by Susan N. Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 20, 2014
An accessible read with candid advice on how to maintain a healthy weight—for good.
In her debut book, Lewis offers straightforward strategies for sustaining a healthy weight.
After seven years of research as a weight-loss coach, Lewis shares eight common-sense steps to prevent weight gain after an initial weight loss. At the outset, she clarifies that her guidebook is “not a weight-loss plan” but a lifestyle approach with specific instructions on “how to keep the weight off once you’ve lost it.” Lewis believes “food is not the enemy we’ve made it out to be. I don’t believe that we’re meant to spend our lives counting calories, grams of fat, or anything else….I believe that life and food are meant to be enjoyed.” To strike a balance between the two, she aims to help readers keep unhealthy weight off for good. Some of her tactics are obvious—e.g., being self-accountable and prepared—while others are more demanding, such as having a day consisting of protein-only meals (aside from a small salad or piece of fruit). This quick read is divided into nine chapters that, aside from her strategies, feature success stories from her clients as well as her own. One particular client, a 65-year-old diabetic fond of artificially sweetened diet soda, enlisted Lewis’ assistance to help him lose 35 pounds. By following Lewis’ instructions, he quit his lifelong affection for diet soda and saw his blood sugars drop from “their highs of 400 to 125” after one week. Lewis advises readers to regularly step on the scale and to be prepared by sticking to a preplanned grocery list. Her other weight-loss tips are refreshing, even to the experienced dieter. She points out (notably, without citing any research) that “[w]hen the low-fat, high-carb diet became popular in the United States, the health of Americans took a serious nosedive.” As such, she attempts to debunk the notion that low-fat diets are healthy, instead advocating for the elimination of “bad fats,” artificial sweeteners and starches from daily consumption. Saying she doesn’t want to “bore” her readers, Lewis excludes scientific research citations, referring readers to the Internet and other weight loss–related books for details.
An accessible read with candid advice on how to maintain a healthy weight—for good.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-1492258650
Page Count: 94
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Bonnie Tsui ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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by Ilyse Hogue & Ellie Langford ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 22, 2020
A cogent “horror story” about the plot to reanimate mid-20th-century White male supremacy at the expense of abortion access.
Incisive look at the destructive path of anti-abortion ideology in the U.S.
Even though most Americans believe in a woman’s right to choose—“consistent research has shown that more than 7 in 10 Americans support legal access to abortion”—the radical right has succeeded in steadily eroding reproductive freedoms since Roe v. Wade. According to NARAL Pro-Choice America leaders Hogue and Langford, the campaign against abortion is but a means to an end for the architects of the pro-life movement. Their true aim is the uncontested dominion of White Christian men. The battle began in 1954, when Brown v. Board of Education struck down “state laws used by segregationists to maintain structural inequality in the nation’s schools.” In 1976, the IRS rescinded the tax-exempt status of the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s segregationist Bob Jones University. What has followed, argue the authors convincingly, is more than a half-century of machinations designed “to halt progressive cultural change and maintain power for a privileged minority.” Anti-abortion rhetoric is just a weapon, driven by design, propaganda, disinformation, and cowed Republican politicians—hallmarks of the Trump era. Hogue and Langdon make a strong case that the rises of Trump, fake news, and science skepticism are not flukes but rather the culmination of a dogged campaign by forces still smarting from desegregation and second- and third-wave feminism. The reproductive freedom of American women is the victim of an “anti-democratic power grab on a historic scale.” The authors build a chilling case that the startling 2019 wave of abortion bans across the nation should serve as a canary in the coal mine for citizens concerned with democracy and a catalyst for bolder messaging, better strategic planning, and sustained action to combat disinformation.
A cogent “horror story” about the plot to reanimate mid-20th-century White male supremacy at the expense of abortion access.Pub Date: July 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-947492-50-9
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Strong Arm Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2020
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