A new year means the majority of us have made some kind of New Year’s resolution. And sadly, according to a New York Times article that I read recently, one third of those resolutions will be broken by the end of January. So what’s a potential resolution-breaker to do? How about adding a few worthy books to your arsenal.

The same New York Times article also stated that resolutions are likely broken because people “eventually run out of willpower, which social scientists no longer regard as simply a metaphor. They’ve recently reported that willpower is a real form of mental energy, powered by glucose in the bloodstream, which is used up as you exert self-control.” Two new health and diet books that I feel could help establish some useful habits as well as give resolution-makers’ willpower a boost are Thinner This Year by Chris Crowley & Jen Sacheck, Ph.D. and The Happiness Diet by Tyler Graham & Drew Ramsey, MD.

Thinner This Year, part of the  Younger Next Year series, advises readers to avoid “dead foods” or nutrient-poor foods such as highly processed foods with solid fats and lots of added sugars. Along with a straightforward diet plan, the book also sets up a meticulously researched exercise program that includes 25 whole-body strength exercises-what the authors call the “Sacred 25.”

**Chris Crowley of Thinner This Year will be visiting Lemuria on Wednesday, February 6th!**

The authors of  The Happiness Diet have fused neuroscience and nutrition in order to illustrate the pitfalls of the Modern American Diet, or MAD. Like the authors of Thinner This Year, Graham and Ramsey focus on America’s detrimental shift to a more processed diet, and provide straightforward solutions for eliminating processed foods and replacing them with nutrient-rich foods that improve both health and mood. With a range of advice, from a list of “good mood foods” to instructions on how to pickle your vegetables at home, The Happiness Diet emphasizes a return to a simpler and more conscious relationship with food.

Both books set their readers up with the tools to establish healthy habits and provide a guide to navigate today’s consumer food market, which does not always have the consumer’s best health options in mind. Here’s to keeping our New Year’s resolutions!

by Anna

Understanding is often the key to coping with any problem. With 30 million Americans estimated to have migraines, The Migraine Brain by Dr.  Carolyn Bernstein helps migraine sufferers develop a strategy for dealing with this often debilitating neurological disease.

With helpful anecdotes, patient interviews and the latest in migraine research, Dr. Bernstein helps sufferers to identify their triggers, understand medicines and treatment options, and develop a plan for leading a healthy lifestyle. A migraine sufferer herself, Berstein is not only a specialist in the field but a sympathetic and compassionate care giver. Although I do not suffer from migraines, I do have headaches on a daily basis and I found her holistic approach refreshing. Reading her book I often felt like I was having a real doctor’s visit:

No two people are alike when it comes to migraine, and what works for your friend or neighbor probably won’t work for you. It may take trial and error to find the right mix of treatments for you, but I’m certain that, with some time and thought, you can feel much, much better.

Lastly, her “Migraine Mantras” left an impression on me:

Migraine is a treatable illness–you can feel much better.

You have a right to make your health a priority.

Controlling migraines is 50 percent education and 50 percent treatment.

This review of The Migraine Brain was featured on The Book Shelf of Mississippi’s very own magazine Well-Being. We are proud to contribute to Well-Being and always enjoy working with the Well-Being team. Mississippi is lucky to have such a great magazine and Lemuria has copies to pick-up for free at the Fiction Desk! Well-Being magazine is great way to keep up with local healthy events and fitness activities. You can also follow Well-Being on Facebook.

When you think about it, it really takes a lot to be beautiful. On the other hand, sexual selection has guaranteed that our ancestors mated with the most beautiful partners they could find! It’s no wonder so much of our culture and media spends so much money and time on all things beautiful. In You Being Beautiful, Doctors Rozien and Oz take the approach that “beauty is as much about your vanity as it is about your humanity.”

You Being Beautiful is a comprehensive, often amusing look at beauty which discusses three levels of beauty. Looking Beautiful is about caring for the physical body–hair, skin and body shape–considering that it is an “instant message” we send to others about ourselves. Feeling beautiful takes a look at how we feel about our bodies and what we can do about such things as chronic pain as well as how our attitudes can keep us from feeling beautiful. Being beautiful is about building better relationships and staying on path that is happy as well as beautiful.

You Being Beautiful is a light-hearted way into a very serious part of our lives. It’s a book to pick up and put down and share with others. Doctors Rozien and Oz dedicate You Being Beautiful “to all who radiate outer beauty because they treasure inner beauty.”

