The Realage Diet: Make Yourself Younger with What You Eat

by John La Puma and Michael F. Roizen

Book Overview

Do some foods accelerate aging and others reverse it? Science says yes! Dr. Michael Roizen, whose number one bestseller RealAge showed Americans how to reverse aging by changing their lifestyle... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060086122
• ISBN13: 9780060086121
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The Real Age Diet

This is a very practical and easy to understand book. It is not another "diet" book, rather, it encourages a life style change. I have recommended to to many of my friends who have expressed similar thoughts about it. I like that it addresses supplements and foods it terms of value and amount.

Easy to understand but full of amazing medical info

Buy this book for the captivating presentation of the results of lots of nutritional research. I've learned so much about how different foods affect our bodies. They're not selling you on some gimmicky diet. They give you a great deal of knowledge to make good decisions on your own about what to eat. You'll be shocked by all the truly nasty things that are put into food that Americans normally eat. You'll no longer have to wonder why we're plagued by obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer. I highly recommend this to anyone.

Useful Applications of Research on Food and Health

The connection between food and health is a strong one. Many diet-obsessed people overly focus on this one element of health though. This book builds from the RealAge research to help you change your eating habits in permanent, healthy ways. The book's weakness is that the recommended solutions require a lot of discipline to get started. The book's conclusion that these changes will make you physiologically younger may well be a stretch. "To be honest, there's still a lot that scientists don't know about nutrition." That sentence is the most important one in the book. A new diet could be produced every year incorporating the latest research results, and each one would be different. I suspect that this continuing change in perceptions will go on for decades. So I suggest that you not take the results of any one diet book too seriously. Some of the key conclusions of each one will probably be contradicted in the future. Nevertheless, this book is an attempt to point you toward eating habits that reduce diseases older people get more frequently and extend longevity. On the other hand, this book does not focus on appearance or weight level. Many people who read diet books are more interested in those two areas than longevity. If you are interested in another diet currently, this book probably reviews the other diet and gives you a rating for whether or not that diet will help extend longevity. The book is most positive about Eating Well for Optimum Health and Dean Ornish's Eat More, Weigh Less. The book's advice can be encapsulated as "Eat nutrient rich, calorie poor, and delicious." These foods include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, fish, and the right fats (eaten in moderation early in the meal). If you are familiar with books about nutrition, you won't find any big "'aha's" here. The main news is that eating fish seems to have benefits separate from eating the fats that are in fish. Now, I find that I feel a lot better if I eat fish 2 or 3 times a week. I suspect that listening to your body is often as reliable as the latest evidence. Like many of the best books about nutrition and Sugarbusters!, this one warns about paying attention to glycemic levels of foods. I did find its focus on calorie count to be questionable. The weight set-point for people differs a lot, and some people with slow metabolisms may find this approach just another painful way to be overweight. Calories do count, but picking your target is hard to do well. Spending a lot of time measuring calories will reduce consumption. If you have a high metabolism, the effort may well bring weight-loss rewards worth the effort. The scientific references in the back of the book are impressive, but are not well connected to the text. You would have to do a lot of reading to find out what the research really says. I would like to have seen a closer connection between the footnotes and the text. Both Eating Well for Optimum Health and Live Right 4 Your Type are better in this

Best diet book on the market.

I love the RealAge diet. What I like best is that Dr. Roizen explains WHY you should eat certain foods and avoid others. Since he helps you to understand the effect different foods have on your body, you can learn to make good choices at the supermarket or restaurant instead of having to memorize a food list. I have lost five pounds since going on this diet a month ago, but even more importantly, my energy level has gone way up. I have given this book as a gift to both my grown children.

science and common sense come together

This is an excellent book which educates the reader on nutrition, which lets one make informed decisions on healthy eating. What is most important is that the focus of the book is on the enjoyment of food, choosing foods which are healthy and fun.The chapter looking at other popular diets is going to be the most controversial, as some well-established diets are, by Dr. Roizen's calculations, very unhealthy. This makes sense to me: a diet which is highly restrictive can't be healthy in the long term.The chapter on how to make healthy food choices while at restaurants has been the most helpful for me - I have already started ordering dishes which aren't on the menu, and been very pleased with the results.This is a great book, firmly based in science, which will make you eat healthier, and enjoy food more, if you follow its advice.