Book Review: Clean

Well, I can't really give a fair book review yet since I am only 30% finished with it, but let me back up and start with why I am reading this book.

If you know me well, you know I own a Kindle. Since I was in University, I have made it a habit to read everyday. I really enjoy it right before bedtime, since it helps me wind down, take my mind off the day, and help me relax.

A few times I have read some book about various diets. A few years ago, DH and I were doing the Paleo Diet for Athletes. In principle, the rules for this diet are, you eat like a caveman. Nothing processed, no grains, no diary, no flour, etc. We ate lots of meat (I even made rabbit one time) salad, fruits, nuts, and interesting things made with almond flour (bleh). That was fun for awhile, but really hard to maintain.

The second book I read was Skinny Bitch. I hated the tone of this book. Its purpose was to convince you to stop eating meat, dairy, eggs, and basically become a vegan. While I think that this approach is ok for some people, I disagreed with a lot of what the book was saying mainly because of the condescending tone. Of course, I would NEVER give up dairy since #1 I enjoy it so much, and #2 I work for a dairy company! This book was blah.

So now I am reading a book called Clean by Dr Alejandro Junger. (Does his name rhyme with hunger, I have wondered?) Anyways, I found out about this diet/detox plan from an Outside magazine (January 2011). The article took staff members, and had them test out different diets or lifestyle approaches. The staff member who did the Clean program described it as a cult: you turn you nose up to it, and scorn those who do it, but become a true believer if you do it yourself. The detox lasts for 3 weeks and consists of a smoothie/shake for breakfast and dinner and a solid meal for lunch. There are a lot of things that are on the "no go" list such as caffeine, alcohol, carbs, etc. But for 3 weeks, anyone can do this, right?

The idea is that are bodies have become so toxic from a western diet that includes meat with hormones, fruits and veggies with pesticides, mixed with a good dose of things from our environment that we are being plagued by "non-life threatening" issues. These include things such as arthritis, IBS, low energy, skin problems, etc. Dr. Junger believes that a lot of this is attributed to our toxic levels in our body, and therefore we need to give our digestion processes a rest, and allow them to detox.

Like I said I am only 30% finished, but so far it reads like a biochemistry textbook. I got kind of bored with it, and am ready to find out what the diet include. The first part of the book also gives lots of examples which make you think, hmm, maybe this could work for me?

This is not recommended for pregnant women, so I don't plan to try it anytime soon, but still it is interesting to read about how much of what we consume affects how we feel.

Any other good fitness/diet books out there I need to read?