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Downsizing and fighting back!
If you are trying to live a healthier lifestyle in order to avoid becoming a victim of a heart attack or diabetes (or both), or alternatively, you've already suffered a heart attack or you've been diagnosed with diabetes, then I urge you to read 'Downsize Me: How to Fight Diabetes and a Heart Attack'.
Put bluntly, this inspirational book has the potential to save your life!
It's been written by Michael Smith, a former editor of 'The Age' newspaper in Melbourne who is also a former award-winning medical journalist.
Smith's book is a highly personal account of how he came to be sick, and what he has done since then to change his life around.
It is a very moving and engaging story, and one that you will find extremely difficult to put down once you start it.
The book has been expertly written from two major perspectives.
Firstly, it's easy to read.
And secondly, it is clearly evident from its content that a significant and comprehensive amount of research has gone into it. But importantly, the inclusion of extensive research findings do not detract from the book's readability.
What I really liked about this book is the author's honesty and openness when telling his story. Michael Smith himself readily admits that his illnesses are the 'result of a life spent working and playing hard'.
He confesses that he should be dead.
'I ignored the royal flush of risk factors that were in my hand', he says. 'I overate. When I was not overeating, I was skipping meals. I was overweight – obese. I was unfit and did not exercise. I smoked. I overworked – all this and bad genes too'.
Smith had a heart attack but fortunately for himself and for us too, he survived. Otherwise we, as readers, would have been denied the opportunity to tap into the insights and wisdom that he imparts in his invaluable book.
The value in reading 'Downsize Me: How to Fight Diabetes and a Heart Attack' is best summed up in the book's introduction by Smith himself where he says that he uses his 'experience as a diabetic, heart attack victim, journalist and communicator – and a bloody idiot – to try to persuade readers that it is never too late to do something about it, to reduce your risk, to improve how you feel, to improve your appearance and revitalise your life'.
But 'Downsize Me: How to Fight Diabetes and a Heart Attack' has not been written to be a 'doom and gloom' book.
On the contrary, it is an uplifting book that can show all of us what we can do better to lead healthier and more productive lives, if only we will take the time to listen and to make the necessary lifestyle changes.
For instance, Smith points out that we live in crazy times where, 'for the first time in history, the number of obese and overweight people outnumber the malnourished'.
He adds that 'for the first time, a majority of the world's 57 million deaths a year are caused not by infectious diseases, war and famine but by bad lifestyles causing cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and some cancers'.
He then offers the following sobering thought for all of us to consider, namely, that 'the world's people are eating themselves to death. The pandemic of 'diabesity' is engulfing the world as alarmingly as global warming'.
As well as graphically informing readers as to the types of illnesses, and their consequences, that can eventuate from poor lifestyle choices, 'Downsize Me: How to Fight Diabetes and a Heart Attack' offers plenty of practical tips to reverse those choices.
For example, you'll find the following advice in the chapter of the book that is dedicated to safe eating:
• Top 10 tips for reducing fat intake.
• Top 10 tips for eating out.
• Top 10 tips for kilojoule-crunching some common foods – in other words, down-to-earth advice for cutting down on the kilojoules in the sorts of the foods and drinks that many of us enjoy consuming on a regular basis.
• Top 10 tips for take-away.
Then, in the following chapter of the book, Smith guides us through the maze of food labeling. The good news is that he pinpoints for us the different types of invaluable information about foods that we can pick up once we know what to look for in the labels.
To help us to achieve that goal, Smith includes an example of how a typical label – in this particular case, for a can of baked beans – can be simplified in your mind in just three easy steps.
In conclusion, here's just a small sampling of topics that are discussed in-depth in other chapters of the book: trans fat, which Smith describes as the 'crack' of food fat; simple guides respectively to diabetes and heart disease; an investigation into walking as a means of prolonging your life; and a conversation with Professor Paul Zimmet, who is regarded by many as being the world's number one expert on diabetes.
Before finishing this review, there's one other chapter in the book that deserves a special mention.
And that's because it contains the personal thoughts of key people in Smith's life – he refers to these people as being his 'ringside spectators' in his ongoing fight against his illnesses.
Those three people are 1) his personal assistant who runs the administrative side of his public relations business; 2) his business partner; and 3) one of his five children.
This is indeed a truly moving chapter of the book, and one that you can look forward to reading.
For more information about 'Downsize Me: How to Fight Diabetes and a Heart Attack', or to purchase a copy, go to the Web site of the book's publisher 'Wilkinson Publishing'. To do so now, CLICK HERE