A challenging yet inspiring regimen to get and stay healthy in midlife and beyond.
A 50-something fitness expert details her kick-start diet and exercise plan especially designed for aging women in this debut guide.
Even Roemer, an award-winning bodybuilder and personal trainer who created and then sold her own chain of health clubs, wasn’t immune from the effects of aging. “My body had changed irrevocably after 30, and especially after 50,” she notes, with a hysterectomy in her early 50s contributing to being “bloated for the first time in my life.” In this guide, Roemer, 54, outlines an action plan to help others regain vibrancy, drawing on “what has worked for me” to “still stay in shape and take pride in who I am naked—in body, mind and spirit.” She spreads out 1,400 calories over six meals daily within a high-protein, low-carb, and vegetable-focused diet with little to no wheat or gluten and very little added sugar. Her exercise regimen consists of three days of one-hour cardio sessions, three days of targeted weight training (upper body, legs/glutes, and chest, back, and shoulders) with ab/core exercises accompanying all workouts, and one rest day per week. Roemer also sprinkles “Mind/Spirit” tips within her day-by-day chapters, advising readers to grieve, relax, volunteer, and meditate. She often references her own life challenges, including the death of her 19-year-old son in a car accident. The author recommends consulting with a doctor, offers an introduction from her own physician (part of her consulting team for this book), and provides a form to chart one’s progress and a brief reading list. Texas-based Roemer currently works out at Sparta Fitness (its co-owners are credited as consultants), and the term “spartan” certainly applies to this volume. The author’s meal plans are disciplined (only salmon and a small side salad, for example, is one suggestion for dinner) and her weightlifting exercises, which would have benefitted by accompanying illustrations, quite comprehensive. Roemer remains living proof of the strong, beautiful results to be achieved, with a photo of the proudly naked, 5-foot-9-inch, 155-pound author (who dropped nearly 20 pounds on this plan) featured in this manual.
A challenging yet inspiring regimen to get and stay healthy in midlife and beyond.Pub Date: March 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62601-253-0
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Riverdale Avenue Books, LLC
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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