22 Aug Book Review: It Starts With Food

One of the major things that improved my body composition, health, energy, and strength and performance was changing my diet a couple of years ago.

Specifically, Paleo nutrition has made a massive difference for me and it can for you, as well.

I’ll give you a great resource to get started or learn more about it to improve your health and performance.

For me, the change actually started with the book, The Primal Blueprint, which is still one of my favorite Paleo books out there.

The thing with Primal Blueprint is that it’s not a diet book, it’s a “life change” or lifestyle book, whatever you prefer to call it.

But, recently a fellow RKC instructor recommended a great book called  It Starts With Food (ISWF) and it provides an incredible amount of detail and action steps to live healthy, lose weight, and feel good again.  It’s really an incredible book, which is why I’m sharing this review.

I’m sorry to say, but with the growing rates of the overweight and obese climbing to approximately 70%, we need more books like this.

It’s up to us to educate ourselves.  It’s our choice.

We need sensible books that explain how important food is to our bodies and how we can choose to be healthy or unhealthy based on the food we eat, it’s really that simple.

What makes this book different?

Let me start with the authors, Dallas and Melissa Hartwig who have very similar backgrounds as mine, especially Dallas.  Dallas is a Physical Therapist and both he and his wife Melissa are Russian Kettlebell Certified Instructors (RKC), as well as Certified Sports Nutritionists (CISSN).

I liked them immediately!

All kidding aside, the book is a brilliant explanation of how to optimize our health.

The authors lay it all out there.  This book is appropriate for all levels and can benefit everone who cares to know more about improving nutrition.

While it’s not a “light read” by any means, it is a “deep dive” into why everything we eat plays such an important part in our health, performance, and preventing disease.

This book lays things out very clearly and allows the reader to follow a very simple program with their Whole30 program.

If you want the “how to,” then download the Whole30 program right now.

But, I recommend getting the book, in addition to just the simple program to fully understand the metabolism of food and the important hormones that are responsible for our health, our strength, our body composition, and reversing and preventing disease.

The chapter on hormones is really outstanding and this is definitely worth your time to read and understand.

Why?  Because when you understand what happens to each piece of food you put in your mouth and the cascade of events that occurs, you start to think about food differently.

I know that’s what happened with me.  That was the big “Aha” moment.

Understanding which hormones are important, how they work, and how what you eat impacts hormonal response is crtitical, in my opinion.

If you truly want to have success with a healthy, fit, energetic body, it’s worth your time to read and understand this information.

Think of this book as a comprehensive course in optimizing human health.  

The book definitely provides high science information, but in a very user freindly and practical format that will benefit all readers.

The system is a “Paleo type” plan and I have discussed how this type of eating is not only great for improving health and performance, but it’s very sustainable, as well.

How sustainable is it?

That’s always the first question I ask whenever I hear about a diet or nutrition plan.

Paleo-type nutrition (PTN), as I call it, is VERY sustainable.

If it weren’t, I wouldn’t have been able to effortlessly live this way for the last couple of years.

The real value of this book is the deep information and strong rationale that is built from their foundation program, the Whole30 program.

The Whole30 program is a super simple program you can find at Whole9life.com.

If you want to really understand why food is so important in our health and what to do about it, then get the book.

If you want the fastest, easiest way to get started, then download the Whole30 program right now and take the 30 day challenge.  It may just change your life.

If you have health issues, maybe even things that haven’t been resolved for years, there are very powerful case studies in the book with people who overcame major health challenges or weight challenges that were corrected by implementing the Whole30 program.  It’s pretty amazing…

The book is a case for life change.

Is the approach a radical overhaul?

For some it may be.  It depends on how you’ve been eating and what you consider an overhaul.

If you want good health, if you want to avoid gaining weight every year, if you want to avoid feeling bad and dealing with adverse health issues, if you want to feel vibrant, energetic, lean, and proud, then I highly recommend getting this book.

Another great thing you’ll discover is the simplistic way that Dallas and Melissa take complicated science and explain things that are very easy to understand.

Examples are topics like the chapters on hormones and inflammation.  Again, I think it’s very important for people to truly understand how our bodies work to optimize our health.

Sure, do the program, but understand the role of food and the devasting impact it can have when we repeatedly eat the wrong foods, day in and day out.

That’s what this book provides.

Like I said, it’s a “meaty” read, meaning it’s really comprehensive and packed with information.  But I was able to tear through it in just a few days because I was so immersed in the details and stories.

It’s different, yet very complimentary to the other “paleo” books out there and I know you’ll get a lot of value from this book.

While I won’t give away the key concepts in the book, I do believe that everyone can benefit from ISWF and can learn from it.  I know I did and I read everything I can to learn more about the effects of food and nutrition.

No matter how much exercise you do, there’s a saying “you can’t out exercise a bad diet” which is so true.

I know people who train hard, but don’t eat well because they do not understand the role that food has on the human body.

While there are many great nutrition and lifestyle books I would recommend, this one is excellent and I give it the highest recommendation because I know it can help people.

The reviews for this book are amazing too, so it’s not just me that discovered how fantastic this book is.  Check out Amazon to see what others say about ISWF.

Get It Starts With Food.

Read it, understand it, and take action with the Whole30 Program.  

Thank you Dallas and Melissa for a great book and wealth of valuable information that has changed lives.