Living SMART: Five Essential Skills to Change Your Health Habits Forever

By Sheri D. Pruitt and Joshua C. Klapow

Book Overview

The myriad of books and programs that encourage people to stop smoking, get organized, spend less, or exercise more tend to focus on what or why to change, but rarely explain how to change. Living... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0979356407
• ISBN13: 9780979356407
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Diamedica
• Length: 190 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The end result is a life plan that is highly customized to suit one's individual needs.

Written by Joshua C. Klapow, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, Department of Health Care Organization and Policy, University of Alabama at Birmingham) and Sheri D. Pruitt, Ph.D. (Director of Behavioral Science Integration for The Permanente Medical Group), Living Smart: Five Essential Skills to Change Your Health Habits Forever is a how-to guide to changing one's unhealthy behavior. The five keystones of the SMART behavioral program are: Set a goal, Monitor your progress, Arrange your world for success, Recruit a support team, and Treat yourself. Step-by-step instructions for building "game plans" to structure one's life with healthier diet, exercise, and sleep patterns (and also remember to take any needed medications punctually) help set the reader on a path to lifelong wellness. Living Smart is a consumable book, offering blank lines for the reader to write out answers to questions and blank charts to get started keeping a schedule; the end result is a life plan that is highly customized to suit one's individual needs. Highly recommended.

Steps to healthy habits, quick and easy

When I first started reading this book, I must confess that I was somewhat skeptical. Being middle-aged and overweight, I've read so many books on losing weight and eating right, etc. This book, however, is delightfully different. First, it's simple. The SMART skills are easy to remember, and they apply to any healthy habit the reader might want to begin. Second, the charts and questionnaires are informative and useful. Having them available on the website is an added bonus. Third, this book reads quickly and doesn't overwhelm the reader with a bunch of scientific research that I could frankly care less about. Just tell me what I need to do, and that's what this book does. Halfway through the book, I found a small notebook and recorded three positive things that happened today. I then proceeded to clean off my treadmill and get on it for the first time in months. After that, I settled back with an apple to read the rest of the book. Those are positive changes already! With the motivators in the book and the advice on what to do when drifting from the goal, I just may be able to keep up these healthy habits.

Living SMART...pretty SMART book

Living SMART; Five Essential Skills to Change Your Health Habits Forever by Joshua C. Klapow, Ph.D. and Sheri D. Pruitt, Ph.D. Beginning with the premise that health and wellbeing is a matter of what one does or does not do every day, the authors use the acronym SMART to describe the steps of their plan. The preface notes that changing habits doesn't have to be a "simple matter of common sense and motivation" or "incredibly complicated behavioral interactions." What sets this book apart from the many others written on the subject is that for each step, (the first being Set a goal), the reader is presented with a detailed set of baby steps to use in implementing the plan. The guidelines are designed to be in place even when the initial motivation fades and user is faced with then temptation to backslide. Myths regarding changing habits are debunked and guidelines are set for evaluating the plethora of available health information with which we are faced daily. Planning sheets are included to address diet, exercise and other healthful habits. Neither lofty nor too lengthy, this is a perfect read for anyone overwhelmed with available information as well as those who have ready excuses for not embracing a healthful lifestyle.

Essential Skills for Creating New Habits

If you've tried and tried again to get into an exercise habit or learn to eat better or quit smoking, and always found yourself back-sliding, this is the book for you. I really don't think there's anything new in this book, and it's repetitive to the point where it felt like they were just padding it out to make a page quota, but the information is good, complete and delivered in a hand-holding way as if from a concerned coach who's pulling for your success. If you want to change your habits and you take this book seriously, if you put it to work for you without skipping over steps that don't appeal to you, I don't see how you can fail. I've been to many a seminar where goal-setting and success-oriented techniques were taught, and I know this material. Still, to have it all spelled out so simply here, I found new motivation and a couple of new tools that I've implemented to get me back on track with some of my goals. This isn't great reading, but the information is golden. If you're willing to try anything in order to change your habits for the better, start here with the essential information you'll need to keep you on the right track.

Living SMART is Psychology for Living

I have recommended this book to numerous clients. Klapow & Pruitt have made Cognitive Behavioral Therapy easy for anyone to understand and apply to his or her daily life. The authors intended to write a book on changing health habits. As I read this book I thought, "The title could have been 'Psychology for Living'." Klapow and Pruitt have successfully taken one of the most difficult challenges of life (health related behavior change) and made success attainable for everyone. I think anyone struggling with change will benefit from this book. The principles are fundamental and apply to all forms of behavior change, not just specific health related problems. If you have decided to make positive changes in your life, I know you will benefit from owning Living SMART.