I’ll be honest, I’ve only ever seen Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend’s Wedding and heard her as the voice of Fiona in Shrek. I never got to watch Charlie’s Angels growing up and for some reason I still haven’t. Strange, I know! Don’t shun me!
When I was shopping around on Amazon a while ago, I came across this book in the New Releases section: “The Body Book: The Law of Hunger, The Science of Strength, and Other Ways to Love Your Amazing Body”, by Cameron Diaz. It had 160 five-star reviews and I was curious what this actress had to say about this subject whose body for many years seems to maintain a youthful appearance!
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After reading the first couple chapters, I realized this wasn’t the typical celebrity vanity project. Cameron did an amazing job truly explaining the science behind food, fitness and mental wellness. She breaks down complicated medical words to clear, common terms. It’s as if she’s speaking to a friend.
The book is written in three parts:
Nutrition: Cameron talks about how you are what you eat—from a small cell to a living breathing adult. She goes into detail about what it means to be healthy and how to love your hunger. She goes through all the macronutrients—carbs, fat and protein and talks about how they’re broken down, used for energy, and how to make healthy, natural choices. Towards the end of this section she talks about the importance of water, staying hydrated and using probiotics to maintain digestive balance.
Fitness: I love this section! She introduces it with the benefits of exertion,what it means to be active, and how to balance energy in/energy out. Next up she goes through proper breathing techniques, strength training and the different types of bones and muscles, and basic weight training. She included a section about the lady body and how diet, our weight and inactivity can effect our menstrual cycles. The end of this section talks about the importance of sleep and creating a nighttime ritual.
Mind: This section has five challenges: she wants you to admit that your body is amazing, embrace the idea of growing older, take action and stay consistent, and find your mind-body connection. She talks a little bit about our appetites, and how our brain can mislead us into thinking we’re hungry when we’re really stressed, bored, lonely, etc. Lastly, she talks about planning! She even mentions meal prep! I always say, preparation is KEY! You can’t live a healthy lifestyle if you don’t plan to live one!
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She wrote her book solely for women, to provide information about our bodies and nutrition that she uses every day. What I loved most about this book was that she wasn’t offering a quick-fix plan. There were no goals to set, just information on how to live a healthy life by eating right, being physically active and taking care of your mind.
“Without a real understanding of how our bodies work to process food and what real food really is, we are like townspeople living under a spell, cursed to repeatedly make bad choices and wonder why we can’t get the results we want.”
Pretty much all the information she gave were things that I learned in college when I was earning my degree in Nutrition. I especially appreciated the language she used to explain complex processes like metabolism, using words both a teenager and an adult could understand.
Hilarious:
“Just because you can put something in your mouth, chew it, swallow it, and then poop it out does not mean it is food. It just means you can chew it, swallow it, and poop it out!”
This book is not a miracle for weight loss. It is an excellent resource for those wanting to learn about their bodies, perhaps those who have never taken a nutrition class or are interested in learning more about how their bodies work. For my fellow dietitians, this is a great refresher, and a great resource on how to explain concepts to our clients in a non-medical jargon way.
Highly recommend! What books have you been reading lately?
Hi! I’m Emily, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and self-taught intuitive chef. I firmly believe that cooking is the simplest and most important step we can take to improve our minds and bodies and build healthier communities. Join me and let’s bring food back to the kitchen!