The latest book by Susan Smith Jones, Ph.D., is certain to appeal to anyone who is interested in slimming down, firming up, and taking years off both looks and outlook, all the while learning to slow down and enjoy the pace of life. Part cookbook, part health and fitness guide, A Fresh Start: Accelerate Fat Loss and Restore Youthful Vitality teaches everything you need to know to fine-tune your body.
As people strive to achieve and receive more in life, they lose balance and become insensitive to the needs of themselves and those individuals around them. The first chapter of this book, “StressLess Living,” offers advice everyone in this fast-paced world can put into practice. Dr. Jones provides guidance on how to achieve a more grounded approach to life by identifying the causes of stress and offering seventeen tips to overcome it.
In the second chapter, “Understand and Utilize Mind Power,” Dr. Jones presents practical advice for ways to successfully begin an exercise program, cease a bad habit, or overcome detrimental feelings that can sabotage success in relationships or the workplace. Ever wonder why it is so hard to maintain that new exercise regimen for longer than a week, or why giving up coffee for longer than a few days is so difficult? It takes 21 days to change a habit. By repeating an activity for this amount of time, a person's mind accepts the new activity as habit. You must adhere to your desired goal for three weeks if you are to be successful. If you miss a day, you must begin the three-week process again.
Subsequent chapters in the book include ways to lose weight by eating more, not less; look and feel younger; switch off junk-food cravings; increase strength and stamina; create a toned-fit body with exercises that work; and re-ignite self-esteem. This last item is the one that Dr. Jones feels is crucial in determining the quality of life, simply because so many people wrestle with low self-esteem for most of their lives. She provides insight into how we can choose our thoughts and become anything we would like to become. The limitations that we encounter, she believes, are self-imposed.
A Fresh Start also includes over 200 pages of recipes. People who are new to healthy eating will enjoy the number and variety of recipes (over 250, including smoothies, soups, salads, dressings, grain and bean dishes, side dishes and snacks, and desserts) while people who consider themselves veterans of healthy eating will enjoy adapting these recipes to their desired level.
This book is the culmination of Dr. Jones’ 30 years of teaching at UCLA, ongoing research in health and longevity, and working with clients across the country. In her introduction, she writes, “As you read this book, I want you to feel like we're sitting across from each other while I talk to you personally.” Anyone wishing to make a fresh start into healthy living should pick up this book and have a “talk” with Susan Smith Jones today.
Susan Smith Jones has written ten books and over 500 articles, including the Pulitzer-nominated book Choose to Live Peacefully (available from the NHA). She has also co-authored a children's book, Vegetable Soup/The Fruit Bowl (also available from the NHA). Both books form the two halves of a unique flip-flop book on nutrition for young children. In addition to giving information about the health benefits, uses, and growth patterns of fruits and vegetables, the book also provides an opportunity to develop math and reading-readiness skills as the child becomes an active participant in the reading process. Both books make great gifts.
A Fresh Start is available from the NHA.
©Copyright 2002. All Rights Reserved. Health Science is the publication of the National Health Association. This article reprinted from the Summer 2002 issue.