How to Eat, Move and Be Health

It’s like a choose your own adventure book. You most likely will not read it front to back. Instead, based on your answers to the questionnaires you will be guided through the book. 

The cool thing about this book is that it gives you actionable steps to take to help you create a healthier lifestyle. There are questionnaires to help you figure out which nutritional and exercise approach will be best suited for you, your lifestyle, your goals, and your physiological needs. You’ll learn portion control, the impact stress has on your body, and how to get the right amount of sleep to help you achieve your goals.

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Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training

This is often considered the barbell bible. Mark makes strength training easy to understand. You’ll learn proper mechanics to help you stay injury free, the most important barbell lifts that you should be doing, how to create your own effective strength training programs, and how your body adapts to strength training, rest, and recovery.

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You Are Your Own Gym: The Bible of Bodyweight Exercises

I actually just picked this book up and fell in love with it. If you constantly use the “I don’t have time to exercise” excuse than this book is for you. Regardless of whether you’re a beginner or advanced trainee you’ll get simple, effective, and challenging bodyweight workouts that you can do anywhere.

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Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance

This book may very well change your life. You’ll learn how to hack your bodies mobility so that you can become pain and injury free, improve athletic performance, and treat general stiffness by learning how to diagnose yourself, assess your own movement patterns, and fix poor exercise technique.

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5/3/1: The Simplest and Most Effective Training System To Increase Raw Strength

Jim Wendler has put together a simple and super effective method that will help you build strength. If you’re interested in getting strong that this is the book for you. The 5/3/1 method can be used by elite athletes, weekend warriors, and beginners that are familiar with barbell and dumbbell lifts.

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Good Calories Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and The Controversial Science of Diet and Health

Gary Taubes is one of the most respected nutritional experts around. This book details how refined carbohydrates are ruining our health and what you can do about it. Gary does some serious research and backs everything up with science but don’t let that scare you. A quick description of this book would be that it emphasizes eating the right source of calories and not focusing on the perfect amount of calories.

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Note: Gary’s other book, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It is also a pretty awesome read.

The Perfect Health Diet: Regain Health and Lose Weight by Eating the Way You Were Meant to Eat

It can be easy to get lost in the weeds when reading nutrition books but this one is different. Paul and Shou-Ching dumb it down for us and make eating the best foods for your body easy to understand and apply. If you’re interested in detoxifying your body, increasing your nutrient intake, prevent disease, and make-weight loss easier than this is a good one for you. 

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Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

Of all the nutrition books here this is the first one you should read. Truth be told most of us don’t know why, how much, or what we’re eating – this book explains it all. This book will help you make smarter and healthier nutrition choices without asking you to drastically change the foods that you eat or the way that you live. The awareness that you gain from this book is truly remarkable. Your entire relationship with food will change for the better.

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Note: After reading this one read Brain’s other book Slim By Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

Michael Pollan breaks down nutrition into 7 easy words. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. This book is a great read if you’re looking to improve your relationship with food. It’s aim is to get you to stop obsessing of food and letting it control your life and instead using it as a way to enrich your life.

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Performance Paleo: Recipes for Training Harder, Getting Stronger, and Gaining the Competitive Edge

Steph is my homegirl so I’m a little biased here but this is a great cookbook. All of the recipes are designed to get you to perform better, recover faster, and deliver high quality nutrients so that you’re not only ready for your next workout but ready for your day. You’ll also get a cool template outlining strategies for eating based around your workout schedule.

Favorite recipe:  Pumpkin Pie Superfood Pudding

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Paleo Takes 5 – Or Fewer: Healthy Eating was Never Easier With These Delicious 3, 4, and 5 Ingredient Recipes

Alright, on the realness tip I am scared and overwhelmed by recipes when I see more than 5 ingredients including the protein 🙂 . If you have a hard time sticking to a healthy nutrition plan, have a family that you need to cook for, or struggle in the kitchen than this is a winner for you. Despite the recipes having 5 or fewer ingredients you won’t miss out on variety, taste, or nutrient density. 

Favorite recipe:  Zesty Lime Siracha Wings

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Gourmet Nutrition: The Cookbook for the Fit Food Lover

Alright, so the first two books were a little Paleo biased but here’s one for those of you that ate not. The Gourmet Nutrition cookbook is an awesome recipe book for those of you that want to eat more real food. You also get some great tips and recommendations for serving sizes, eating more mindfully, and how to eat during the day versus post workout.

Favorite recipe:  The protein shake recipes are beast mode

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