Written by Lisa Newman

Every morning my mother would repeat the mantra of mom’s everywhere: “Drink your milk! The calcium is good for your bones.” But drinking milk, and even taking calcium supplements, isn’t enough to prevent osteoporosis. Each year 1.5 million people suffer a bone fracture related to osteoporosis.

In her book, Strong Women, Strong Bones, Dr. Miriam Nelson outlines a plan for not only osteoporosis prevention, but also for gaining back bone density. (The front cover declares “you’re never too young or too old to start” taking care of your bones.)

The book weaves exercise and diet plans together in an easy-to-read format. I was impressed by how easily the modifications Dr. Nelson recommends fit into my current lifestyle—no lingering guilt about what I am or am not doing. Strong Women, Strong Bones, gave me the peace of mind that good bone health is achievable.

This review of Strong Women, Strong Bones was featured on The Book Shelf of Mississippi’s very own magazine Well-Being. We are proud to contribute to Well-Being and always enjoy working with the Well-Being team. Mississippi is lucky to have such a great magazine and Lemuria has copies to pick-up for free at the Fiction Desk! Well-Being magazine is great way to keep up with local healthy events and fitness activities. You can also follow Well-Being on Facebook.

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When I first saw the title The End of Illness I feared that the contents of this book would tell me that everything  that I thought was healthy is actually not. Will I just be depressed? I read the first page and couldn’t stop reading. Everything I read was fascinating and encouraging and empowering.

Dr. Agus has three goals in writing The End of Illness: to change your view of the human body; to develop practical strategies to apply to this new way of thinking; and to inform you about the state of current medical research and where the latest research is taking us. As Dr. Agus puts it, this book is about getting to know yourself. The main idea I took away from The End of Illness is a new appreciation for the complexity of the body and the need to view the body as a whole system. Similarly, I have a new appreciation for the complexity of food and the need to eat whole foods.

Some of the topics and practical suggestions included in The End of Illness: an explanation of how vitamins work in whole foods and how little evidence there is that vitamins in pill form work and how they may actually be harming the body; an explanation of inflammation of the body and how we can prevent it; how to exercise and the benefits of keeping a schedule; how three inexpensive medicines are key to our health. Some of these arguments you may be familiar with, but Dr. Agus explains why and he does so in a way that is easy to understand and enjoyable to read.

If you read one book about your health this year, read this one. Then read Food Rules by Michael Pollan.

The End of Illness by David B. Agus, M.D.

Diet books are a tricky genre. Customers can sometimes be fickle or impatient. I have several diet books on the shelf in the health section claiming that if you read them you may “lose 10 pounds in 10 days!” or that they can “make you hot.” Discerning which diet books possess the potential to become staples in the genre or become another of-the-moment fad book is not always the easiest task.

I had a customer call the other day and ask for help selecting a health-related book for a book club, preferably a recent book that had been selling well. As I racked my brain for books that fit this criteria, it didn’t take me long to come up with a suggestion.

The Blood Sugar Solution by Mark Hyman, MD, touts itself as “the ultrahealthy program for losing weight, preventing disease, and feeling great now!” In the beginning of the book, Dr. Hyman introduces the term “diabesity,” which he explains is the combination of “our current global epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes.” If you are at risk for “diabesity” or just want to get your blood sugar under control (even if you are not overweight or feel like a reasonably healthy individual, your blood sugar levels may be much higher than you think), this is the book for you.

I especially enjoyed and could relate to the chapter “How Big Food, Big Farming, and Big Pharma Are Killing Us.” Processed foods are a body’s number one enemy when it comes to health and weight. By making junk or processed foods cheap and widely available, the food industry, government and pharmacy companies are preventing Americans from leading healthy, productive lives.

It’s not a coincidence that the poorest states, such as Mississippi, in our country are also the fattest. Poverty makes it impossible to make the best food choices, and poverty rates are higher than they have been in a generation. Not only are healthier foods almost always more expensive, they are often not available in poorer neighborhoods. This combination of factors is a direct link to obesity and diabetes.

