It probably seems a little strange to see me reviewing a book about weight loss, but I’m excited to tell you about it, because this is really. good. stuff.  I do have a few small disagreements with Mr. Bailor (which I’ll tell you about in a moment), but for the most part, I couldn’t agree more!

For years, we’ve been fed a lot of baloney by the diet industry — and the government — about what exactly constitutes a healthy diet.  It seems that the recommendations are different (in some areas) every two or three years, and yet some pervasive myths persist.  For instance, that (dietary) fat makes you fat.  Eating fat does not make you fat.  In fact, when Americans began cutting our fat intake, we got fatter.

The Smarter Science of Slim blows these myths away, by providing proof from study after study after study of just what does — and what does not — cause us to become overweight. There is a lot of scientific information here, but he breaks it down into plain language, “translating” it, as it were, into layman’s terms.  If you read here at Titus 2 Homemaker and enjoy it (and you’re interested in the topic), I think you’ll really appreciate Jonathan’s book, because (in my opinion) his writing style is similar to mine.

Most of the dietary information was actually not new to me.  Unfortunately, it will be new to most Americans — and probably almost everyone should read this book!  The exercise information was new to me — and fascinating.  Did you know that you can strengthen your arms by working your legs, if you’re doing the right kind of exercise? (What?!)  Or that it only takes 10-20 minutes per week of the right kind of exercise to keep you fit and burning fat?

Jonathan’s slogan is “Eat more.  Exercise less.  Smarter.”  The studies back him up.  And this is well-annotated, too. I thought I was only about halfway into the book and realized I was almost finished with it, because the bibliography is so long!

A Few Small Issues

I mentioned that I disagreed in a few areas.  They are:

• artificial sweeteners
• grains
• practicality/expense

Artificial sweeteners are “recommended” as better options than sugar or honey, because they don’t contribute to weight gain.  Now, as far as weight gain goes, perhaps the artificial sweeteners are less impactful.  And certainly we should all be cutting back on our consumption of any form of sugar — most of us to a large degree!  But I cannot recommend artificial sweeteners of any kind, in any capacity.  There’s too much indication that all of the chemical sweeteners may be neurotoxic.  Our bodies are not designed to eliminate these poisons, either (whereas they will, eventually, eliminate the sugar or honey).  Given a choice between being fat and having seizures, I’ll take the fat, please.  If you have to have zero-calorie, stick with stevia. 🙂

What about grains?  Well, like many other writers in the past several years, the author believes that we are not intended to eat grains because we didn’t eat them over “99.98% of our evolutionary history.” Problem is, we don’t have an “evolutionary history,” so the whole premise is flawed.  People have been eating grain for as long as there have been people, and we haven’t had the health issues described until refined grains, and sugar, came on the scene.  However, most of us clearly eat too many grain products, most Americans eat them in highly-refined forms, and (if you can get enough calories and fiber without them) it certainly won’t hurt most of us to remove them from our diets.  So the practical implications are pretty minimal.

The practical issue that isn’t minimal is cost.    I can tell you that this is a frustration around here, because I know it would be good for us to eat more protein and a lot more fruits/vegetables, and we just can’t afford to eat the way we ideally would.  Mr. Bailor says that, “A common assumption is that switching over to a healthier lifestyle means spending a lot more money….that’s not true, at least not the way the eat more — smarter — program works.”  But he goes on to say, “I am going to assume that spending any more than … $10 on food per day is not practical.”  That’s $10 per person, per day.  Having done the math, that’s almost three times what we currently spend on food in our household.  So, yes, it is true (at least in many cases) that eating this way is more expensive.

Conclusion

Still, having made those caveats clear, I very highly recommend this book for every American adult.

Disclosure: I was provided by the author with a copy of the book above to facilitate this review.  As always, all opinions expressed here are entirely my own.