With the new year upon us, some people are making resolutions to lose weight, to eat healthier, to exercise more and to cut down on bad habits. Here are some new books that might help us keep some of those New Year’s resolutions:
“Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It,” by Gary Taubes (Knopf, 258 pages, $24.95).
If we are taking in more calories than we are burning, we’ll get fat, right? So if we take in fewer calories will we then lose weight? So we are led to believe.
Gary Taubes thinks this prevalent belief is not correct. “Science itself makes clear that hormones, enzymes and growth factors regulate our fat tissue, just as they do everything else in the human body, and that we do not get fat because we overeat; we get fat because the carbohydrates in our diet make us fat,” he asserts. Taubes concludes that carbohydrates are “driving us to accumulate fat; they make us hungrier and they make us sedentary.”
“You Are What You Eat Cookbook: More Than 150 Healthy and Delicious Recipes,” by Gillian McKeith (Plume, 240 pages, $18).
McKeith describes herself as a “holistic nutritionist.” She offers some guidelines, beginning with: “Eat as much food as you want until you are satisfied, as long as you eat the right foods prepared in the right way.” She lays down rules for when to eat which types of foods. For example, she advises waiting “three hours after a protein meal before eating carbohydrates.” The book offers menu plans and lots of recipes for dishes including Tuscan bean soup, wild rice salad with beets, chicken burgers, navy bean loaf and tofu pecan stir-fry.
“The O2 Diet: The Cutting Edge Antioxidant-Based Program That Will Make You Healthy, Thin and Beautiful,” by Keri Glassman (Rodale, 234 pages, $15.99).
Here’s a somewhat different take on dieting. This book presents a four-day cleansing diet that “promotes rapid weight loss, improved appearance and confidence-boosting results.” The author says that “when a cell dies, it releases a lonely little oxygen molecule known as a free radical. These tiny homeless bits of oxygen are what cause so many health problems.” She explains how this damaging process occurs.
She presents her four-week diet plan that follows the four-day cleanse. There are recipes and lists of the best and the worst foods that we might eat.
“Quit Smoking Today Without Gaining Weight,” by Paul McKenna (Sterling, 135 pages, $22.95).
Forty-five million Americans still smoke cigarettes. Many smokers are afraid to quit because they fear that it will cause them to gain weight.
McKenna is the British self-help whiz who has sold millions of books with titles such as “I Can Make You Confident,” “I Can Make You Sleep” and “I Can Make You Thin.” This book contains instructions on how to quit smoking, exercises, and it includes a hypnosis CD.
