Books and Me

by James Wong (2019) In this follow up to his excellent "How to Eat Better" , James eases one into the idea that 10-a-day is not only desirable, given that the reduction in mortality from eating a lot of fruit and vegetables is dose dependent, but also that it is very manageable.  His strategy basically involves throwing fruit or veg at absolutely everything, from pizza bases to pumpkin dressing.  If you've been a vegetarian for a bit, you've probably been doing  quite a lot of this already.  However, James may push you that little extra bit further, and whilst some of his dishes are meat laden, these would be easily adapted by vegetarians. He also introduced me to some ingredients with which I wasn't familiar and which I will try out, orange blossom water, tinned mango puree and vanilla bean paste, for example. I was slightly concerned about how many calories this enterprise would involve.  10-a-day when added to pizzas and custard might be fine for a 6 f...

by Dr. Michael Mosley  (2017) The fact that this is my third Michael Mosley book so far this year is a pretty strong clue that I am a dedicated fan of this doctor-turned-journalist. He churns out these books on similar subjects and I read them all avidly.  This is yet  another  book primarily on the microbiome and the latest (as of 2017) ways to improve it, which of course is predominantly through diet (a lot of tasty though often meat based recipes are provided), but also through fasting, exercise, getting a good night's sleep and minimising stress. It might seem like reinventing the wheel, given all the other stuff I have read on this subject in the recent past, but actually, I am constantly grateful for the revision as well as the updates. For example, it is easy to fall off the fasting wagon and a little reminder of why it is worth it, particularly when coupled with the advantages of  HIIT,  is always a good thing.   And of course the ...

by Charlotte Watts with Natalie Savona (2018) It's tricky reading a book on nutrition when it isn't the first by any means!     You can't help noticing the conflicting advice and you spend the whole time checking Google Scholar in the hope of achieving some sort of settlement on this issue at hand. Take milk thistle for starters.  We hear from Charlotte and Natalie that "milk thistle has a long traditional (and well researched) use for liver support" and they recommend a daily dose. And to a degree, they haven't exactly misrepresented the facts.   According to Google Scholar, there is indeed a welter of research on milk thistle  though a summary of all these studies, some of which were placebo controlled, concludes with the statement that the "c linical efficacy of milk thistle is not clearly established." Then there's the matter of whether or not to skip breakfast.  Michael Moseley, in his time restricted eating book , suggests that ...

By Dr. Giles Yeo (2018) This is a thoroughly useful book, describing what we currently know about how genes influence obesity.  It also makes it quite clear that we still need to know a lot more but, as far as it goes, it is very handy to know where we're at at the moment, at the very least so that we don't continue to make bad dietary choices.  And making a mess of dietary choices we clearly do!  Giles does his best to sort the wheat from the chaff with the best arguments and explanations to date: various cleanses, the GOOP madness, gluten free diets and many others come under the spot light and shrivel under the scrutiny. The only quibble: the tone is somehow a bit wobbly, as if English isn't actually the author's first language, or as if he would far rather be writing a scientific paper and dumbing down is desperately counter-intuitive.  However, the effect is endearing rather than annoying and certainly doesn't detract from the "must read" natur...

by Dr. Michael Mosley (2018) True to the scientific method, Michael moves where the evidence takes him with this book  and updates his  5:2 Fast Diet book of 2014 .  The thing is, I have been enjoying the results from the 2014 version, having relatively easily lost a reasonable amount of weight (5kg and down to my target BMI of 19) following its prescriptions, so I was worrying that the update involving a significant revision would leave me confused and in a bit of dilemma as to what to do next. As it happens, it simply opened up the options, which turned out to be useful since a friend has recently challenged me to actually do that 5k parkrun  that I have long talked about but have not actually trained for in any shape or form, having been focusing more on HIIT and walking the dogs and certainly not doing the paced jogging that my version of a park run would entail. When I did start to try to do longer runs on fast days of only 400 cals (sadly that is a qua...

