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Let's be honest. For many women, the holiday season isn't entirely joyful. They spend untold hours shopping, baking, cleaning and traveling like madwomen, and they deserve a little reward. We've selected an array of books designed to give your mother, wife, sister or best friend a respite from the hectic holidays. Covering everything from beauty advice to the miracle of birth, these gift selections aim to refresh mind, body and spirit and not a moment too soon.

When was the last time you really savored a cup of coffee, or paused to listen to a songbird? For most women, it's been awhile, and Sarah Ban Breathnach is out to change that. During the 1980s, Ban Breathnach lost her senses literally. A ceiling panel fell on her head in a restaurant, leaving her extremely sensitive to touch and sound, and unable to taste or smell for months. Bedridden and disoriented, she was struck by a profound yearning for simple pleasures, such as the taste of a ripe peach or the smell of freshly washed clothes. After she recovered, Ban Breathnach compiled her thoughts in her best-selling Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, and Something More, among others. In the same vein comes her new release, Romancing the Ordinary, a guide to rediscovering the mystery and surprise in everyday life. This inspirational litany of recipes, rituals, decorating hints, fashion and gardening tips is intended to reinvigorate body and soul. With chapters designed to be read in increments throughout the year, Ban Breathnach invites female readers to join her on a journey to renew their sense of wonder and bask in ordinary delights.

Beauty knows no bounds, including age. That's the theme of makeup guru Bobbi Brown's new book, Bobbi Brown Beauty Evolution: A Guide to a Lifetime of Beauty. Written with Sally Wadyka, Brown's guide takes a practical look at the changing face of beauty. Each chapter focuses on a different stage of life and outlines the shifts women should make in their beauty routines through the years. This down-to-earth reference encourages women to celebrate their looks at any age and gives them the know-how to get started from choosing the right makeup brushes to selecting a flattering hair color. Brown's book also includes a section on beauty and health tips for pregnant women, for those going through chemotherapy, and for those considering plastic surgery. It presents interviews with women about self-image and a section on makeovers. A chapter full of grooming tips for men rounds out the mix. With a warm, inclusive tone and more than 300 glossy, color photographs, Beauty Evolution redefines beauty and celebrates it across the generations.

Supermodel Christy Turlington may be rich and gorgeous, but she's also a thoughtful, spiritual woman dedicated to living a balanced existence. In Living Yoga: Creating a Life Practice, the cover girl and serious yoga student presents the basics of the practice, interspersed with reflections and anecdotes about her ongoing journey toward personal discovery. In straightforward prose, Turlington tells how her dedication to the ancient art has helped her weather difficult times, including her father's death from lung cancer. She describes the benefits of meditation, clears up some common misunderstandings about yoga and explains the philosophy behind different poses. Complete with a history of yoga, an overview of different styles, an extensive glossary of terms and a resource directory, this elegantly illustrated book is ideal for beginners or advanced practitioners looking for some inner equilibrium.

If you're searching for the perfect gift to bestow on expectant mothers, look no further than From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfoldsby Alexander Tsiaras, with text by Barry Werth. This lavishly designed book combines stunning visual art with medical science to present a child's development in the womb as never seen before. Scientific visualization software, designed and patented by Tsiaras, presents the developing baby from new angles and in luminous images "painted" by Tsiaras on the computer. The accompanying text explains how a child's life begins, starting with the basics. It also includes information about heredity, DNA, infertility and more all written in an engaging, light style. Absorbing from a scientific as well as an artistic perspective, From Conception to Birth is the kind of book that parents-to-be will consult in wonderment throughout the pregnancy and beyond.

And finally, in a delightfully small package comes a tribute to that most feminine of carrying cases the purse. Who would have thought that so much could be inferred, stated and communicated about the purses, pocketbooks and handbags in which nearly every woman carries her necessities, conveniences and other mysterious paraphernalia? In Handbags: The Power of the Purse author Anna Johnson examines the evolution of the purse, from the era when it brought independence to women (who previously relied on men to carry items for them), to today's functional and fashionable trends.

Purses of all shapes, sizes and materials announce the carrier's character and status from former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's chunky "trusty companion" to Grace Kelly's elegant Hermes Haute Courroies bag. Most women aren't content to own just one or two purses; there must be choices fit for work and play, fun and function, day and evening. With more than 900 color photographs, Handbags aims to capture every imaginable variety of the purse, from beaded to brocaded, from dainty to downright dorky. This wallet-sized selection would make an ideal stocking stuffer for the fashion-conscious lady on your list.

Let's be honest. For many women, the holiday season isn't entirely joyful. They spend untold hours shopping, baking, cleaning and traveling like madwomen, and they deserve a little reward. We've selected an array of books designed to give your mother, wife, sister or best…

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First, you fall apart. That's OK. You have just been told by your doctor that you have cancer. On hearing such news, everybody falls apart, in his or her own way. Then you gather up the pieces and try to figure out what to do next. It's a decision facing many Americans, since approximately one-third of women and one-half of men will get cancer during their lifetimes. No one is immune, not even this writer who battled (and survived) uterine cancer. And for many people facing cancer the first step is to amass the most powerful weapon against the disease: information.

