Book Buzz: The Romance Series That’s WAY Better (& Hotter) Than 50 Shades

I don’t know about you guys, but I loved romance novels for a while, but eventually they all kinda felt the same: a demure damsel, a hunky stable boy, badda bing badda boom, steamy scenes, happily ever after, the end. They were fine, then I got over it and stopped reading them.

My BFF – who was also into romance novels and felt the same way I did about the Shades series – not our fave – told me she’d recently been so overwhelmed by the state of the world that she just wanted something FUN to read to relax. She’d gotten back into romances and found the BEST series. She told me I had to at least read the first book. [Read more…]

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Book Buzz: Salt Fat Acid Heat

I want to learn more about cooking. I want to understand the science behind it all so I can enjoy cooking more than I do. I’ve come a long way from frozen fish filets and canned green beans in college (when I thought I was something), but I still don’t feel totally comfortable in the kitchen. Sure, I can follow a recipe, but if I don’t have a recipe, I feel looooost. Enter Samin Nosrat and her amazing game-changer of a cook book, that’s better than a cook book: [Read more…]

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Book Buzz: Notorious RBG – The Life & Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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image via the Notorious RBG Tumblr page

I love reading the life stories of amazing women and this one may have just sauntered it’s way to the top of my faves list.  [Read more…]

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Book Buzz: What to Read When You Feel “Stuck.”

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I’ve done a lot that I’m proud of since graduating college. I’ve traveled to 10 countries. I’ve run my own business. I’ve always been self-employed. I have money in savings and no debt. I have great relationships with friends, family, and my man-friend. I have a fantastic dog that just gets me. Despite all this though, the past year or so, I’ve just felt “stuck.” I felt I wasn’t going anywhere (figuratively, professionally) and was lacking any and all motivation to get started on something new. To grow. [Read more…]

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Book Buzz: Books Being Turned Into Movies

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The good thing about 34 hours of travel, a few days of remote beach time, and 34 more hours of travel back home is that I had tons of time to read, which made me very happy. I haven’t been reading as much lately because of work travel and that always bums me out because I love having a book. Getting through 6 books and being on my 7th has definitely filled my reading cup. Here’s what I’ve plowed through the last 3 weeks:

[Read more…]

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Book Buzz: Fat Attack – A Review & Giveaway!

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My friend and colleague, Nardia Norman has written an excellent book for anybody wanting to turn themselves into a fat-burning machine! I read this book in just over a day and from a trainer’s standpoint, LOVED it. Like most fat-loss books, it break down the key behaviors that one must address in order to make true change in their bodies but this one does an amazing job of putting it into concise, simple terms; no fitness or medical jargon!

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I asked my mother to read it, from a consumer standpoint, and let me know if she felt that it was as easy to understand as I thought it was. She agreed. She even had this to say about it:

“We all know what we need to do when it come to better heath. The question is “why don’t we do it?”  I believe the answer lies our or fear of failure and the lack of proper nutritional health knowledge.  Why bother to lose five pounds because it just means gaining back seven.  Why bother  slimming your stomach or thighs when winter is right around the corner and you will probably just lay around and get those inches back? Why even bother?  It’s easier to eat what we want to make our selves feel better in the moment.  This book helps you to understand how brief that moment really is and how emotional eating only takes us deeper into the unhealthy eating spiral.  This book teaches how to slowly, but surely tunnel back up to normal, healthy eating habits that make us physically and emotionally function at our best. 

Weight loss is just a number on a scale.  What truly matters is what we actually lose.  Have you ever wondered why your new diet helped you to lose a few pounds early on, but then it quit working?  It was probably because you were losing water and much needed muscle, but not the fat we need to lose to stay healthy.  The book teaches you that some fat is needed to protect our vital organs, but too much leads to many other health related problems such as type 2 diabetes and even early death due to bad nutrition.

This book, “Fat Attack” teaches us how to to break our bad eating habits slowly and a step at a time   After all, we all gain weight slowing and there is no instant way to lose it overnight.  These baby steps along with the knowledge of how the body processes all that we put into it, especially when it comes to our fat intake will lead to better health. As the writer stated, “Small positive changes repeated over time equals big rewarding changes in the long term.”

This book helped me to understand that we all need some sugar, carbs and even some fat in our diets.  It also taught me how the body uses fat to protect our internal organs and how much fat is too much.  Most importantly, it taught me how the body functions better with more muscle mass and less fat. I’ll never look at carbs, protein, high fructose corn syrup, and especially fat in the same way again. “

Thanks for your review, MOM!

You can use this book to help you on your own fat-loss mission, or if you’re a fitness pro, use it to share with your clients. It’s a great resource to help your clients understand WHY we tell them what we do!

*Added bonus: Nardia is from New Zealand and so she uses cute, Kiwi dialect throughout the book (e.g. lollies, takeaway, fizzy drinks,etc). So that’s entertaining for anybody living on this side of the world. ; )

Moving on…

In honor of this awesome book, Nardia and I are giving away THREE copies!

