-endorsed diet, but easy-to-follow guidelines that are best for our health and our waistlines.

For More Information
  • Stop the Diet, I Want to Get Off! is available at Amazon.
  • Pick up your copy at Barnes & Noble.
  • Discuss this book at PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads.

Review:

Will be up shortly!


Rating: On the Run! (4/5)

About the Author:

Lisa Tillinger Johansen, MS, RD is a Registered Dietitian who counsels clients on a wide range of health issues. Her debut nutrition book, Fast Food Vindication, received the Discovery Award (sponsored by USA Today, Kirkus and The Huffington Post). She lives in Southern California.

Her latest book is the nonfiction/nutrition/health book, Stop the Diet, I Want To Get Off!
For More Information

Book Excerpt:

"The idea for this book began at a wedding.
Who doesn’t love a good wedding? The clothes, the flowers, the romance, the food…
Ah, the food. As we moved into the banquet hall, the culinary feast was on everyone’s minds. It was all anyone seemed talk about. But for some reason, guests weren’t conversing about the dishes being served; they were swapping stories of diets they had heard about from friends, magazine articles, even celebrities on talk shows.
I’m a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in nutritional science and years of clinical and health education experience. I’ve counseled thousands of patients and clients on all of these diets. But hearing the guests only momentarily distracted me from my horrible faux pas of wearing white (gasp!) to a friend’s wedding.
“I’m on the Blood Type Diet,” said a woman with an impossibly high bouffant hairdo. “You’ve heard of that, haven’t you? It’s the one where you choose your foods based on your blood type. I’m an AB, so I’ll be having the fish.”
“Really?” her friend replied. “I swear by the gluten-free diet. I’m on it, my daughter’s on it, and my granddaughter’s on it.”
I happened to know her granddaughter was six and didn’t have a gluten sensitivity or celiac disease.
Then there was the stocky guy who was trying to impress one of the bridesmaids. “I’m a paleo man myself,” he said, piling his plate high with beef kebabs. “It gives me more stamina, know what I mean? It puts me in touch with my inner caveman. There’s a restaurant near my apartment that’s paleo friendly. Maybe we can grab a bite there sometime, or…Hey wait, where are you going?”
And there were three Weight Watchers sisters who typed furiously on their phones and argued over their meals’ point values. Apparently there was some discrepancy between their various apps, and the sisters’ discussion was becoming more heated by the moment.
I’m past the point of being surprised by the wide range of weight-loss strategies—
some worthless, some crazy, some quite reasonable—being tossed around. In the past few years, there has been a tidal wave of diets washing up on the shores of our nutritional consciousness. Celebrities prance across our screens, promoting a variety of weight-loss schemes on talk shows and infomercials. Medical doctors star in their own syndicated television programs, exposing millions to weight-loss techniques, often unsupported by medical research. Other diets get traction on the Internet, racing all over the globe in social media posts, YouTube videos, and annoying spam e-mails. It’s hard to walk past a shopping center vitamin store without being approached by salespeople trying to pitch the latest weight-loss supplements. It seems that everyone wants a piece of the pie; the American diet industry tops $60 billion annually.
It’s classic information overload. You can’t blame people for being confused by all the diets out there, even as crazy as some of them may sound. I didn’t speak up to my fellow wedding guests that day, but it occurred to me they would benefit from some hard facts about the diets they so ardently follow.
So during the toasts, I thought to myself, I should write a book.
I counsel clients on these matters each week, giving them information they need to make the best choices for their health and waistlines. I find that all too often there’s nothing to the diets that are presented to me in my counseling sessions and classes. They just plain don’t work, particularly over the long term. And some of them are harmful, even potentially lethal. But it’s also unhealthy to carry extra weight on our frames. So how do we separate good diets from the bad?
In the chapters to come, we’ll take a good, hard look at the various weight-loss plans out there. I’ll pull no punches in my professional evaluation of some of the most wildly popular diets, both bad and good, of the past few years. And along the way, I’ll explore tried-and-true strategies for losing weight, based on my years of hospital experience, weight-loss seminars, and community outreach efforts. More often than not, the best answer is not a trendy celebrity-endorsed diet, but instead a few easy-to-follow guidelines that I’ve seen work in literally thousands of cases.
Enough is enough. It’s time for the madness—and the diets—to stop..."