Here, we recommend a selection of the best books that offer help and advice for cancer patients and their families. All of these books are written either by health professionals or by cancer survivors (sometimes both), and in each the personal voice is strong, compassionate and empathetic. They share common insights, such as the power of positive thinking (though one is rightly careful to point out that even positive thinking is no magic cure). All are empowering, supplying the information needed for personal decision-making. All deal to some extent with alternative therapies. All include appendices of resources for support groups, information agencies (Internet and other) and health organizations. And all touch on the mind-body connection, some more than others.

Practical advice
Three of our recommended books fall into the practical no-nonsense category, with an emphasis on the technical aspects of the disease. Wendy Schlessel Harpham's Diagnosis: Cancer, Your Guide through the First Few Months is a revised and updated paperback edition of a book first published in 1991. Harpham is both a doctor and a cancer survivor, and she combines the insights of both. The question-and-answer format makes for easy reading, and the questions Harpham poses really are the questions a new cancer patient will ask. Least exhaustive and most manageable of all the books in this group, Diagnosis: Cancer is perhaps the best choice for a first book for the newly diagnosed patient although certainly not the last.

Caregiving: A Step-By-Step Resource for Caring for the Person with Cancer at Home by Peter S. Houts, Ph.D., and Julia A. Bucher, R.N., Ph.D., is designed for caregivers but is equally informative for the patient. Another in the down-to-earth category, it covers treatments (including how to pay for them), instruction and advice for emotional and physical conditions, managing care (for example, a section titled Helping Children Understand) and living with the results of cancer treatments. Well organized, although somewhat repetitive, Caregiving is helpful on the matter of when to get professional help for symptoms and answers questions likely to surface in day-to-day support for cancer patients.

Oncology nurse practitioner Katen Moore, M.S.N., R.N., and medical researcher Libby Schmais, M.F.A., M.L.S., declare a simple goal for Living Well With Cancer: A Nurse Tells You Everything You Need to Know About Managing the Side Effects of Your Treatment: how to feel better during cancer treatment. The emphasis here is not on the treatments themselves but on dealing with their side effects and symptoms. Many cancer patients can maintain a fairly normal life while under treatment; Moore and Schmais enable the patient to play an important role in managing his or her own disease, and in related decision-making. The authors' traditional technical and medical expertise is obvious, but they also give a good deal of attention to complementary and alternative medicines.

Mind-body connection
While all these books acknowledge the importance of treating the whole person, emotionally as well as physically, some authors put more emphasis on the psychological aspects of cancer treatment. Mind, Body, and Soul: A Guide to Living With Cancer is written by Nancy Hassett Dahm, a nurse with broad experience in treating cancer, who seems to take no guff from doctors. Clinical cases illustrate her key points, which include attitudes toward the sick and the dying, managed care, fear, stress and home care. In discussing "the continuum of pain control," Dahm emphasizes that the patient, family and medical staff must work together to assess pain, report it to the doctor and see that proper medication is administered. Chapters on philosophical and religious inspiration reflect her own deeply felt experiences in these areas. Dahm includes a discussion of spiritual events, such as out-of-body episodes, that have been reported by her patients.

Before I had cancer, I already felt I "knew myself," and all my "deepest longings, intentions, and purposes." All I really wanted to do was come out of it safe (in some way) on the other side. Most of us recognize, however, that a traumatic event like dealing with cancer presents an opportunity for personal growth. In The Journey Through Cancer: An Oncologist's Seven-Level Program for Healing and Transforming the Whole Person, oncologist Jeremy Geffen, M.D., makes that kind of personal growth the major goal of the cancer experience. His program aims to produce healing and spiritual transformation in cancer patients "at the deepest levels of your body, mind, heart, and spirit." The author's voice is compassionate and persuasive, especially as heard in clinical cases where he counsels patients and in his own experience with his father's cancer when he was a medical student. Profoundly influenced by 20 years of "exploring the great spiritual and healing traditions of the East," he invites readers to "embrace all the dimensions of who you are as a patient and as a human being." Like the Eastern religions on which it is based, Geffen's program presents sequential levels in the cancer experience, from the first level of learning basic information about the disease to levels of emotional healing, life assessment and the spiritual aspects of healing. Readers may not care to go all the way with Dr. Geffen, but they will find rich resources in joining him for some part of the journey.

Dr. Jimmie Holland's The Human Side of Cancer: Living with Hope, Coping with Uncertainty combines all the best parts of this category and reveals an independent streak. Top psychiatrist at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Holland has tired of the universal emphasis on positive thinking and includes a whole chapter on the "tyranny" of the truism, tackling in the process the idea that mind-body connection means you bring your cancer on yourself. Many anecdotal illustrations ease the reading and further her purposes, which include dealing with the diagnosis, societal myths, treatments and unique chapters on surviving cancer, dying from cancer and the grief of dying patients and their families. Holland's book is less technical than some, but it's wise and warm and a stand-out in the genre.

