An accessible approach to weight loss delivered in the voice of a supportive coach.
Losing weight and getting healthy are all about the numbers, according to a self-proclaimed “fitness nerd.”
Forget fad diets and fitness crazes: Shedding pounds isn’t as complicated as some people make it out to be, argues Clark in this debut guide. You just need to burn more calories than you consume. Those who want to get off “the weight-loss roller coaster” can do so, but it will require discipline, plus some basic math skills. Drawing on his own experience, the author explains how he decided to “ignore the never-ending stream of bullshit fitness products people try to sell me” and embrace a simpler, more effective way to transform his physique. In frank and often funny language, Clark encourages readers to take charge of their lives and bodies, to set goals that make sense for them, and to not get discouraged by setbacks. Using an inverted pyramid approach, he begins with advice on how to change your mental approach to diet and fitness. He then tackles calorie counting and macros, strength training, and cardiovascular exercise. The suggestions get more complicated as the book progresses. Readers who can handle counting calories and weighing food may find themselves overwhelmed by more detailed instructions on how to measure body-fat percentage and track strength-training gains. Still, the author clearly explains his strategy. He firmly believes that “data from our small, daily goals keeps us excited, responsible, and in control of our trajectory.” By focusing on quantifiable data and measuring daily progress, people can achieve their goals since the fundamental “secret” to weight loss is creating a calorie deficit—“energy out must be greater than energy in.” Yet that deficit has to be achieved in a sustainable, consistent way. Quick fixes in the form of crash diets and severe calorie restriction might work in the short term, but “your body will wage a secret war to sabotage your efforts, and eventually it will win.” Clark also deftly explains why it’s nearly impossible to exercise away extra calories while illustrating how building muscle helps with long-term weight-loss goals.
An accessible approach to weight loss delivered in the voice of a supportive coach.Pub Date: July 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-951876-01-2
Page Count: 345
Publisher: FITNRD
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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