An unconventional and thought-provoking weight-loss philosophy.
Real estate investor and debut author Sourour makes a case for an effective dieting regimen that focuses primarily on one’s mindset.
The author asserts that he went from 364 pounds to 250 in 10 months, thanks to what he calls a “eye-opening, belly-shrinking, and exercise-free diet” that he created that didn’t require him to abstain from any of his favorite foods, including bacon, french fries, spaghetti, or hamburgers, which are usually forbidden by traditional diets. He writes that he lost 36% of his body weight in less than one year while eating these and other favorites, and he credits this to the fact that he changed his “food perspective.” By implementing the straightforward rules he presents in this book—which include avoiding zero-calorie sweeteners, drinking plenty of water, and avoiding between-meal snacks—he seeks to reestablish the simple idea of the link between the amount of food intake and body weight. (The milkshakes referred to in the title, for which he supplies recipes with fruit and nuts, can help accelerate weight loss when consumed as meals, he says.) This intake-weight link, he says, is one that food companies managed to sever in many people’s minds long ago. “It’s imperative you use the identical tactics as your more experienced, successful and resourceful opponent,” Sourour writes. “Their tactics work so well on us that it stands to reason they’ll work equally well for us.” Sourour employs punchy, friendly prose that offers supportive but no-nonsense advice. Although his stratagems have many straightforward, practical elements—such as weighing oneself once, and only once, per day—he places a refreshingly strong emphasis on what he calls “the obvious mental health challenges” at the heart of a comprehensive weight-loss program. He engagingly stresses that the approach he advocates is much more than simple calorie counting: “Anyone can work a calculator,” he writes. “Weight loss is not nor will ever be a sprint to the finish line.”
An unconventional and thought-provoking weight-loss philosophy.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9958929-2-7
Page Count: 306
Publisher: epub
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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