Not too long ago there were few technical and spiritual resources for newly diagnosed cancer patients; now a wealth of information floods bookstores and Web sites. That is hardly a cause for celebration but certainly one for gratitude.

Maude McDaniel is a longtime BookPage reviewer who writes from Cumberland, Maryland.

 

First, you fall apart. That's OK. You have just been told by your doctor that you have cancer. On hearing such news, everybody falls apart, in his or her own way. Then you gather up the pieces and try to figure out what to do…

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Does stress send you straight to the cookie jar? Is a dinner just not complete without a slice or two of sourdough bread nestled alongside your linguine? If so, chances are, according to nutritionist Adele Puhn, you’re a Sugar Baby with a case of “metabolic mix-up,” or an extraordinary carbohydrate sensitivity. Puhn, author of a previous bestseller, The Five-Day Miracle Diet, returns to corral our sugar cravings with The Midlife Miracle Diet: Tame Your Insulin Resistance. This book’s impassioned message urges everyone, young and old, toward a radical reduction of carbohydrates in their diets. Heart disease and diabetes are on the rise in the United States, Puhn says, and carbohydrates, with their inherent sugars, are the culprits.

Puhn, a committed advocate for vibrant health and longevity, clearly explains the dangers of a metabolism unbalanced by carbohydrate addiction. Her plan outlines the basics and benefits of assessing and controlling blood sugar, provides easy dietary guidelines with food lists and five days’ worth of sample menus, and emphasizes the integral importance of supplements and regular exercise. To further prove her case, she includes a comprehensive source list of scientific research that supports her findings.

So, does this mean a life without pasta, without bread? No, says Puhn, just be “carb careful,” and don those walking shoes. Alison Hood is a freelance writer based in San Rafael, California.

Does stress send you straight to the cookie jar? Is a dinner just not complete without a slice or two of sourdough bread nestled alongside your linguine? If so, chances are, according to nutritionist Adele Puhn, you're a Sugar Baby with a case of "metabolic…
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What if you haven’t got eight weeks to shape up? Say, for example, there’s only a month left to fit into that spiffy sundress you bought (one size too small) for your best friend’s beachside wedding. Relax, take a deep breath, and let Shape magazine editor Barbara Harris’s comprehensive and compassionate plan coax you into a healthier, more balanced lifestyle in only four weeks. Shape Your Life: 4 Weeks to a Better Body and a Better Life ethinks not only your workout and diet routines, but weaves a holistic approach to fitness for optimum health and well-being. Says Harris, “The punitive, deprivational approach to fitness isn’t necessary. . . . The sure and healthy way to get results is to learn to listen to your body and your heart to create a better life.” This plan is designed to sculpt physical and emotional health, based on the premise that one cannot exist without the other. Though half of the book is devoted to exercise and diet, the remaining chapters cover other vital elements for overall wellness: spirituality, adequate rest (including sleep and relaxation), balanced emotions, a healthy body image and a satisfying, rewarding work life. The content is presented in a well-organized, logical format that clearly outlines what readers will learn and how they can use the information. Helpful features embedded in each chapter include mini-articles that offer “quick tips” and “mistakes to avoid.” A final chapter offers four fully integrated makeover plans, each with a different focus: weight loss, stress management, body fitness and lifestyle change.

In the introduction to Shape Your Life, Robert Ivker, a past president of the American Holistic Medical Association, claims that an individual’s health profile is influenced by their responses to two questions: “Do you love your life? Are you happy to be alive?” If you take advantage of the kindly support, creative strategies and useful information packed into this book, the answer you’ll give to both queries is likely to be a resounding “Yes!” Alison Hood is a freelance writer based in San Rafael, California.

What if you haven't got eight weeks to shape up? Say, for example, there's only a month left to fit into that spiffy sundress you bought (one size too small) for your best friend's beachside wedding. Relax, take a deep breath, and let Shape magazine…
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Your New Year’s resolutions are set: You’re ready to lose those extra pounds, but you need help. The luxury of a personal trainer would be great, but Christmas shopping has temporarily busted the bank. Don’t despair: Matt Roberts, personal trainer to the likes of Sandra Bullock and Sting, is ready to lend a hand. Matt Roberts’ Fat Loss Plan promises a leaner, fitter body in eight weeks, offering a day-by-day personalized diet and exercise program in an easy-to-follow workbook format. Roberts’ program is accessible; you don’t need any fancy gym equipment, stylish exercise togs or exotic food items to get started.

This practical, positive approach begins with an initial fitness assessment and goal-setting session. Roberts introduces the workout regimen, a gradually paced, balanced method of cardio-aerobic activity, resistance training and stretching. Then, it’s on to what and how to eat. The author advocates an “80 percent/20 percent” eating strategy: The majority of foods you eat should be healthy; the rest can be foods that are your favorites. “Food,” says Roberts, “should be a joyful experience, and not the enemy. The perfect diet should let us savor food without ever leaving us feeling guilty.” The diet plan favors an abundance of low glycemic (low carbohydrate), more alkaline foods for daily intake, highlighting fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Recipes for each day’s meals are included, though for additional, more varied menu planning there are comprehensive food lists, ranked from low-to-high carbohydrate content.

