A. J. Jacobs

"The author of The Year of Living Biblically and The Know-It-All documents his effort to follow a complicated two-year program of dubious diet and exercise practices in a wayward effort to promote perfect health that tests the patience of his long-suffering wife. 150,000 first printing."

One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

Drop Dead Healthy

Timeo Williams

As someone who lives in a somewhat food-conscious home, I enjoyed this book. 

Takeaways:

- Vibram shoes - mimic barefoot walking. 
- The benefits of fasting, a plant-based diet, and tracking what you eat. 
- Didn't realize there were chemicals in my clothing, such that they don't mix well with the skin. I haven't felt/seen anything bad personally, but AJ recommends clothing made of hemp. 
- Doesn't want to follow the healthy fat diet, because the scientific community has not as a whole embraced this movement.

brendan sudol

Learned a lot, laughed a lot.

A few snippets:

“The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self. Honor him or her. Treat him or her like you would treat a friend or a loved one.”

“If evolution worked perfectly, healthy food would taste delicious and unhealthy food would make us gag. On Halloween, kids would fill their pails with quinoa and cauliflower. Dairy Queen would sell millions of bok choy Blizzards.”

“Most health advice can be summed up in five words: Eat less, move more, relax.”

“Exercise, exercise, exercise. I’ve read it a thousand times. It cuts down on heart disease and cancer. It soothes stress and improves concentration. It’s Prozac and Lipitor and Adderall combined. Surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to do much for weight loss, partly because a good workout makes us hungry, and we end up bingeing. But the other benefits? Well documented.”

Kourtney

** spoiler alert **
           I am such a huge fan! If you have not read AJ Jacobs before stop what you are doing and run out and buy his books! I was saddened to read about the death of both his grandfather and eccentric Aunt Marti - after reading his previous books I feel like they almost were a part of my family.

Teresa Schultz

This was a really good and really fascinating read. It probably helped that I'm in a similar (albeit way toned down) quest myself in trying to improve my overall life. But I thought Jacobs approached his project from a pretty rationale standpoint.

The whole point of the book is that Jacobs decides he wants to become the healthiest person in the world and focus on the health of his whole body - all the way from diet to noise cancellation to finger exercises. He looks into a bunch of ideologies on human health - some of them pretty far out there. I usually get turned off by extreme views, but Jacobs does a good job of giving them a fair chance and then tending to find a good middle ground. That's thinking I can get behind.

His writing was also engrossing. He doesn't stray too far off into scientific details, so the writing doesn't get bogged down. It's easy to understand and very friendly to the Average Jane or Joe. He's also great at bringing humor to the many situations he finds himself in. I actually would call this a page turner, as I found myself not wanting to put it down. It's rare I find a non-fiction book that is that good.

I also learned a lot about human health, including some things that I have taken for gospel as being bad. For instance, I always heard you should stand with your shoulders back. Evidently not. 

Of course, not everything about the book is great. I think he gives too much credit to avoiding toxins when he himself says the evidence really isn't there. But, that's also a personal bias of mine, so who knows. Also, I do wish he had gone even further. Sure he addresses a lot of our bodily parts, but he also left a bunch out. What about bone health? Artery/vein health? It's a pretty long list that I would have loved to learn about. At the same time, I also understand that he took two years out of his life and wanted to stop the constant focus on health. I'm totally on board with wanting to live a balanced life that isn't always concentrated on whether something is good or bad for you. Now if someone with as strong of a writing voice would just pick up the baton and continue the good work.

A. D. Knapp

Erik Wallace

After sharpening his mind in The Know-It-All and achieving spiritual enlightenment in The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs had only one thing left to tackle in the self-improvement trinity: the body. But his mission wasn't just to lose a couple of pounds, but to turn his current self - 'a mushy, easily winded, moderately sickly blob' - into a paragon of health and vitality. Armed with a team of medical advisers and a 53-page task list, Jacobs set to work. He subjected his body to a brutal regime of exercise programmes - extreme chewing, anti-gravity yoga and shoeless jogging to name only a few; sampled every miracle diet going, beginning with the 'coffee, booze and chocolate' plan through the 'Rastafarian diet' to raw foodism; as well as sharpening his eyes and mind, testing every known method, and the patience of his long-suffering wife, in his quest to become as healthy as humanly possible. Drop Dead Healthy is a hilarious account of one man's painful journey from slob to superman, and a fascinating and eye-opening examination of what it really means to be healthy. Revealing the ugly truth about the assumptions and obsessions we have about our bodies, this might just be the healthiest book you'll ever read.

Drop Dead Healthy One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

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