The Blood Sugar Solution  has been on USA Today’s Best Selling Books list since its debut in March for good reason. Hyman presents a sensible and manageable plan for lowering your blood sugar and getting back your health.

by Anna

Dr. Howard Murad was seven years old when he arrived in the United States from Baghdad. A hard working family instilled in him a love of learning. Dr. Murad says that he never could have imagined the opportunity he had to make a difference in the lives of others being a dermatologist, pharmacist and researcher. The difference Dr. Murad wants to make is in the area of prevention as opposed to treating to health problems.

One of the crucial prevention areas is in the area of cell health. Based on his research Dr. Murad bases The Water Secret on this assertion: “the key to vibrant health from the inside out lies in maintaining strong cells that can retain water the way younger cells do.”

The goal of The Water Secret is to bring about a lifestyle change in a gentle way by preventing and reducing damage to cells so they retain more water and nutrients and by strengthening the membranes and connective tissues of cells. Dr. Murad believes that these changes are brought about topical, internal, and emotional self-care. An engaging and encouraging read on its own, The Water Secret is not without a 10-step action plan with tips and recipes.

Di-a-be-tes (noun): a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism characterized by inadequate production or usage of insulin and causing excessive levels of glucose in the blood and urine

Re-verse (verb): to turn in the opposite direction or send on the opposite course

Reverse Diabetes published by Reader’s Digest introduces the Eat, Move and Choose plan.  It provides a 12 week step by step plan that will help with reserving diabetes and your need for medication as well as help you lead a healthier lifestyle.

Let’s begin with the Eat plan. There are seven goals under this heading. A few seem to be reminders I have often heard:  increase your vegetable servings, decrease your carbohydrates intake, load up on fruits and include a lean protein at every meal. Reverse Diabetes gives tips on how to perfect your proportions when you load your plate and how to plan for each meal. Though that all sounds very easy, there is a quiz for you to take that will check the inventory of your eating habits and the foods you stock in your kitchen. You may, in fact,  find that you need to start the Eat plan today!

The Move Plan encourages you to do just that…move! If you have diabetes, there is a section on how to safely exercise with that diagnosis. The important thing to remember is to make active choices every day. Take the stairs. Make dinner that requires chopping. Wash your car by hand. Clean out your garage. Simple things each day can make a big difference in the amount of calories burned.

Choose! You’ve got choices to make all day long. Be wise. There are some important ones that will play a big part in how you look and feel. Sleep is important for your body to function. Find a way to unwind each day. This is important to help with any stress that you may  have. Be resilient. Studies have shown that people with resilience are able to deal much easier with day to day life with diabetes .

If you are in the situation to reverse your diabetes, Reverse Diabetes has a wonderful planner included. It helps with weekly meal planning and checking your progress as the week goes by. At the end of the week, there is a place for your successes and your confessions. With the help of this, you would be able to see where your weaknesses lie and where you need the most help. Once that is established, you will be on track to dropping your blood sugar and reversing diabetes.  -Quinn

Whether young or old, we forget things. Can’t go to the grocery because you lost your keys? Once you get there, have you forgotten what you actually needed? It can be so frustrating therefore it is important to work to keep our minds sharp. Similar to the need of physical exercise, our brain needs exercises to keep it in shape. The Memory Bible by Gary Small is a book that introduces strategies for keeping your brain young. Dr. Small is the director of the UCLA Center on Aging.  He believes we can help diminish our forgetfulness with his brain fitness program.

Simple everyday basic memory skills that you should familiarize yourself with are: look, snap and connect.  Studies show that our memory system works best when the new information we learn or observe has meaning to us. Look. You must observe what you want to learn. One of the most common barriers is that we, as learners, do not pay attention when information is presented to us. Daily we rely on all of our senses but vision is the first skill we use when something new is placed in front of us. Be observant to your surroundings. Snap. Develop mental snapshots of what you want to remember. Creating these vivid pictures can help with your long term memory. Details help with recalling a memory. Focus on the details of each snapshot you have. Connect. Link the images together in a related chain. Start with the first image, which is associated with the second, and in that way your images will become connected. Remember the first image must associate with something that will help you remember the chain.

This book , on such an important subject, has an incredible bout of knowledge. Dr. Small provides a list of foods that have been proven to be memory protective.  With the help of this list, you could go on a “brain diet”.  Also included in this book are numerous mental aerobic exercises. There is a workbook section with a weekly and daily calender so that you can start the routine of exercising your brain. It is the most important part of your body.  Treat it with care.  -Quinn

Despite my intention to stuff as much content into the Mega-Health post as I could, I realized a few days later that there were still several things I left out. Here’s what I forgot the first time around.