Roberts does a fine job of establishing his supportive, cohesive presence throughout the book with motivational chats and tips (each chapter opens with a pep talk). You’ll feel like he’s right there with you, applauding as you successfully reach your fitness goals. Alison Hood is a freelance writer based in San Rafael, California.

Your New Year's resolutions are set: You're ready to lose those extra pounds, but you need help. The luxury of a personal trainer would be great, but Christmas shopping has temporarily busted the bank. Don't despair: Matt Roberts, personal trainer to the likes of Sandra…
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Thank goodness we’ve ditched the notion that only men can benefit from weight training. In recent years, health specialists have proven that pumping iron can help women burn fat, tone their bodies and build bone mass without becoming muscle-bound mini-Schwarzeneggers.

Personal trainer Brad Schoenfeld gives women a clear and comprehensive guide for working with weights in Sculpting Her Body Perfect. The first edition of the book, released in 1999, became a top-selling fitness title, and the newly released second edition improves on the original with the addition of 30 new exercises that can be done at home, rather than in a gym.

Schoenfeld, who also wrote the memorably titled Look Great Naked, provides a bodysculpting routine for each of the major muscle groups and includes a brief anatomy lesson at the start of each section. Every exercise is described in detail and illustrated with photos of top fitness models. From the one-armed dumbbell row to the hanging knee raise, there are plenty of options here for whipping even sadly sagging bodies into toned, shaped and sculpted perfection. And for those who need inspiration to get started or maintain a workout routine, Schoenfeld includes personal profiles of fitness competitors, who share tips on training and nutrition. If your number one New Year’s resolution is to get in shape, Sculpting Her Body Perfect offers a roadmap for reaching your goal.

Thank goodness we've ditched the notion that only men can benefit from weight training. In recent years, health specialists have proven that pumping iron can help women burn fat, tone their bodies and build bone mass without becoming muscle-bound mini-Schwarzeneggers.

Personal trainer Brad…
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Knowledge is power especially when beginning any new fitness regimen. All the self-evaluation tools you’ll need are at your fingertips in Prevention’s Ultimate Guide to Women’s Health and Wellness by Elizabeth Crow and the Editors of Prevention Health Books for Women. This desk reference stresses the importance of informed consumer choice when selecting health care providers and treatment. The guide is also a thorough compendium of female wellness strategies, profiling the latest developments in Western medicine, alternative and natural healing, and nutrition.

The book begins with a primer on the female body, and the body’s specific health needs as it ages. This information, offered in clear, concise terminology, helps women build effective health action plans by providing wellness “checklists” that assess physical and emotional well-being. Each chapter includes at-a-glance health tips and techniques, prevention and treatment advice from certified health practitioners, and positive stories from women who have successfully dealt with personal health challenges. Sections on female reproduction and sexuality, major health threats facing women and a guide to common ailments complete the book and suggest medical treatments, preventative health lifestyle strategies, nutritional counseling and home remedies.

Overall, the book seeks a balance between traditional and alternative health perspectives, but the Western medical delivery system is subtly preferred; for example, the chapter on menopause discusses hormone replacement therapy to the virtual exclusion of alternative solutions. This is, though, a fine resource for women who want an overview of current health delivery options so that they may act, in tandem with their doctor, to take charge of their health. Alison Hood is a freelance writer based in San Rafael, California.

Knowledge is power especially when beginning any new fitness regimen. All the self-evaluation tools you'll need are at your fingertips in Prevention's Ultimate Guide to Women's Health and Wellness by Elizabeth Crow and the Editors of Prevention Health Books for Women. This desk reference stresses…
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Beginning with this book’s subtitle “How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World” you get the idea that the author, journalist Greg Critser, isn’t going to pull any punches. And he doesn’t. Readers looking for an easy solution to the nation’s weight problem or their own won’t find it here. As Critser explains it, a convergence of circumstances, none particularly ominous in itself, brought us to where we are today. A relaxation of trade barriers in the 1970s, combined with simultaneous advances in food-processing technologies, gave us cheap sweeteners and cooking fats. These enabled fast-food and snack-food purveyors to increase portion sizes without substantially increasing their costs, an irresistible incentive for us to overeat. Also during this period, tax-cutting movements reduced school budgets. This factor led to the dropping or cutting back of physical education classes and the introduction of high-fat fast foods into the schools. At the same time, more women were joining the work force, which meant that they had less time to prepare food at home and monitor the family diet. Even as our individual and collective weight problems grew, Critser says, opportunists made money and reputations by convincing us that there were swift and painless ways to handle the consequences of our gluttony. Some diet theories held that we could eat more and still lose pounds. Special interest groups protested that too much attention to weight would drive young girls to anorexia and cause overweight people to form poor self-images. But there is more here than history and harangue. Having explained why Americans have become fat, Critser then details what this costs in terms of such diseases as diabetes and cancer. He also explores the roles that culture and class play in this national epidemic. Although breezily written, Fat Land is a profoundly disturbing book. The forces that drive Americans to overeat are so strong and entrenched that when we reach Critser’s final chapter, “What Can Be Done,” it seems like a straw in the wind.

