The best Healthy Living eBooks: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

You'll probably hate to hear this, but if she already is very fit and is serious about getting to an "elite" level, she'll probably benefit most from a legit personal trainer. Getting that last 20% of looks/performance takes as much as the first 80%.

If she just wants to look better and is a fitness enthusiast, start looking into a free food tracker (myfitnespal on her phone is really good). Any service that helps with meal prep or, dare I say it, protein shakes, will help because diet will be her biggest key to either success or failure.

Thinner, Leaner, Stronger is an excellent place to start, though his writing style makes it a bit cumbersome at times.

If she's not already started power lifting (especially squats, deadlifts), then she should start finding good videos on youtube of Olympic lifts. You search some excel table progressions for 5-3-1 and similar style deals. I get it that she's not going for mass, but the compound lifts help with fat loss a great deal and you can moderate them so you do not look like a body builder.

Best of luck with your recovery and with becoming a non smoker. Can I offer two suggestions?

1. Get "Alen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking"
2. Subscribe to r/stopsmoking

I started smoking at 14. I smoked 10-15 cigarettes a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

About 5 years ago I get this weird pain. Started in my jaw and moved to my chest. I thought it was a heart attack... but it passed after about 3 minutes. I look it up online, and it said that the pain was most probably 'stress induced', but tobacco was definitely a factor. 6 months later it happens again. Then again. I had heard about Allen Carr. I downloaded the book. It stayed there, unread, until that weird pain happened for the fourth time. I started reading the next day.

I was 'relieved' that the first instruction in the book is keep smoking until you're done. I took a while to read this small book, ironically because I only read it while smoking. Halfway through the book, smoking started to be a chore. Something that I HAD to do, not something that I enjoyed doing. I made it a point to only read while smoking to make that lesson stick.

The last day I smoked I smoked 4 cigarettes. They all tasted like shit. It felt so satisfying to read that last page, smoke that last cigarette (only half of it) and throw it away with my lighter.

I got cravings, sure. But the book teaches you how to deal with them, how to play the mental game of quitting.

BTW, I quit 1,251 days ago. I have not had that weird pain since I quit smoking.

Just a note that nowadays the SNR is considered to be fight/flight/freeze. Freeze response is just as common in nature but was largely ignored by psychology researchers due to a lack of access to female test subjects, who skew toward freeze more often than fight. I can't recommend The Body Keeps the Score enough, which goes into very deep and well-researched detail regarding trauma, anxiety, depression, and the body's response to it.

Not affiliated with this or have anything to do with this - but it is a fucking mind changer. If you can smoke after reading that book, you are inhuman. The book even dares you to keep smoking while you read it.

Since you're new and your mind isn't flooded with misinformation yet, do yourself a huge favor and buy this book. https://www.amazon.com/Thinner-Leaner-Stronger-Building-Ultimate-ebook/dp/B0098PYV7Q

I have the male version and it's amazing, provides a comprehensive foundation of nutrition, exercise, dieting, and notates studies to back up everything he claims. He also goes in depth about supplements and which ones are worthless.

Try reading "How Not To Die" by Michael Greger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Y7USB14/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

It's the real deal and will give you a lot of data. However, it's relatively straightforward to eat a healthy diet: eat lots of whole plant foods, particularly greens, fruits, legumes, and whole grains. The closer to the vine/tree, the better. There are thousands of micronutrients in food that we don't yet understand. Every time we take real food apart and put together some processed variation, we destroy important synergistic effects. As Michael Pollan famously said, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.".

I'm sorry to hear that her therapy caused her flashbacks that were so bad that she had to quit. I don't know how long ago that was, but could she be convinced to try again? There are a lot of therapists now who specialize in trauma, and they have a lot of good evidence that somatic treatments like EMDR are extremely effective for PTSD and Complex PTSD.

It's only very recently that anyone has had any idea how to treat PTSD, and treatment is improving all the time. Check out The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, it's an excellent overview of how PTSD and trauma affect the body, and the various treatment options.

She definitely needs a trauma therapist, though, especially since she's already had flashbacks. They will start the treatment with helping her grow her emotional resources so that the flashbacks won't overwhelm her. The whole idea is to take it at a manageable pace so it's not terrifying. As someone dealing with Complex PTSD, I can say that trauma therapy has been the hardest thing I've ever done, and also that it's only thing that could possibly help me live my life fully.

I'm sorry to hear that her health is failing. Her life is NOT over in her 60s, she still potentially has many years left, and it must be so hard to see her in despair like this. Hugs for you if you want them. <3

Funny

For anyone who wants to read the book without having to pay for it, and is willing to read it online instead of print, here you go

https://idmprogram.com/fasting-a-history-part-i/

Start there & work through all of the fasting articles. It's essentially the same content.

