NaBloPoMo 3: The Chubby Book Slut Reviews a Few

Yo, internet!

So I survived two days with my husband's weirdo aging hippy former-Hare Krishna birth mother (called that because she left home when he was four to become a Hare Krishna and go live on a commune in West Virginia for 10 years, so he was legally adopted and raised by his stepmother.)

Come to think of it, maybe I'll save the story of my wacky in-laws for one of those long winter nights when I have nothing to say. Or next year's NaBloPoMo.

So anyway, I haven't mentioned any of the millions of diet and fitness books I've been reading. This is because I've been using the library's terminals to post, and I don't think I can save graphics on the library's hard drives. And I need to spice up my reviews with pictures of the book covers. So that, you know, you can skip my blathering and judge the books by the covers. Hee!

So anyway, without further ado, I'm now going to review a few diet and fitness books.

To make things easier for the more visual, sound-bite oriented of you, I will rank the books according to a system I just invented. It's brilliant. Good books are rated on a scale of five smoothies; bad books are rated on a scale of five Big Macs.

Oh great, now I want a smoothie.

And now, the books.


1. The Philosopher's Diet, by Richard A. Watson Five Smoothies

I first read this book 19 years ago when I was biking and running and dieting and skeered out of my mind that I wasn't going to fit into my Laura Ashley wedding dress. I fell in love with Watson's writing style and the way he takes the subject of losing weight and uses it to expound upon much weightier subjects (pun intended.) I read it about every year or so, and it has held up well. (Better than Laura Ashley, in fact. What ever happened to that company?)

Watson is smart, funny, opinionated as hell--even a bit curmudgeonly. He knows you're full of paltry, half-assed excuses for being overweight and unfit. He slaps you around a bit--this is Richard A. Watson, not Richard Simmons. He talks about Life. And Death. And the fact that philosophers schedule time to think. If you're a blogger, you do, too, so you'll probably enjoy this book.


2. The Fiber35Diet: Nature's Weight Loss Secret, by Brenda Watson, C.N.C. Three Smoothies

I admit I've only skimmed this one and shouldn't really be reviewing it yet, but it's right next to me, and I didn't get to be 50 pounds overweight by jumping up and running all over my apartment looking for some book I've finished reading.

So I'll be shallow and review a book before I've finished reading it. And while I'm being shallow, what's with the InterCap style title? Does anyone else think it looks idiotic? I mean, how can you write a book about eating fiber and give it a title that looks constipated?

OK, while I was looking for the frontispiece to see whether this InterTitle nonsense appears there, too, I noticed that the author has already written three books with the words "cleansing," "digestive," and "detoxification" in the title. I think you need to know this up front. Otherwise, you'll turn a page and find out that you're going much deeper into the subject of colonics--pun intended-- than maybe you're ready for.

Other than that, this book is actually pretty good. It has the same breathless, one-note quality that you find in books where the author has discovered The Reason We're All Fat. (It's Carbs! No, it's fat! No, you dummy--it's a lack of protein!) I've read enough books like that to know that you can go on about your personal weight loss Holy Grail only so long before you start to sound like a broken record. But Watson (what's with all the authors named Watson?) only talks about fiber for 90 pages. The other 150 pages discuss: metabolic boosters, cardio training, strength training, oh dear here comes the chapter about detoxing, supplements, phytonutrients, the role of various hormones, and recipes.