Beginning with this book's subtitle "How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World" you get the idea that the author, journalist Greg Critser, isn't going to pull any punches. And he doesn't. Readers looking for an easy solution to the nation's weight problem…
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Low-carbohydrate or low-fat, butter or margarine, fresh or processed, organic or conventional? With so much conflicting advice about nutrition, Andrew Weil, M.D., comes to the aid of confused consumers in his latest book, Eating Well for Optimum Health: The Essential Guide to Food, Diet, and Nutrition. Two of Weil’s previous books, Spontaneous Healing and 8 Weeks to Optimum Health, gained wide public attention and helped establish him as an authority on health-related issues. Refreshed from escorting his mother to Antarctica for her 89th birthday, Weil recently spoke to BookPage. Highlights of the conversation follow.

BookPage: What prompted you to start writing your books?
Andrew Weil: Over the years I had really built up a lot of ideas about the nature of healing and its relationship to treatment. It seemed to me that these ideas were new to most patients and doctors. I thought that it could be very helpful for people to learn the concept that the body has an innate ability to heal itself.

BP: In preparation for your books, with whom did you study?
AW: I’ve studied all over the world with many different kinds of practitioners. I’ve worked with an osteopathic physician, energy healers, naturopaths, Chinese medical doctors, and shamans of different cultures. I’ve also been practicing as a physician doing natural and preventive medicine for many years.

BP: Your books have been so successful. How has that changed your life?
AW: All the celebrity stuff has really turned my life upside down. The good side is that it’s made it possible for me to get the ear of the medical establishment. My main work is to try to change the way we educate doctors, and that is the work I’ve been doing at the University of Arizona. It is very important to realize that most doctors are uneducated about nutrition. I’m actively involved in trying to develop new models of medical education. I think that the success of the books with the general public has made it easier for me to do that.

BP: There are so many doctors who are publishing books that it’s almost overwhelming. What advice do you give to consumers who wonder which method is the right one?
AW: I think you have to develop a good instinct for good information and reliable sources. I try very hard in all the books I write, and in my newsletters and website, to put out the best information I can that’s consistent with what we know scientifically. I think a lot of people like my work because it guides them in the right direction.

BP: I’ve heard that our food supply is suffering because of our conventional production methods. Lately I’ve heard much about the bad effects from how our livestock are treated and the antibiotics they are given.
AW: I think that’s true. In the new book, I do talk about how the fat of chicken, beef, and pork is now very different from what it was in the days when animals grazed in the wild. It’s probably much less healthy for us, and that’s apart from the whole issue of concentration of toxins and antibiotics. I think if you’re going to eat animal foods, you want to try as much as possible to get those that are from free range, organically produced animals.

BP: Another thing I’ve heard is that one should eat canned vegetables instead of fresh ones because of the pesticides on the produce.
AW: I don’t agree with that at all. I think it’s worth trying to get fresh, organic produce wherever you can, and it is getting cheaper and more available. In my book, I also mention the study that was done in Texas last year that showed that simple washing of fruits and vegetables in warm water and a little dishwasher soap will remove a huge percentage of pesticides. Peeling helps too.

BP: In your latest book, you discuss how our culture has an idea of thinness that just may be unobtainable for most people.
AW: I think that people will really respond to this. I think that our obsession with thinness has warped our medical knowledge. If people are heavier than the charts say they should be, I think the most important thing that they can do is to keep themselves fit. If people exercise and have a healthy lifestyle, I think they’re just fine. The problem is to learn to like oneself that way.

BP: If you wanted to sum up your latest book, what would you say?
AW: That how you eat has a very important influence on how you feel and on your health and longevity. It’s really worth informing yourself about what the principles of healthy eating are. This is one of the big variables over which each person has a lot of control.

Low-carbohydrate or low-fat, butter or margarine, fresh or processed, organic or conventional? With so much conflicting advice about nutrition, Andrew Weil, M.D., comes to the aid of confused consumers in his latest book, Eating Well for Optimum Health: The Essential Guide to Food, Diet, and…

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The former Texas governor fights a crippling disease When Ann Richards fractured her hand in a fall nine years ago, she went to the doctor for a bone density test only to learn that she had osteopenia, an early form of osteoporosis. The diagnosis spurred the former Texas governor, whose mother and grandmother also suffered from the disease, to write I’m Not Slowing Down: Winning My Battle with Osteoporosis, an inspiring little volume filled with the author’s shrewd insights into health care, gender and, yes, politics.

Co-written with Richard U. Levine, M.D., I’m Not Slowing Down is an accessible, informative look at a disease that dogs 28 million people, 80 percent of whom are women. Offering information on diet, medication and bone density, as well as instructional photos and tips on exercise, the book also provides a fascinating peek into Richards’ personal life. Her indomitable spirit and sassy attitude are in evidence throughout. BookPage recently discussed the book with its author, who turned 69 this year.

