Suggested Reading: Living Well

Since I've started making smoothies a regular part of my diet I've been on the lookout for books and websites that not only have recipes but also offer guidance on how to improve one's health through diet.  My local Borders was one of the unfortunate locations having a closing sale, so I searched through their shelves and stumbled upon a few health and diet books that might be worth reading. The one that interested me the most was Living Well by Montel Williams. 

Now I grew up with Montel the talk show host but I was never really a devout watcher - school kind of got in the way - so I never knew he was such a health advocate until I started reading his book.  (You can find out more about him on his website, montelwilliams.com.)  The book takes the simple premise of exercising more and eating better and gives you a step by step guide on how to optimize these two things for better health. It's a guide to achieving a balance between what you should do and what you can do.  

As a sufferer of MS, Montel states that "by supercharging your diet and physical fitness, you can reduce the risks and symptoms of chronic disease and vastly improve the way you feel." He calls his approach The Living Well Code.

One of the first components to his approach is what drew me to the book in the first place: smoothies and juices. Not only does the book offer several tasty recipes, but a list of what Montel calls the rainbow fruits, rainbow veggies and superpower greens. These lists you can mix and match to create a 'super-charged' drink that gives your body the nutrients it needs. 

Of course the book doesn't stop at smoothies and juices. Amongst many other things, there are mediterranean-inspired recipes that aren't too complex and exercises that you can do at home - try not to let the six pack on the model intimidate you, many of them are simple movements that most can achieve.   

One of the things that endeared me the most to this book was that even though Montel has his own website, with his own products to pitch (everything from an ab machine to a rotisserie), he does not limit you to his resources.  Throughout the book and especially in the back, there are suggestions on where to get even more information. The most useful, at least for me, was the hint that if you go to AICR.org  and put in a vegetable from the rainbow list, they will generate recipes with the vegetable as an ingredient.

The book overall was an easy read with an equally easy approach to improving your health. Of course the hard part is the implementation, but if you need help with that - there's always the ab machine and rotisserie.