A quirky and useful guide to gradually adopting healthier eating habits.
A self-help book on how to achieve sustainable weight loss by eating for pleasure as well as health.
Although this guide’s subject is weight loss, it isn’t a conventional diet book. Instead of prescribing what foods to eat or avoid, health writer Alvear focuses on howto eat, promising to guide readers toward healthier eating habits by borrowing principles and discoveries from the fields of anthropology, physiology, neuroscience, psychology, and biology. He asserts that food manufacturers have contributed to skyrocketing obesity and ill health by manipulating consumers into eating larger amounts of food, even as its taste and nutritional quality plummets. Standard portion sizes have increased dramatically since the early 20th century, the author writes; even dishes and utensils are significantly larger. He discusses how the general public is constantly bombarded with advertising for junk food and fast food, and how messages about “good” and “bad” foods are full of bewildering contradictions. However, he also notes that research into human biology and behavior can point the way to healthy, enjoyable eating without deprivation or guilt. For example, the book notes that strategies that involve quick, drastic changes are sure to backfire, but mindful eating practices that focus on sensory pleasure can make smaller portions more enjoyable and help people to naturally eat less. The author outlines clear, actionable steps for tapering off poor eating habits, substituting better ones, and rebounding from occasional lapses. Some of the detailed techniques, such reducing soda portions a few spoonfuls at a time, seem impractical, as somewhat less gradual tactics would likely be just as effective. Still, the writing is often persuasive, with plenty of humor, as when it calls dieting “the main exhibition at the Museum of Failure.” It also clearly explains challenging terms, such as “systematic sensitization” and “alimentary alliesthesia.” However, specific citations for research studies mentioned in the text would have been helpful.
A quirky and useful guide to gradually adopting healthier eating habits.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 151
Publisher: Woodpecker Media
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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