BookPage: How did being diagnosed with osteopenia change your life? Ann Richards: My mother’s last years and my own diagnosis caused me to become really aggressive about taking care of myself. Although I had always led an active life, I was not diligent about physical exercise. Weight-bearing exercises build bones. I now work out in a gym lifting weights twice a week, and I try to walk six to nine miles each week. For the first time, I am taking responsibility for my own health.

The book is a wonderful blend of autobiography and invaluable health information, as well as a memorial to your mother and a tribute to womanhood. What specific goals did you have in mind when you wrote it? My real goal in writing this book was to get women and men to be aware of osteoporosis and its debilitating affects and to ask their doctors for a bone density test. I wanted the book to be short and simple. I specifically asked for photographs of myself lifting weights because most women foolishly think they are too old to build muscle, or that they will have a male physique as a consequence. The stories and the discussions about women are simply to encourage women to think independently and care for themselves. Dr. Levine made the medical part understandable and helpful. What tips for avoiding osteoporosis can you offer a young woman? Young women should begin to build bone mass early in their lives. The more mass there is, the less they will lose in later life. They should enjoy a diet of calcium-rich foods and avoid food and drink that causes bone loss. This book has easy-to-read charts and assists in choosing those foods. Exercise is important for young women to build bone mass and muscle strength. In the book, you encourage people of all ages to take charge of their health and not be afraid to ask questions of their doctors. Why do you think people have such a hard time doing these things? Most people assume that physician language is akin to technical, non-understandable jargon. It does not have to be that way. Doctors do not perform witchcraft. They simply interpret what they are told and what tests reveal. They diagnose and prescribe treatment. Our responsibility is to help doctors know what is going on in our bodies and to insist on clear, precise, understandable language in response. Doctors are our partners, and they need all the assistance we can give them to be sure we get the right diagnosis. What are your goals at this point in your life? I intend to lead a busy, fulfilling, active life. I want to travel the world and see new places and learn new things. I want to remain interesting to my children and grandchildren, and I want them to hurry to keep up with me and not the other way around. I want to work and I want to play.

The former Texas governor fights a crippling disease When Ann Richards fractured her hand in a fall nine years ago, she went to the doctor for a bone density test only to learn that she had osteopenia, an early form of osteoporosis. The diagnosis…
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Big grins will break out on faces across America when readers check out the diet menus devised by Mireille Guiliano for French Women for All Seasons: A Year of Secrets, Recipes and Pleasure, the sequel to her surprise bestseller, French Women Don’t Get Fat.

Chocolate, champagne, cauliflower gratin, duck breasts with honey glaze, pork chops with apples this isn’t crash dieting, but a liberating philosophy that imbues life and eating with joy, satisfaction and sensory sensation. Guiliano has already received thousands of e-mails describing how her approach has created newly minted Francophiles with a fresh way of seeing the world.

"The best compliment is from friends who say the book is like having a conversation with you," Guiliano says with an accent full of the energy and charm that fill her books. "I write like I speak . . . and I speak my mind."   Fans of the first book will recall that Guiliano gorged on pastries and became chubby while in America as an exchange student, and began her quest to lose the weight after a blunt comment from her father ("You look like a sack of potatoes") upon her return home to France.

Enlisting the help of family physician Dr. Miracle, Guiliano reacquainted herself with fresh, homemade food and revisited the tenets her mother and grandmother taught her about tiny indulgences. She eventually returned, svelte and stylish, to the U.S., married an American and landed a job as CEO of Veuve Clicquot, the venerable champagne house established during the French Revolution with Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, an equally impressive female, at the helm. Before Guiliano ever thought of writing a book, however, women often noted that while she traveled the world, entertained constantly and was passionate about food and wine, she didn’t become fat. Not wanting to share her personal history ("I couldn’t say been there done that," she says) she would instead shrug in the French way and say offhandedly that French women don’t get fat.

After her co-workers and friends begged her for more specific advice and began to lose weight with her approach, a Francophile friend finally persuaded Guiliano over lunch in a Paris café to sit down and write about what she had taught them.

French Women for All Seasons presents more easy recipes from family and friends featuring fresh, seasonal ingredients, along with Guiliano’s recommendations for adding gentle exercise and simple, sensual pleasures throughout the day, from dressing and working to relaxing, eating and entertaining (she even shares the secrets of tying scarves à la Francaise).

"The first one is about joie de vivre,"  Guiliano says of her books,  "the second about the art of living." Guiliano’s cheerful confidence and flair have made her popular on the speaking circuit where she presents her ideas to women’s groups and college students, and continues to inspire readers of both sexes and all ages to shed pounds and tons of anxiety. "I’ve learned a lot since the first book came out,"  she says.  "People like being made aware of quality and freshness." Call it natural female suspicion, or looking for evidence of theory in action, but women are now scrutinizing every detail of Guiliano’s life ("Oh, yes, it’s crazy,"  she says) as she moves from continent to continent, from green market to café to charity cocktail function, watching what she buys and eats for proof that her secrets really work.

