A reasonable and accessible treatise on why losing weight is often so hard.
A nutritional guide debunks some misconceptions surrounding weight loss.
Weight-loss advice is everywhere, and yet it can often be contradictory. Is diet more important than exercise? Does fasting, avoiding carbs, or counting calories work? What about all the supplements and meal plans? With this book, Davis dives into the confusing and often false messaging surrounding weight loss. He demonstrates that the weight-loss industry has produced spurious solutions going back to its origins in the 19th century. The problem has only gotten more tangled with time. Ubiquitous junk food, social media echo chambers, shoddy research, lax journalistic standards, financial incentives, and a host of cognitive biases convince readers that the newest trend is proven to work when the evidence isn’t there or the results are only temporary. This landscape has made it more difficult than ever to get into a desirable shape while simultaneously creating unrealistic standards and making people feel ashamed for their inability to shed pounds. Chapter by chapter, the author confronts some of the most salient ideas about weight loss, exploring their history and dissecting them using the latest science. He even tackles what he says might be the biggest lie of all: that dieting and exercise reliably contribute to weight loss. The book is appropriately slim but packed with information. Davis, with a background in both journalism and public health, writes with authority and candor. “There’s no question that exercise is essential for good health,” he argues. “But it’s unrealistic to count on exercise to produce weight loss, and doing so can keep people from enjoying the many benefits of physical activity by causing them to become discouraged and give up when it doesn’t deliver as promised.” The manual is inherently intriguing, even for those lucky people not looking to lose weight. Diet is a foundational aspect of daily life, and learning how misunderstood certain aspects of it are makes for engaging reading. There are areas of the author’s argument that some might quibble with, but his ultimate weight-loss suggestions—yes, he does believe it is possible—are surprisingly simple and difficult to refute.
A reasonable and accessible treatise on why losing weight is often so hard.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 141
Publisher: Everwell Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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