Also the kindle version is currently on sale for $3

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Fasting-Intermittent-Alternate-Day-ebook/dp/B01MF8SC2X/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1542057759&amp;sr=8-2&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&amp;keywords=jimmy+moore#mobile-udp-contributor-popover-id_15420577...

You should be lifting as heavy as you can with proper form. Sets of ~6 reps. Squat, Deadlift, Bench, & Military Press is where most of your gains will come from. I cannot recommend THIS book enough. Keep it heavy and adjust your diet for fat loss.

Everybody read this book it is the fatlogic reddit in book form, except nicer and everything is on one place.

I find it incredibly motivating.

That's like saying "I know I have heart disease, but due to modern medicine at least I'm likely to survive another decade or so".

Personally I would just rather not have heart disease.

But nobody taught her the necessary tools to change her weight, she thinks this is her fate now, with which she has to arrange herself. Just one good book and she could take matters into her own hands.

Have you read Allen Carr's book yet? It will help you realize that smoking does nothing to help your stress, and actually makes it worse. All of the "stop smoking aids" in the world won't do anything for you as long as you think there is something to be gained by having a cigarette. Once you realize there is nothing to gain from smoking it gets a lot easier.

https://legionathletics.com › tdee-cal... Web results This Is the Best TDEE Calculator on the Web (2019) - Legion Athletics

Thinner Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Female Body (Muscle for Life Book 2) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0098PYV7Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_5Z4wDbBR09H90

I'd have a look at your TDEE on this website and the linked book which is a good intro to cutting/maintenance/bulking and macros with a specific focus on women.

Yes, I think 1400kcal is too low to bulk. Had a quick look at your calculated TDEE based on your weight and activity level (you'll be able to calculate it more accurately by using correct BF% and age, height etc...) and I think you'd need to be quite a bit higher.

I'd give the book a read and see what you think. It's cheap enough.

You are not alone, and thank you for being direct and honest!

> What about individual doctors, though? Why aren’t all my colleagues telling their patients to lay off the Chick-fil-A? Insufficient time during office visits is a common excuse physicians cite, but the top reason doctors give for not counseling patients with high cholesterol to eat healthier is that they think patients may “fear privations related to dietary advice.”65 In other words, doctors perceive that patients would feel deprived of all the junk they’re eating. Can you imagine a doctor saying, “Yeah, I’d like to tell my patients to stop smoking, but I know how much they love it”?

• How Not to Die, Chapter 1: How Not to Die from Heart Disease, by Dr. Michael Greger.

This is towards the end of the chapter, here is the rest in case you are interested:

>Neal Barnard, M.D., president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, recently wrote a compelling editorial in the American Medical Association’s journal of ethics, describing how doctors went from being bystanders—or even enablers—of smoking to leading the fight against tobacco. Doctors realized they were more effective at counseling patients to quit smoking if they no longer had tobacco stains on their own fingers.

>Today, Dr. Barnard says, “Plant-based diets are the nutritional equivalent of quitting smoking.”66

Bigger Leaner Stronger. Its a book/program that I really like. Not quite as mainstream as some of the others, but it seems to work well for me. The book was $0.99 on amazon recently. He goes over most of the stuff you can find in the wiki, but I liked the review.

https://www.amazon.com/Bigger-Leaner-Stronger-Bodybuilding-Weightlifting-ebook/dp/B006XF5BTG/

You can and should love your body.

Picture your body like a garden shed. You can and should love it for all the useful things it holds and all the things it allows you to do.

Despite all that, you still need to clean out the shed once in a while, so that the clutter doesn't burst the walls and wreck the shed and you can continue to enjoy having it around for years to come.

Same thing with your body. You need to clean it out and offload some of the excess so that you can have it around for a while.

I don't think you fought to build a 400lb body, or that you think that every pound of that needs to be honored.

You fought to build a good life, with a good partner, and a good job, all of which you want to enjoy for years to come.

So keep up the fight so you get to enjoy the rest of your life.

Also, buy the book Conquering Fat Logic by Dr. Nadja Hermann. https://www.amazon.com/Conquering-Fat-Logic-ourselves-metabolism-ebook/dp/B07CZ3K2W3

It's really helpful.

Also, for anyone lurking who wants to learn more about CPTSD/trauma (because I was definitely that person), I recommend reading The Body Keeps the Score. It changed my life.

I highly recommend the nutrition science book How Not to Die. This book changed my life, I am eating much healthier and will live longer and feel better because of it.

Recently finished reading The Complete Guide to Fasting (amazon). A lot of the book overlaps Dr. Fung's blog posts (site) but at the end of the book there are some explanations of different fasting styles and why Dr. Fung might recommend one or another for various situations. Might be helpful!

