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Hospitalized with a freak case of tropical pneumonia, goaded by his wife telling him, “I don’t want to be a widow at forty-five,” and ashamed of a middle-aged body best described as “a python that swallowed a goat,” A.J. Jacobs felt compelled to change his ways and get healthy. And he didn’t want only to lose weight, or finish a triathlon, or lower his cholesterol. His ambitions were far greater: maximal health from head to toe.
The task was epic. He consulted an army of experts— sleep consultants and sex clinicians, nutritionists and dermatologists. He subjected himself to dozens of different workouts—from Strollercize classes to Finger Fitness sessions, from bouldering with cavemen to a treadmill desk. And he took in a cartload of diets: raw foods, veganism, high protein, calorie restriction, extreme chewing, and dozens more. He bought gadgets and helmets, earphones and juicers. He poked and he pinched. He counted and he measured.
The story of his transformation is not only brilliantly entertaining, but it just may be the healthiest book ever written. It will make you laugh until your sides split and endorphins flood your bloodstream. It will alter the contours of your brain, imprinting you with better habits of hygiene and diet. It will move you emotionally and get you moving physically in surprising ways. And it will give you occasion to reflect on the body’s many mysteries and the ultimate pursuit of health: a well-lived life.
A.J. Jacobs might be described as a compulsive extremist. In his recent acts of obsession, he has devoured knowledge omnivorously (The Know-It-All) and lived the fine print ofvarious religious laws to the letter (The Year of Living Biblically). In Drop Dead Health, he dives with equal abandon into the ever-growing arena of total well-being. Almost no health and fitness regimen escaped his attention: He followed a dizzying number of diets (including raw foods and extreme chewing), consulted sleep specialists and sex experts, and tossed himself, sometimes literally, into workouts of every imaginable type. The resulting read is hilarious, even though it also reminds us that we Americans have become a driven people.
— Jules Herbert
Book Recommendations by AJ Jacobs
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
By Joshua Foer
For my health book, I wanted to improve every part of my body - including my brain. So to help with my memory, I read this wonderful non-fiction book by Josh Foer. It's been several months since I finished it, but in keeping with the book's theme, I'll try to write about it from memory. If I recall, Josh entered the USA memory championship as a journalist - and, to his surprise, after months of training, ended up winning. He used mneumonic devices that have been around since ancient Greece - tricks that are fascinating and, in Josh's hands, often hilariously naughty. (To memorize a deck of cards, he once visualized Kareem Abdul Jabar and Rhea Perlman in a compromising position).
The book is many things: A Gladwellian look at the science of memory, an adventure story, a how-to, and a meditation on the meaning of memory in this age of terabyte hard drives. By the way, it wasn't Kareem Abdul Jabar. I misremembered. I looked it up and it was Manute Bol. I should read the book again.
Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
By Brian Wansink Ph.d.
While researching my book on health, I had a meal with the most mindful eaters in the world. These folks practice something called 'savoring meditation' in which it takes ten minutes to eat a single blueberry.
Most of us are the exact opposite. We shove food thoughtlessly into our ever-ajar maws. Brian Wansink - a professor of psychology at Cornell - has been studying how we eat for years, and summarizes his findings in this excellent book. We are not rational eaters. We eat more when watching TV. We eat more when we think the accompanying wine is from California as opposed to North Dakota. We don't stop eating when we're full. In one of his more ingenious experiments, Wansink created a soup bowl that was secretly replenished through a pipe in the table, so the bowl never became empty. Guess what? The test subjects just kept on spooning up that soup. If he hadn't ended the experiment, they might have exploded.
This book is enlightening, and will make you thinner as well.
Super Sad True Love Story
By Gary Shteyngart
Gary's brilliant satirical sci-fi novel begins like this: "I have made a major decision: I am never going to die." The narrator of these words is Lenny Abramov, a middle-aged shlub who works as a Life Lovers Outreach Coordinator for an Indefinite Life Extension Company. Through the story of Lenny, Shteyngart takes our current health obsessions, and magnifies them to ridiculous extremes. In this near-future world, we are judged by our LDL to HDL ratio, we load up on resveratrol on dates, we bicker about our friends' testosterone levels. The book is also, as the title indicates, a love story. So even if you don't like health-themed satire, you'll probably be charmed by Lenny's attempts to court the woman of his dreams, the much-younger and equally hilarious Eunice Park.
Tikigirl
Posted May 13, 2012
I am an avid reader of health related material. This was a very funny and thought provoking book. I am now interested in reading some of his other books.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.frenchysandy
Posted May 13, 2012
This book gives this nations obsessiveness on getting healthy, a good and humorous evaluation. From the ridiculous to the possible, A.J. Jacobs explores and attempts to live the many and often contradictory ways to achieve health. I laughed all the way through. I may even try some of the things he found helpful.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 19, 2012
Good premise, and an easy read. Slightly depressing though and I didn't learn as much as I wanted to. Frequently I wanted to know where he got a factoid from, but except for the bug sections, there's no info on that and no endnotes. Often the writing was disjointed, makung me wonder if I was missing pages. Lots of abrupt ends! And I could have done without tge constant references to his last book. I guess being agnostic ups your credibility, since he mentions it in almost every chapter? Got tired of that - please talk about health, not religion.
Basically, if you read this, do it for the random mildly amusing stories, not the health information. And don't expect too much.
1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 23, 2012
A.J. makes this quest of his an entertaining and informative story. His wife and kids have a lot of patience with him as he goes through his "transformation". Great read.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This book was a fun if somewhat scatter-shot approach to being fit.
Worth reading for the entertainment value, and I did pick up a few interesting health tips along the way
Sammy28
Posted May 21, 2012
Good example of how you can go too far in anything. We all know what's healthy we just need to do it and ignore the latest health fad.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.kgab
Posted May 18, 2012
I'm half way through reading the book and AJ has challenged me not believe everything I hear or see about what to do for my health. Everything in moderation. Some of the extreme approaches to health are probably more stressful to the mind than the body. I am glad he took on this task for himself and shared his honest experiences- the good, the bad and the ugly.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I have not finished reading this book yet. I am only 1/3 of the way into it. Partly because I have a busy schedule, and partly because this book does not hold my interest. It is entertaining enough to read snippets of it when I find myself waiting for others to arrive or meetings to start. But it does not cause me to want to read it instead of watching tv or as I fall asleep in bed. In fact, I have since become far more interested in another book and have switched to it. I will eventually finish this book, but I am in no hurry to do so. I recommend it as a free library checkout book rather than a must have buy it book.
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Posted May 9, 2012
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Overview
From the bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically and The Know-It-All comes the true and truly hilarious story of one person’s quest to become the healthiest man in the world.
Hospitalized with a freak case of tropical pneumonia, goaded by his wife telling him, “I don’t want to be a widow at forty-five,” and ashamed of a middle-aged body best described as “a python that swallowed a goat,” A.J. Jacobs felt compelled to change his ways and get healthy. And he didn’t want only to lose weight, or finish a triathlon, or lower his cholesterol. His ambitions were far greater: maximal health from head to toe.
The ...