A highly structured and well-presented dietary manual.
Gut health is good health in integrative health coach and chef Postolowski’s nutritional wellness guide.
The author’s nutritional plan, spelled out in this book, seeks to get at the root cause of all sorts of common symptoms, from weight gain to mood swings to trouble sleeping: “You are only as healthy as the food you can digest,” says the author in her introduction, further asserting that gut health is related to balanced hormones, improved brain function, and better immune response; she offers citations to back up her statements from the National Institutes of Health and scientific journals, among other sources. Postolowski’s solution is a three-week program she calls “Reset 90/10,” which takes its name from the idea that consistent progress can be made in an area by doing it perfectly 90% of the time and imperfectly the remaining 10%. The author expounds on her theories that certain foods cause inflammation in the gut and that this can have a negative effect on all other parts of the body; she then outlines her three-week regimen for eliminating inflammatory foods, followed by a multiweek “maintenance” period of reintroducing items into the diet. By the end of the process, the gut should be “reset” and healing, she says, and readers should have valuable information regarding what to eat or avoid. Postolowski’s prose is precise and accessible, with familiar elements from the mindfulness movement sprinkled throughout: “Aim to be in a restorative parasympathetic state when you eat. This means eating while calm and stress-free. Emphasizing how vital the parasympathetic state is at mealtime means you’ll become more conscious as well.” The text is accompanied by several grayscale illustrations by Hart, mostly of foods, and most of the second half is made up of healthy recipes to try during the program. The author effectively explains her reasoning each step of the way, offering tips, warnings, and encouragement for the apprehensive reader.
A highly structured and well-presented dietary manual.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9798218050719
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Frankie Mahwah Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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