About 3 months ago, I decided I needed to make some serious life changes. I didn’t get much sleep. I didn’t feel fit. I was worn out by the constant barrage of alarming news from around the world.
My first step was limiting my social media usage. That change made it easier to get more sleep. More rest then gave me the energy to make more positive changes. The second big step was
I signed up for a gym and I committed to 7 AM workouts several times per week. It wasn’t easy at first. Just getting out of bed at 6 AM was a victory! Two things
The Fabulous app helped me make small changes that turned my morning struggle into a fluent morning routine. The book ‘Grit’ gave me the motivational framework to find purpose and define goals.
The third step was changing my diet. This wasn’t something I had planned to do, to be honest. I was just intrigued by a book recommended in The Fabulous app and I happened to have an Audible credit left.
And so I started listening to ‘How not to die‘. I have to admit, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. I’m not a fan of specific diets or food philosophies, you see. Rather the opposite.
Luckily, that’s not what ‘How not to die‘ is about. ‘Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease’ is an accurate subtitle and summary of the book.
If you’re interested in science-based tips on how to live a healthier life, this is the book for you. The author is an accredited medical professional, not a lifestyle guru. To me, that makes a world of difference.
You still don’t have to take the author’s word for it, either. You can easily find the studies he references to at the back of the book, in the PDF that comes with the audiobook or even on his website.
I listened to the book from start to finish, but if you’re interested in what food can do for you related to a specific disease, you can easily select the right chapter and go from there.
This is not a difficult read, by the way. By that, I mean that everything is easy to understand. You might run into a fact or two that will make you uncomfortable, though.
Many of our favorite eating habits are anything but healthy after all. Often enough, we know this when we’re being honest. It’s just so hard to make better choices in our society. This book makes it easier.
Look, I hate diets that are marketed to us with promises of weight loss and dramatic make-overs. I’m also not a doctor or a scientist, so I cannot challenge what is in this book or in the studies that inspired it.
What I can say is how much I enjoyed listening to ‘How not to die‘. My geeky side loved finding out how our body works and what role food plays in our health (or demise). The author is pretty funny too.
What I can also say is that I feel absolutely bleeping GREAT just 2 months after I started reading this book. I’ve followed its advice about 80 to 90% of the time in those 8 weeks and…wow.
Sure, I’ve lost weight. Quite a bit, actually. But more importantly, I have lost that weight without being hungry or frustrated. Instead, I had a shitload of fun and ate as much as I wanted.
I’m not a cook at all. I actually really hated cooking until recently. Now that I can approach making lunch or dinner from a different perspective, I find myself behind the stove every day.
What’s that changed perspective, you ask? I now ask myself these things (instead of ‘Ugh, I guess I have to make dinner?’)
‘How can I make cookies that’ll actually make me healthier?’ ‘What if I make a salad that makes my immune system roar?’ or ‘I need some mood lifting food! Where’s the saffron?’
At the supermarket, I walk to the produce aisle and start adding green stuff to our cart like a maniac, telling Muriel all about the awesome stuff these vegetables are going to do for our bodies. (Yes, it does drive her mad.)
You don’t have to go all ‘OMG, vegetables are superheroes!’ like me, though. 😉 Even if you just follow a few tips given in ‘How not to die‘, I think it’ll make a big difference.
Reading this book will help you understand your body better. It might inspire you to evaluate your idea of what a healthy life is. And maybe it might even inspire you to change the way you live.