By Grant J. Smits (2018) This book leaves you feeling as if you have just been yelled at for an hour (it's a quick read) by someone who channels the energy of a very enthusiastic trainer along with a dose of sanctimony and disapproval of a Dr. Phil, all bundled together with the conviction of a cult leader.  The exhortatory street style could make it easy to dismiss, but actually the content pretty much sums up the current consensus on how to lose weight, whilst also usefully dismissing some of the more outlandish and exploitative methods that do the rounds.  Of course, the science around all this sort of stuff remains rule of thumb and is an on-going argument, so it would be very dangerous to think this is the last word on anything, and there are at least a couple of issues where the author appears to be behind the times on the current consensus: ie: his assertion that people need not worry too much about micro-nutrients and can solve the problem by simply popping ...

by Scott Douglas (2017) In this book, Scott Douglas, (a name which feels uncomfortably tautological and therefore somehow unreal, but hey ho, is probably just American) describes in 100 succinct points the broad consensus as to how to get fit and healthy as of 2017.  Most of the advice still seems to make great good sense.  I particularly enjoyed the first point about "choice architecture" - a pleasingly broad opener which just feels as if it must be true.  Less obviously in the next point, Scott suggests that one should take on quite a few habit changing behaviours all at once. This doesn't seem as intuitive, and in fact, I'm sure I've read elsewhere that this is precisely what you shouldn't do.  However, within very recent personal experience of doing precisely as he suggests and actually finding it extremely motivating and easy to do, I would have to concede that this advice does seem spot on. The problem for this sort of book, it seems to me, is t...

by Dr. Michael Ruscio. (2018) First off, let's deal with the issue of the "Dr" bit.  It turns out that Ruscio is not a doctor in the  conventional sense.  Rather he is a "functional medical practitioner, clinical researcher and international lecturer".   What is functional medicine, you may well ask?  This is what Wikipedia has to say: "Functional medicine is a form of alternative medicine which proponents say focuses on interactions between the environment and the gastrointestinal, endocrine, and immune systems, but opponents have described it as "pseudoscientific silliness" and quackery.  Of course, it is infinitely preferable not to take anything as gospel simply on the basis that an official authority told you so and equally, far be it for me to dismiss anything on the basis that it comes from even the most apparently disreputable source.  Forget argumentum ab auctoritate  - w hen deciding between competing theories, you must a...

by James Wong (2017) This book is superb. The abundance of nutritional information should inspire almost anyone to strive to eat as healthily as possible and can even convince one to warm to flavours that would previously have been eschewed. Green tea, anyone? The book is packed with a shed load of useful tips which are easy to adhere to and indeed, in my case, can quite often be accomplished completely accidentally. Who knew, for example, that leaving a squash in the fridge for a month turns out to be good thing! A tip about reading this book if you happen to be on the 5:2 diet , don't read it on a fast day. It will make it completely impossible.  Even on a feast day, it's a hard book to read as one is constantly stopping to note down ingredients, google to see if Morrisons has baby kiwis in stock, and most disruptively, to jump up to raid the kitchen. I got there in the end, though, and my desire to take all the quoted research as gospel knows no bounds.  I want...

by Martin Blaser (2014) I was initially concerned that "Missing Microbes" would replicate the information I had already gleaned from other sources, such as Tim Spectre's "The Diet Myth" (2015), but I needn't have worried.  I have recently taken to rationalising the highlighting system in Kindle books so that I will have a clue as to what sort of information it is.  Pink indicates new and vital information, blue  denotes new vocabulary that I wish to retain and yellow indicates material that is repeated but that is so important that I wish to ram it home and retain it.  "Missing Microbes" is covered in pink  and   blue  .The only place where yellow  cropped up was in the two page epilogue. In other words, this book is cram pack full of new and, given the state of the science, pretty detailed information principally about a certain microbe that is, or at least should be, very close to all our hearts, (ie: in our stomachs). Of cours...

By Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer (2014) So far, the process described in this book looks to be pretty life changing as far as I am concerned!  I have found it extremely easy to enact the principles described and have lost 10lbs in three weeks.  Not that I was overweight to start with you understand.  My BMI was 20.4 at the start. Haven't worked it out now, but it is anyway nice to feel a lot lighter and to think that my insulin sensitivity is probably improving, along with all the other health benefits that this process is meant to produce.  The whole experience has been made very easy by using Huel on fasting days.  I just don't have to think about food at all and I very rarely have felt hungry!  What's more, I can't eat nearly as much on the non-fast days either.  I just feel as if I have over-eaten very quickly.  It is a strange thing.  Food also does taste so delicious now.  My previous boredom with food has vanished ...