Humans can be deeply flawed individuals and your mother certainly was one. That was very abusive and selfish of her to make you witness her betrayal and didn’t even have to decency to kick him out when you woke. If your little kid waking up as you’re actively having sex with a stranger doesn’t wake you from the destructive fog you’re in - I doubt anything would.

I am finally dealing with sex abuse that happened in early childhood as a 40 year old - so I know from personal experience how suppressing something nasty can rear its head much later and be quite painful. My advice is to talk it out. It was 15 years into marriage when I finally told my husband and a few friends. I had all this pressure built up inside of me that dissipated when I talked about it. Problem is that it wells up again and needs another release. I’m thinking about therapy and you probably should as well. I’ve started reading “the body keeps the score”. I’d recommend that book, as well as “the erotic mind” to someone having to look back to childhood trauma.

I’m sorry you have to deal with this. You’re not alone in it. Sex abuse is something we tend to bury deep inside and hide. It’s a secret many people carry. Share with Reddit, with a trusted friend, and read. It’s not something you’ll look back on kindly ever, but getting it all out and having care and sympathy can help the memories sit better within you. I see your mom and her abhorrent behavior as an insanely selfish display of self destruction. She should have apologized, confessed to her partner, and the both of you should have done some individual therapy. I’m sorry she took the coward’s way out and tried to sweep it under the rug.

Have you read The Body Keeps the Score? It is pretty much the go-to book for understanding the relationships between trauma and physical body reactions. (Sorry for the Amazon link if you are not an Amazon fan.)

https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma-ebook/dp/B00G3L1C2K

To be 100% honest, I have not finished it yet because it makes me cry and stop reading every 2-3 pages. But it is on the money.

this book called bigger leaner stronger is a really good book on how to make more muscles. even tho it's mostly popular with body builders it works for making muscles for boxing too. especially the diet part

https://www.amazon.com/Bigger-Leaner-Stronger-Building-Ultimate-ebook/dp/B006XF5BTG

To second this concept, you should read a book called "Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain" by John J. Ratney. It discusses the effects of exercise on the brain. There is a section specifically regarding depression and motivation.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SFD21Q/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1

Start getting back into it slowly with walking some distance then brisk walking. This book is well worth reading. http://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise-Brain-ebook/dp/B000SFD21Q

Generic Costco 😁.

Not to get to far of into the weeds, but as a 30 something, I realized that my dad had some underlying force that drove his personality, even when he was older. I started to try to put together his childhood with these traits. Long story short, I could see that a number of traumatic events were the root. That intrigued me.

I have mentioned this in the past, but the Dug show is interesting to me not only on a mechanical level, but a psychological one. Dug is super fucked up. Not just a normal fucked up but a special kind of fucked up. But why? Watching and listening reveal pieces of the puzzle.

I'm reading a book now called The Body Keeps Score. It's a very interesting look at how the shit that happens to people from birth on fucks up their lives in ways they did not ever realize.

Meh, whatever. Welcome to Costco, I love you...

The cardio isn't really necessary, mainly just the weight training. Also, you could get great results just doing 3x per week if 4x is too much. And you don't need a trainer, you just need to dial in your diet/nutrition and follow a decent routine like Mike Matthews' Bigger Leaner Stronger or Rusty Moore's Visual Impact Muscle Building program (which is the one I used to do my original transformation).

Give a read to Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps The Score. It may not apply directly to you, but it’s an excellent explanation of how trauma and stress derange the body’s ability to manage itself.

This book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bigger-Leaner-Stronger-Building-Ultimate-ebook/dp/B006XF5BTG

is brilliant. You can ignore some (most/all) of the diet stuff if you want as it's aimed at people who really want to get into it, but there's workouts in there and clear instructions on most of the major lifts (and any lifts that are in the workouts but not described in detail you can youtube). I started at the gym following his workouts, scribbled bit of paper with the plan tucked into my shorts - found it really useful

(I think from looking at your profile that you're a guy but there is an equivalent book for women too if necessary)

I can no longer do back squats, deadlift and bench press due to lower back and shoulder injuries (unrelated to weight room). Currently I follow Unstoppable by John Rusin twice a week. Monday is Upper and Friday is lower. here's the lower workout

I also do 2 X days bodyweight training using Freeletics.

I can only get away with Goblet squats 7 sets of 5 reps with 22kg/48 lbs dumbbell or kettle bell depending on what's available at my gym.

Before pandemic, I used to run a 5 day per week split from Bigger, Leaner,Stronger by Mike Matthews

Excellent Home Gym + PT, especially in the beginning to help you with the right weightlifting techniques. After that optional.

Read the following book and follow its advice, does not take long to read. It really has everything you need to embark on the right path, has been transformational for me personally as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Bigger-Leaner-Stronger-Building-Ultimate-ebook/dp/B006XF5BTG