This edition of the Limitless Library includes 13 (shit, is that bad luck) of my favorite fitness, diet, and recipe books. Future posts will include some more of my favorite reads from other genres including psychology, entrepreneurship, philosophy, personal development, fiction, among others.
Feel free to comment below and let me know some of you favorites fitness, nutrition, and cookbooks.
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I have a confession to make. The very first book I read from beginning to end was Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. I was 20 years old.
Yup, I had never read a book in its entirety until I was 20. It was my junior year of college and I had some down time in between classes and wasn’t really sure what to do with myself.
Growing up playing baseball, a personal obsession with sports statistics, and the recommendation from a friend got me to purchase it. Two pages in and I was hooked. I finished that thing in a matter of days. I still can remember thinking to myself, “Man, this reading isn’t so bad – who knew.”
Long story short this was the start of an obsession.
I’ve kept up a pretty decent pace of reading 20 to 30 books a year since finishing Moneyball in 2003 and even challenged myself to read 52 books in 52 weeks. I wanted to share some of my personal favorites in a few different genres.
Feel free to comment at the end of the article and share what some of your favorite fitness, nutrition, and cookbooks are. And remember to check back for more of my favorite books in different genres.
FITNESS AND EXERCISE BOOKS
[ezcol_1third id=”” class=”” style=””]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.
To check out the book click here
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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.
Grab a copy of the book here
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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.
Grab a copy of the book here
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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.
Grab a copy of the book here
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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.
Grab a copy of the book here
DIET AND NUTRITION BOOKS
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The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet
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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.
Grab a copy of the book here
Note: Gary’s other book, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It is also a pretty awesome read.
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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.
Grab a copy of the book here
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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.
Grab a copy of the book here
Note: After reading this one read Brain’s other book Slim By Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life
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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.
Grab a copy of the book here
RECIPE BOOKS THAT DON’T SUCK
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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
Grab a copy of the book here
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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
Grab a copy of the book here
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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
Grab a copy of the book here
I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF
There’s about a 100 health and fitness books that I wanted to include in this list but I didn’t want to overwhelm you. But gosh darn it! I couldn’t contain myself. Here are 5 more health and fitness books that I love. Enjoy!
- The Four Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman
- Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle: Transform Your Body Forever Using the Secrets of the Leanest People In The World
- The Bulletproof Diet: Lose Up To A Pound a Day, Reclaim Energy and Focus, Upgrade Your Life
- Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar — Your Brain’s Silent Killers
- Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain
Well that’s that and a baseball bat.
What are some of your favorite fitness, nutrition, and cookbooks? Post to the comments below.
Live Limitless,
Justin
Photo credits: Library books
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