This past December I got a juicer. My wife and I had just watched a documentary called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead about a guy that goes on a 60 day juice fast in an attempt to lose weight and reverse his myriad health problems. It’s a great film — this is not a documentary that you sit through just so you can say you love documentaries — it’s entertaining, and funny, and occasionally sad.

I was so intrigued by the juicing concept that I decided I wanted that juicer for Christmas. I wasn’t on board with a full 60-day juice fast, but I liked the idea of getting a fresh, nutrient-packed fruit and veggie juice mix from home with no added sugar, artificial flavors, or artificial colors. There is a ton of information online about health benefits from juicing, but I wanted something with all the information compiled and organized for easy reference, so I picked up a copy of The Juice Lady’s Guide to Juicing for Health. This book lists all the benefits of the fruits and vegetables you can juice, with specific application to particular health needs. I’m still on the lookout for a really good juicing recipe book, however.

Another book I’ve looked at several times is Wheat Belly. This book focuses on the detrimental effects of wheat and gluten. Since my wife and I have been following The Primal Blueprint, we’ve already cut out basically all grains anyway, but wheat in particular has some really terrible consequences for your health, and this book goes into much greater detail on the development of wheat and wheat-based foods. I’ve found going grain-free is not significantly more difficult than going wheat-free or gluten-free, but I’ll probably go back and read this book just for the information on wheat.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a bit of a bike geek. Running has taken over some of my outside exercise attention, but I still love cycling. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone mountain biking, and my old mountain bike needed a serious overhaul before it would be trail-ready again. I usually attempt to do my own repair and maintenance but I’ll confess I ran out of time and took my bike to the shop this time (two big thumbs-up to The Bike Crossing). For the simpler at-home stuff, my go-to guide is The Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintence and Repair.

I’ve also picked up a copy of DK’s Bicycle Repair Manual. It’s much smaller than the Bicycling Guide, and doesn’t have as much information, but the illustrations and photos are full-color and much clearer. Between the two books just about everything you need is covered.

Weight-lifting is an important part of fitness, but it takes some planning if you’re not the type of person to spend hours at the gym (and I’m not that type of person). Sure, I could spend a few hundred dollars on a home gym or free weights and bench, but I’d rather be creative and save some money at the same time.

The best place to start is with the basics: pushups and pullups. Pushups obviously require no special equipment, but if you’d like a good plan for building strength, I recommend 7 Weeks to 100 Push-Ups. Pullups require that you have access to some kind of a sturdy bar (I use one of those doorframe-bars you see in stores), but it’s well worth the minimal investment, and we have the companion guide 7 Weeks to 50 Pull-Ups.

When you’re ready to move beyond (or supplement) basic pushups and pullups, probably the biggest bang for your buck is a kettlebell. For a long time weight-lifting has focused on isolating muscles (think: biceps curls) — kettlebell workouts toss this out the window and encourage full-body coordinated movements that work all the little stabilizing muscles in addition to the large muscle groups and build real, functional strength.

You can imagine my shock the last time I was working through the fitness shelves and realized we didn’t have any kettlebell books. I immediately started researching to find the best kettlebell resources I could find, and settled on the two books that had the most recommendations from experts: Enter the Kettlebell and Kettlebell RX. Either book will cover all the basics and get you started, but personally I prefer Pavel’s book — both because he’s a pioneer in the popularization of kettlebell workouts, and also because he’s embraced the whole “Mad Russian” persona.

Joe and Lisa have extolled the virtues of BeanFruit Coffee here before, but I wanted to add one more reason to come by the store and pick up a bag — it’s good for you. The cleanest coffee tastes better, but it also minimizes the formation of toxic molds that you’ll find on 90% of the coffee beans out there. These mycotoxins don’t just affect the taste of the coffee, they affect your health. Additionally, because each bag is stamped with a roast date, you can avoid stale coffee beans covered in sticky, rancid oil. BeanFruit Coffee is super-coffee. Come get some super-coffee.

That’s all I’ve got for now! Health and fitness has turned into a bit of a hobby for me, so feel free to stop in the store and chat about any of this stuff — I’m often in the back room so just ask for me.