*** I received this book from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Good morning readers,

I have read and started reviewing several books that I was planning on posting this weekend, but due to unforeseen circumstances, I may not be able to post until Sunday. I must apologize to the authors, publicists, and readers who have been awaiting my reviews, but sometimes things happen that are out of one's control. Thanks for all the continued support!

-Allizabeth (TPP)

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Review # 301: The Rockstar Remedy by Dr. Gabrielle Francis

Description: (book-jacket)

          Known as the “Rock n’ Roll Doctor” to some of the most famous bands in the world, Dr. Gabrielle Francis shares her unique holistic prescription to achieving health and balance—even when you don’t live like a saint!

          As a Holistic Doctor to the music industry’s elite, Dr. Francis has helped rock stars repair, recover, and refuel from the demanding schedules and occasional overindulgences that come along with the rock star lifestyle. Being overscheduled, sleep-deprived, overeating, drinking and managing physical and mental stressors aren’t lifestyle habits unique to the music industry; they are the same challenges faced by all of us, every day.

          In The Rockstar Remedy, Dr. Francis shares her unique strategies designed to be incorporated into your hectic lifestyle. Her programs are customized to meet you where you are at, whether an experienced health enthusiast or a beginner. Completing the 21 day detox will give you a renewed sense of energy and enthusiasm for life, while looking and feeling your personal best. She explains how health is not a destination, but exists on a spectrum, and the simple act of making better choices every day—even if they’re not the best choices—helps us achieve balance in both mind and body. With tips for improving energy levels, easy food guidelines and a simple no-starvation detox, Dr. Francis offers a simple, effective plan for staying healthy and happy amid the chaos of our daily lives. Her popular “Harm Reduction Techniques” and “90/10 Rule” make it easy to celebrate life with occasional indulgences while maintaining good health. This is not a temporary fix; this program brings long-lasting, life-changing results.

Now you can reach for the stars too!


Interested?

The Rockstar Remedy is available at Amazon.
Pick up your copy at Barnes & Noble.
Discuss this book at the PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads.

Review:

          It's not often that I get to review books about diet and health, (although health-based topics are a favorite of mine), so when I get the chance to read a book like The Rockstar Remedy by Dr. Gabrielle Francis, I usually jump at the chance. In addition to the cool, bright cover art, the bold title and the advance praise from doctors and musicians caught my interest immediately (as was the intention, of course), making me curious about the content. Was it going to be another dry, boring "self-help" manual for the masses, featuring new takes on old health practices? Or was it going to spin old and new trains of thought into something novel and useful? This question was easily answered after reading the table of contents and getting into the first couple of chapters. The Rockstar Remedy is not just for legitimate million dollar on-stage acts, but also for the rockstar that exists in all of us. It's a prescriptive framework that allows for the reader to examine and reevaluate different areas of their life in regards to being healthier and (in most cases) happier. Dr. Francis partitions the book into four sections: the RxStar Philosophy, Detox, Nourish/Revive, and Heal, RestoreRecover - all important topics for a busy, tired, overworked, overindulgent rockstar, but also important to anyone with a typical challenging day-to-day lifestyle (a.k.a. most people). I liked Dr. Francis' approach to getting people motivated and ramped up about their well being. Even if you aren't a rockstar, the ability to repair, recover, and recharge your "batteries" on a regular basis is an important step towards getting things together and finding a balance between home, work, school, band practice, extracurriculars, etc... Most of the content was easy to digest and fun to read, especially the quotes and the "Harm Reduction Techniques". It's great how accessible everything is. That being said, like with any "self-help" type book, I took a lot of good ideas and tips from it, but there were sections that did not impress me, specifically, parts of the detox, nourish, and revive sections. There were a few reasons why these sections did not meet my expectations, including: I am a scientist, so I often think that there should be more detail about certain items, especially where nutrition and ingredients are involved. Also, certain recipes/remedies had ingredients that my body cannot tolerate, so being unable to actually try any of the remedies hampered some of my enjoyment; like with any lifestyle programs these items are not the author's fault, just depends on the reader and their circumstances. Overall, I enjoyed reading The Rockstar Remedy, especially Dr. Francis' writing style and the overall "you can do it!" motivational tone. I was surprised how much I got out of it and recommend it to anyone who wants to recharge their life (and their inner rockstar)!  