And it does: The balance of indulgences and compensations can lead to good health, and she often hears comments that "it’s a shame that it had to come from someone outside the culture,"  Guiliano says. Americans apparently needed to hear the message from someone representing a culture known for its rigorous dedication to aesthetics flabby and fat is something the French won’t abide, even in their pigeons. "If I were a sociologist or anthropologist, I could write about it,"  she laughs. But Guiliano somehow manages to turn unrealistic European standards into a gentle, non-recriminatory exercise in living well in her two sensible guides.  "When you desire it, eat a rich crepe take the time to savor it and eat it with pleasure. Eating on autopilot is the biggest no-no,"  Guiliano says.  "Don’t deprive your body, because we all know everything is in the mind."

"And,"  she finishes with characteristic, no-nonsense flair, "it’s just not necessary."  

Deanna Larson writes from Nashville.

 

Big grins will break out on faces across America when readers check out the diet menus devised by Mireille Guiliano for French Women for All Seasons: A Year of Secrets, Recipes and Pleasure, the sequel to her surprise bestseller, French Women Don't Get Fat.

Timothy Ferriss published his first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, in 2007, and in a self-promotion tour de force, went from a little-known investor and business advisor to a best-selling author whose blog garners a million-plus visitors a month.

When it came time to find volunteers for his new book, The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman, hundreds of his fans joined experiments in diet, exercise, sex and more. But the title of head guinea pig goes to Ferriss himself. He underwent thousands of blood tests, traveled as many miles and compiled hundreds of case studies on everything from weight loss to sexual behavior to learning to swim in 10 days. Ferriss took some downtime to answer questions about the new book, his obsessions and why his methods are most likely to succeed.

Your first book struck a chord with readers. What made you write your second book about body rather than work? Did you view the change in topics as a risk or a natural progression?

The wider world thinks I’m obsessed with time management, but they haven’t seen the other—much more legitimate, much more ridiculous—obsession. I’ve recorded almost every workout I’ve done since age 18. Since 2004, I’ve tracked everything from complete lipid panels to free testosterone. I’ve had stem cell growth factors imported from Israel to reverse “permanent” injuries. . . . I’ve spent more than $250,000 on testing and tweaking over the last decade. And that was just to satisfy my own curiosity and improve my own physical machine.
 
Then I had a conversation with a WIRED magazine writer, in which we joked that the main fears of modern men and women could be boiled down to two things: e-mail overload [addressed in The 4-Hour Workweek]and getting fat. Shortly thereafter, I realized I had to write The 4-Hour Body. It is, without a doubt, a natural progression, a risk and the most important thing I’ve ever written.

Any book that addresses eating and exercise is met with skepticism, most likely because people find it difficult to remain motivated. How will your approach be more effective for readers?

Big changes seldom work. The 4-Hour Body is intended to answer one question: What are the smallest changes that produce the biggest physical changes? To illustrate the point: Even if someone has 100 pounds to lose, I wouldn’t have them start diet and exercise at the same time. Why? The exercise often triggers “reward” meals, more overeating and abandonment of the new program after a few weeks of plateauing. Instead, I have them focus on one small change that can produce three to five pounds of fat loss in a single week, such as changing breakfast to include at least 20 grams of protein. Using this small-step approach, compliance is incredible: 58 percent of test subjects I tracked indicated my diet was the first diet they’d ever been able to follow. Many lost 20 pounds the first month, and some lost 100-plus pounds total.

You recommend a Slow-Carb Diet, and characterize it as “better fat-loss through simplicity.” Tenets include avoiding “white” carbs, eating the same few meals and cheating one day a week. Why are these practices so effective?

Because the diet removes any paradox of choice. The more decisions someone has to make, the more they’ll make mistakes or give up and revert to old behaviors. The Slow-Carb Diet removes the need to think, and offers one day a week to do whatever you want. That one day—a stress release valve that also accelerates fat loss—means you’re not giving up your favorite foods forever, just six days at a time. After testing all the diets and fads, this is the best, most enjoyable approach I’ve found for sustained fat loss. I’ve been doing it for more than five years.

You’ve included explicit sexual advice in the book. Why? Did anyone try to discourage you from being so detailed?

Sex is a fundamental part of life, but there’s very little mainstream discussion of how to improve sex with real specifics. Also, most sexual advice is based on a footnote from a book, based on yet another book—there’s no testing. I tested it all, and had others replicate my success with things like the 15-minute orgasm. For many readers, this will easily be the most important part of the book. But did my publisher let me include my explicit photos? Nope. We had to make them detailed illustrations.

Anything I haven’t asked that BookPage readers should know?
At least 50 percent of the case studies are women. This isn’t a book only for 30-something guys. It’s for anyone who’d like to become the best version of themselves possible. 

 

Timothy Ferriss published his first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, in 2007, and in a self-promotion tour de force, went from a little-known investor and business advisor to a best-selling author whose blog garners a million-plus visitors a month.

When it came time to find volunteers for…

Interview by

Yes, Gary Taubes, the “prosecutor” in the provocative, eye-opening book The Case Against Sugar, took his 8-year-old son trick-or-treating in his Oakland, California, neighborhood on Halloween.