Just enter your name and email address below before 11:59pm on Sunday to be entered.

The 3 winners will be announced on Monday, June 23th!

If you’d rather not chance it, go ahead and buy the book here … and on Kindle here
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Book Buzz: David and Goliath

If you can read, you should read this book. It doesn’t matter what type of books you’re into. This one contains the most interesting content. There were so many sections that piqued my interest, so many sections I wanted to highlight (yet I still can’t figure out how to do that on my Kindle) and remember for later. I’d always heard of Malcolm Gladwell, but had never read any of his books until now. Now I want to gobble up all his others. 
If you’ve ever felt like the “little guy”, as we all have at some point, this book is for you. It tells the tale of so many important and influential people (and so many you’ve never heard of) in history that overcame adversity in order to succeed. Success is defined differently by us all, but YOUR success is just as important to you as anybody else’s is to them. Finding out how to make your disadvantages your advantages is key. 
This book is a quick read that readers of any genre will enjoy. I highly recommend it! 
What are you guys reading right now? 
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Book Buzz: Dearie – The Remarkable Life of Julia Child

Guys, this book is SERIOUSLY good. I didn’t know much about Julia Child until I saw the movie, “Julie and Julia” a couple years ago, but it left me intrigued. I saw Dearie on Goodreads not long ago and ordered it for my Kindle. The great thing about this book is that it’s one that you don’t feel you have to dive into and read until completed. You can pick it up here and there and you feel good about picking up where you last left off, even if a couple weeks have passed. It’s one that makes you just want to get cozy and settle in for a fun story… and then start learning how to cook French cuisine. 
This book goes in massive detail of Julia’s life: her upbringing in Southern California, her time working for the CIA (before it was called the CIA), and her travels all over the world. The thing I loved the most  though was her apparent gumption and attitude: 
“NEVER apologize!” she says to those who have ruined a recipe. 
The love story between her and her husband is also one that will draw you in… 
…and what’s really amazing is that most of her life’s successes didn’t happen until much later in her life. 
Get it. Read it. You’ll love it. 
Side note:  I don’t usually pay attention to how big/long a book is, but when I was talking about it to one of my clients she immediately said, “That book looks like it’ll take a year to read. I’ll read it in retirement!” So then I had to look: 15,000 pages! Now in Kindle pages, that sounds way worse, but I’d never actually paid attention to how many pages each book had, I just looked at the percentage as I was reading. Well after reading this book for about two weeks (about 5 hours total of reading, probably) I looked down and was only %30 through it! Soooo just be prepared, it’s long, but worth every minute! The good thing was that the story was actually over at %65 (10,000 pages). The rest of the book was saved for Acknowledgements and bibliography. : ) 
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Book Buzz: Breaking My Own (Reading) Rules…

I’ve never liked the idea of reading more than one book at a time. It always kinda stresses me out. One book feels like something I’m leisurely spending my time with. Any more than that feels like, “I  need to finish these soon!” As is if they’re another task on my to-do list… This isn’t how I want reading to feel for me. I read for entertainment! For fun! I read for education! Occasionally.  I don’t want my fun reading to turn into an obligation, so I read one book at a time. And that makes me feel good.

Until this month. Holy cow. 
There are so many good books out right now.
  I bought 3 and instantly began to read all of them.
 #DamnGina
This is what’s on my Kindle right now 
and I’m fluttering back and forth between them  
(and trying not to flip out). 
Let me know if you guys have read any of these and how you like them! 

I’m LOVING this book, though I think it’s possibly a million pages long. 
You can never tell how a big a book actually is when you purchase on an e-reader, 
but I feel like I’ve been reading forever and it’s showing I’m only %15 of the way in… Wha?
It’s all very interesting though, so no complaints. : ) 
Began this one the other night but had to force myself to put it down
as it was getting late and I had to be up at 5am… I can tell it’s going to be a
good one though. Fascinating, for sure! 
via NPR
I started this but then freaked out reeled it in. 
Really excited about it though!
Do you read more than one book at a time? 
What are you guys reading now?
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Book Buzz – The Husband’s Secret

I read about this book in a magazine while I was at the salon last month, then saw it as a best-seller on Amazon last week. I then saw a few peeps had read it on Goodreads.com and finally thought, “OK. It’s gotta be something good.” I’ve been in a reading funk lately and can’t find anything really page-turning. (I re-read the Twilight books just because I knew I’d enjoy them… but that’s another story.) I loved this book! It was a good, fast read, that was part mystery/part drama, with some funny sarcastic lines in the mix and some twists & turns along the way. A smorgasbord, if you will… 

From Goodreads:

My Darling Cecilia
If you’re reading this, then I’ve died . . .

Imagine your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret – something so terrible it would destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others too. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive . . .

Aaaaaaaaand
it’s only $6 on Kindle —> SCORE. 
Have you read it? Whatdidja think?
Any other great books out there I need to know about?
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