Rating: On the Run! (4/5)

About the Author:

          Dr. Gabrielle Francis has been practicing natural medicine for more than thirty years. She is a Naturopathic Doctor, Chiropractor, Acupuncturist, and Licensed Massage therapist. Dr. Francis currently practices in New York City as The Herban Alchemist.  She also operates Backstage Alternative, which is her natural medicine road show that provides chiropractic, massage, acupuncture, nutrition and herbal remedies to performing artists on tour.

          Dr. Francis received her formal medical training at National College of Chiropractic and at Bastyr University. She has extensive training in Alternative Cancer Therapies, Environmental Medicine, Functional Medicine, Mind-Body medicine, and Bio-Identical Hormone therapies. Following her formal medical education, Dr. Francis travelled extensively to various parts of the world studying medicine with indigenous healers in countries such as China, India, Thailand, Bali, Brazil, Morocco, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador, Belize, Mexico, Egypt, and Mali.

          Stacy Baker Masand is a health, fitness and lifestyle editor whose work has appeared in magazines such as In Style, Marie Claire, Self, Shape, Fitness, DuJour and Women’s Health. She’s co-author of New York Times bestseller Your Best Body Now. Stacy is currently developing projects for both small and big screen.Their latest book is the health/wellness/rocknroll book, The Rockstar Remedy.

Want to know more?

Visit Dr. Gabrielle Francis’ website.
Connect with Gabrielle on Facebook and Twitter.
Find out more about Gabrielle at Goodreads.
Connect with Gabrielle on Instagram.
Visit Gabrielle’s blog..
Contact Gabrielle.


Tour Schedule:

Tuesday, September 1: Interview at PUYB Virtual Book Club

Wednesday, September 2: Interview at C.A. Milson’s Blog

Thursday, September 3: First Chapter Reveal at Pump Up Your Book

Friday, September 4: Book Featured at Bound 2 Escape

Wednesday, September 9: Book Featured at Authors and Readers Book Corner

Thursday, September 10: Interview at Pinky’s Favorite Reads

Monday, September 14: Interview at The Writer’s Life

Tuesday, September 15: Guest Blogging at Mythical Books

Wednesday, September 16: Guest Blogging at Lori’s Reading Corner

Monday, September 21: Interview at Examiner

Tuesday, September 22: Book Featured at Booklover Sue

Wednesday, September 23: Guest Blogging at Defending the Pen

Monday, September 28: Book Featured at 3 Partners in Shopping

Wednesday, September 30: Guest Blogging at The Story Behind the Book

Monday, October 5: Guest Blogging at The Writer’s Life

Tuesday, October 6: Interview at Review From Here

Wednesday, October 7: Book Featured at The Literary Nook

Thursday, October 8: Book Featured at Confessions of a Reader

Monday, October 12: Book Featured at CBY Book Club

Tuesday, October 13: Book Review at The Paperback Pursuer

Wednesday, October 14: Book Review at Confessions of the Perfect Mom

Thursday, October 15: Book Review at Book Babble

Monday, October 19: Guest Blogging at Beyond the Books

Tuesday, October 20: Book Review at Storeybook Reviews

Wednesday, October 21: Book Review at A Word At A Time

Monday, October 26: Guest Blogging at Literal Exposure

Tuesday, October 27: Book Review at Bound 4 Escape

Wednesday, October 28: Guest Blogging at As the Page Turns

Thursday, October 29: Guest Blogging at Mina’s Bookshelf

Friday, October 30: Book Review at My Life Loves and Passion

Monday, November 2: Book Review at The Literary Nook

Tuesday, November 3: Book Review at Deal Sharing Aunt

Wednesday, November 4: Guest Blogging at As the Pages Turn

Thursday, November 5: Interview at I’m Shelf-ish

Monday, November 9: Interview at The Book Rack

Tuesday, November 10: Interview at Blogcritics

Wednesday, November 11: Book Review at I’d Rather Be At The Beach

Thursday, November 12: Interview at Literarily Speaking

Monday, November 16: First Chapter Reveal at Read My First Chapter

Tuesday, November 17: Book Featured at Maureen’s Musings

Thursday, November 19: Book Review at Create With Joy

Tuesday, November 24: Interview at SheWrites

Wednesday, November 25: Book Review at Svetlana’s Books and Views

Friday, November 27: Book Tour Highlights at PUYB Virtual Book Club

*** I received this book from the author/ publisher in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.