“Clearly I don’t think any of us should eat sugar, and I try to stay away from it,” he says during a call to his home (built by the founders of the Clorox Bleach company) in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood that he shares with his two boys and his wife, the author Sloane Tanen. “But it would be foolish to deny my experience as someone with children and as someone with a sweet tooth.”

Which brings us to the perplexing question raised in his opening chapter: Is sugar a food or a drug? Taubes reports on some astonishing scientific studies of newborns’ first responses to sugar that strongly suggest sugar has addictive properties that are quite different from other carbohydrates. Taubes himself seems to regard his own sweet tooth as an addictive response to sugar (as well as to high fructose corn syrup, a cheap sugar substitute). “I realized that in thinking about the history of sugar, I had to keep in mind that you might be thinking about the history of a drug,” says Taubes, who speaks rapidly, softly and with passion.

Taubes’ historical account of the rise of the consumption of sugar, covered in the early chapters of the book, is fascinating. For example, this reader had no idea that the addictive power of blended tobacco in cigarettes—beginning with Camel cigarettes in 1912—was created by the introduction of sugar.

“It’s an amazing story!” Taubes exclaims. “It turns out that increasing the sugar content of tobacco leaves—or marinating the leaves in a sugar sauce—has the effect of making the nicotine much more inhalable so that you can bring it into your lungs, which is much harder to do with cigar or pipe tobacco. As such, it made it much more addictive and allowed the carcinogens in smoke to get to this huge surface of the lungs.”

Almost every page of The Case Against Sugar resounds with such revelations. But the heart of Taubes’ prosecution of sugar challenges contemporary beliefs about the underlying causes of obesity and diabetes. His question is this: Why has sugar not been more directly implicated in the dramatic rise of obesity and diabetes? Citing a study of Arizona’s Pima Indians, whose sudden increase in diabetes occurred as they adopted a Western diet early in the 20th century, Taubes says, “The question was, what was causing that? Sugar should have been a major suspect. In the 1920s very influential public health authorities were blaming the epidemic increases in diabetes and obesity on the prevalence of sugar. And then it vanishes from the conversation. The question is, why did it go away?”

In a chapter called “The Gift That Keeps on Giving,” Taubes documents how the sugar industry was let off the hook when medical and nutrition sciences decided that obesity caused diabetes, and that obesity was caused by an updated, scientific Puritanism that blamed sloth and gluttony—overeating and a sedentary lifestyle.

"The book is basically saying that the prime suspect of what’s causing insulin resistance is sugar."

“We are seeing worldwide epidemics of obesity and diabetes, and the diseases associated with them—heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s,” Taubes says when asked about our ingrained belief in the sloth-gluttony narrative. “It’s undeniable that as populations begin to eat Western diets, you see these epidemics come along. We now know that both obesity and diabetes are disorders of what’s called insulin resistance . . . and that is a fundamental disorder in what we now call metabolic syndrome. . . . The book is basically saying that the prime suspect of what’s causing insulin resistance is sugar.”

If that’s true, why did medical and health researchers get it so wrong? Taubes, who has at least once refused the food industry’s monetary support for his journalism, is surprisingly agnostic on the ethical issue of who pays for the research. “The industry needs people who are critical of the data,” he says. “And the only way they’re going to get them is to pay them. Nobody is ever going to do this for free.”

Nevertheless, Taubes is vigorously critical of the ethical and scientific standards of current nutrition research—often funded by the food industry—as he has been in the previous bestsellers Why We Get Fat and Good Calories, Bad Calories. He says that in earlier books such as Nobel Dreams and Bad Science, he cut his journalistic teeth by looking at experimental scientists in physics, chemistry and nuclear physics. “I was taught by these exquisite scientists how to think about these issues critically and skeptically,” he says.

Turning to contemporary health research, he was shocked to find a lack of similar rigor.

“Critical aspects of the methodology of public health and nutrition research are incapable of establishing reliable knowledge, which is the goal of science. Because they can’t do it, instead of being hypercritical as they’re supposed to be, they sort of take this philosophy that it’s the best they can do, therefore it’s good enough. The counter to that is—and I’ve actually given lectures where I’ve said—if that’s the best you can do, get out of the business! Sell shoes, take guns away from gang members, do something useful.”

Taubes says his approach in this book is deliberately prosecutorial. “I really want to get the facts across,” he says. “I’m synthesizing massive amounts of data. It’s based on hundreds of interviews that might spread over years, and it’s invariably based on an unconventional take on the evidence.”

Given his unconventional take, The Case Against Sugar seems destined to be controversial. So does he expect pushback? 

“I expect this book to give everybody something to dislike,” he says with a laugh. Then again, New York magazine has recently asked him to write an article. The working title? “How I’ve Been Vindicated.”

 

This article was originally published in the January 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Yes, Gary Taubes, the “prosecutor” in the provocative, eye-opening book The Case Against Sugar, took his 8-year-old son trick-or-treating in his Oakland, California, neighborhood on Halloween.

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