The Real Age Diet: Make Yourself Younger With What You Eat

The Real Age Diet: Make Yourself Younger With What You Eat

by Michael F. Roizen M.D., John La Puma M.D.

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Trimming certain fats, adding fiber, and implementing up to 50 other scientifically supported steps may do more than help dieters shed pounds. Authors Dr. Michael Roizen (RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be?) and Dr. John La Puma vow that eating healthier will also reverse the aging process. Having identified 100 assorted life-prolonging habits in his first book (wear a seatbelt, adopt a pet), Roizen now narrows his focus to speak (almost) exclusively about food. The result is a juicy, easy-to-follow guide to nutrition that professes to help readers of any age live longer.

His premise is as lean and appealing as the "nutrient rich, calorie poor" foods he favors: over time, small changes can add up to big differences. Roizen begins with a 71-question survey to assess your current biological age, which may register "older" than your chronological age if you have poor eating habits. Questions range from the very simple ("Do you make healthy eating fun?") to the rather involved ("What percentage of your calories are from trans fat?"). But payoff is immediate, as Roizen provides the "years younger" or "years older" attributed to each possible answer. He then suggests 50 rather commonsense ways to combat aging, including quick fixes such as drinking enough water and bigger challenges like maintaining a steady weight. Roizen also faces his competition head-on, scrutinizing 13 bestseller diets (including Atkins, Ornish, Pritkin, and Somers) through RealAge eyes. His intention here is not to ridicule; rather, Roizen thumbnails each diet's theory, hypothesizes why it's a bestseller, runs sample recipes through his RealAge ringer, and offers suggestions for modifying each diet.

The remaining majority of the book provides facts galore on specific foods, vitamins, supplements, and their interactions; strategies for dining out; changing poor eating habits; surviving holiday feasts; and sticking with the plan. Roizen's warm, effusive writing style and his gift for simplifying complex topics atones for a couple major blips (i.e., a disappointingly small number of RealAge recipes and sweeping generalities about ideal weights for men and women). But neither problem upstages the sound bulk of Roizen's work. So, as long as your ticker's ticking, there's time to wind the clock a little tighter. --Liane Thomas

From Publishers Weekly

Roizen, a physician and author of the bestselling RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be?, teams up with La Puma, also a physician and a professionally trained chef, to offer a new approach to eating based on the premise that, by making even small changes (e.g., starting every dinner with an ounce of nuts), we can become biologically younger than our chronological age (e.g., Roizen is 55 years old but has calculated his "RealAge" to be 38). Roizen and La Puma begin with a variety of quizzes so readers can assess their current diet and determine where they need to make changes. While many of the self-assessment tests are in the book, the authors frequently refer readers to their Web site for more detailed quizzes and additional nutritional information, which limits the book's value. On the other hand, this work does an excellent job of analyzing specific foods and explaining their benefits or risks to readers. Less appealing and comprising a large section of the book is the analysis of other well-known diet programs (e.g., the Atkins diet, the Carbohydrate Addicts diet, the Zone) and how to modify them using the RealAge principles. Although there is a reassuring validity to Roizen and La Puma's criticisms, readers may also find them somewhat smug. Overall, though, the RealAge diet is a refreshing and accessible approach to an age-old problem. (May)Forecast: Given the huge success of RealAge, readers' continual concern with dieting (particularly in pre-bathing-suit season) and a five-city author tour, this book should reach bestseller status.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
Do some foods accelerate aging and others reverse it? Science says yes! Dr. Michael Roizen, whose number one bestseller RealAge showed Americans how to reverse aging by changing their lifestyle choices, and Dr. John La Puma have developed an authoritative antiaging diet plan that will help you live life to your youngest. The RealAge Diet examines the food-related factors that multiple studies have indicated can cause you to age faster than you should.

Just as in RealAge, there is a groundbreaking test to discover how your eating habits affect your RealAge. Once you know your biological age, you can make yourself younger by trying some of the fifty-one food choices and strategies that are age busters. Whether you are eating in or eating out, you will find simple guidelines that make age reduction easy. Cooking tips, two weeks of meals you can prepare in ten minutes or less, and twenty fabulous recipes make your RealAge younger with every bite. And with the easy-to-follow "Hourglass" diet, you'll have a handy visual reminder of what you can do to make aging stand still and to keep young longer.

