Health Books that Changed My Life (Patreon)

My YouTube channel is about yoga so I rarely do non-yoga related posts. However, I've been getting questions from you about my diet, exercise routine, post-pregnancy weight loss, healthy lifestyle, etc. I'm happy to share with you what I've been incredibly passionate about for a long time now: nutrition, fitness, and overall wellness.

These books have greatly influenced my current way of eating. These are only a few of the authors/resources I follow; there are many others (books, podcasts, YouTube channels) that I will be sharing with you in future posts. I say these are the top 4 that caused the biggest shift in the way i think about health and nutrition.

1) Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes - Everything I thought I knew about healthy eating was wrong! This opened my eyes to how damaging the conventional "wisdom" is to public health: the flawed calories in calories out model, the old food pyramid promoting lots of carbs, the low-fat diet trends. Taubes also gets into the history of how these recommendations came to be and how bad research and corrupt politics led to our current public health problems.

2) Eat Fat Get Thin by Mark Hyman - I read this book after the birth of our first child to try and lose weight. I did lose the weight; but more importantly, I radically changed what I was eating for the better. I didn't realize how much sugar/carbs and processed food I was eating before and how that was contributing to some health issues. This eating plan was my first venture into a ketogenic (high fat, moderate protein, low carb) lifestyle. The addition of healthy fats (which I used to be afraid of!) was a game-changer for me. I used to get "hangry" (really shaky, upset, and very hungry!) if I didn't eat every 2-3 hours. Now I can easily go without food for long periods of time because fat and protein are very satiating.

3) The Complete Guide to Fasting by Jason Fung - Although Dr. Fung has had great success using fasting in his work with diabetics, his book is for anyone looking to improve their health. I started a fasting regimen after the birth of our second baby. It works very well combined with a low-carb/keto diet. Fasting has so many benefits that go beyond weight loss - more energy, mental clarity, anti-aging, and healing from disease.

4) Grain Brain by David Perlmutter - I learned a lot about how food impacts the brain. Dr. Perlmutter's books and videos are a great resource for how to use a proper diet as an adjunct therapy for mental health issues.

So there. I prefer a low-carb (not strictly keto, but close) way of eating and I cycle through different fasting protocols. It's working really well for me - little to no hunger, more energy and mental clarity, better performance at the gym, improved mood, and more money saved (fasting costs zero dollars, haha). I don't do this perfectly (I'm probably going to have some pie at Thanksgiving) but I just try to stick to it most of the time. :)

What about YOU? What's the biggest change you've made when it comes to your lifestyle? What health challenges are you facing right now? I would love to learn from your experience too! And thanks for reading my long post, yogis!