Drs. Roizen and La Puma start with the simple premise "If it doesn't taste good, don't eat it." The RealAge Diet examines the principles of sensible weight loss and weight management. The authors evaluate the bestseller diets and show you which help you lose weight and which cause needless aging. Even better, they tell you how to modify the bestseller diets to make them more age-reducing.

This is not another diet book: if there is one thing you will learn from this book, it is that if you eat foods that are high in nutrients and low in calories, your body is going to be healthier and younger than you ever dreamed possible.

HEY EVERYONE - YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT - SO READ THIS BOOK!, April 30, 2001
Reviewer: Randy@DrProactive.com, a proactive success coach from Mt. Jackson, VA USA
Please forgive the soapbox style of review here. I think the authors are right-on, and if you will take what they write to heart (not just seek information, but seek transformation) you will look and feel great for the rest of your life.

It's that time of the year again and most of us are beginning to pull out the summer things. I can hear the screams now. Oh my goodness - how did my clothes shrink so much! Many are searching Amazon looking for the latest "lose weight" book.

WAIT . . . STOP . . . DON'T!

Before you spend any of your precious money on those other fad diet books, consider the following. How come some people always seem to be lean and trim, no matter what the season? Do you think it's because they are on a perpetual diet?

I don't thinks so. You see, I have been there and done that. Sure, some of those diet and exercise plans work a little, but only a little, and only while they are relentlessly followed.

Those fad plans aren't the best way for us to be lean and healthy because the weight problem is in our heads. Research now shows that the poor health of our bodies is just a symptom of improper thinking. The real problem is:

YOU HAVE TOO MUCH FEAR IN YOUR DIET!

Just like cholesterol, there are good fears and bad fears.

(Our comment: Hey Randy, Cholesterol is not to fear as much as the drug companies would like you to think; get the real facts here.)

Most likely, you are allowing too much of the bad fear to get into your mind. Bad fears cause the problems that jack up the weight, increase the waistline, and leave you short of breath when climbing stairs.

YOU CAN ELIMINATE BAD FEARS IN THREE STEPS

Eliminating bad fears from you life is not that complicated. You can rid yourself of the bad types of fears that keep you from the success and abundance you deserve.

First, you need to know what causes bad fears. Just like real estate pricing, bad fears are caused by 3 things: ignorance, ignorance, and ignorance.

THE CURE IS: LEARN, DO, AND REWARD

Eliminate the first ignorance by learning. You must learn what is right for you. Read this book and it will tell you our bodies are all different. Your needs for nourishment, exercise, and sleep are different from anyone else. Learn what your "healthy zone" is and many of the fears that cause you to be out of shape will disappear immediately.

Eliminate the second ignorance by doing. Train your brain to do what is right. Emerson said, "Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain." Start slowly and work your way up to staying in your healthy zone. Don't be afraid of mistakes. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first.

Eliminate the third ignorance by discovering the rewards and opportunities. Reward yourself for that slim waistline; buy something sexy. Take advantage of the opportunities; look great in front of that audience. If you eat something that was just too good to pass up, don't worry. Get back into your healthy zone at the next meal.

Read this book; follow these three steps and you will rid yourself of the bad fears and their accompanying health problems. Soon, success and abundance will be yours and you'll always look great!

Don't be afraid to buy this book - it is not a fad diet book.

Ayurvedic Rejuvenation by Diet!, April 27, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from New York City
Dr. Roizen's book presents a clear plan of diet and food choice that sustains and optimizes health.

The other new book that I found just as useful was the curious one called AN ELEMENTARY TEXTBOOK OF AYURVEDA by the Yale physician, Frank John Ninivaggi,M.D., in which he outlines a food plan based on a person's specific body type and that has a 6,000 year old basis in India(n) medicine.

The two books are intelligent and worthwhile for the intelligent reader who wants to optimize health using both Western and Eastern approaches.

Science And Common Sense Come Together, April 24, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from New York
This is an excellent book which educates the reader on nutrition, which lets one make informed decisions on healthy eating. What is most important is that the focus of the book is on the enjoyment of food, choosing foods which are healthy and fun.

Our Comment: If you haven't already done so, go to the nutrition center and arm yourself with knowledge. There's so many lies out there that if you don't get the true facts about food and nutriton, you'll soon die "another statistic".

The information is free and your's to keep!