Feed Your Tiger: The Asian Diet Secret for Permanent Weight Loss and Vibrant Health [Hardcover]

Letha Hadady (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 12, 2006

Forget about restrictive fad diets and "feel-the-burn" workouts. Drawing on Eastern healing principles that date back thousands of years, this is a decidedly different—and superbly effective—approach to weight control through energy balance

Feed Your Tiger is the first book to establish a connection between weight loss and energy type. Author Letha Hadady shows readers how to drop extra pounds through a combination of natural remedies and techniques that draw on both contemporary scientific research and traditional Chinese medicine.

By completing a short questionnaire, readers determine their own energy type: tiger, bear, dragon, or crane. With this information, they learn how to choose healing foods for their energy type; how to tailor their eating plans to their individual cravings; and how to further support their weight-loss efforts with specific natural remedies—including herbal and nutritional supplements, massage techniques, and stretches.

Feed Your Tiger was the subject of a controlled observational study, conducted at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. The findings confirmed that Hadaday’s methods are as effective as they are unique.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Letha Hadady, one of the nation's leading experts on natural Chinese remedies, is leading a quiet, ladylike revolution to bring herbal medicines from the Far East and elsewhere into everyday use in American homes."--San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author

LETHA HADADY, DAc (diplomate of acupuncture), is on the adjunct faculty of the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and the Beatrice Renfield Division of Nursing Education and Research at Beth Israel Medical Center, both in New York City. A frequent guest on talk radio in the U.S. and abroad, she also has numerous television appearances to her credit, including Today, The View, Extra!, CNN, The Learning Channel, and the Food Network. She resides in New York City.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books; First Edition edition (December 12, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594864144
• ISBN-13: 978-1594864148
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #441,204 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, 'Letha Hadady, one of the nation's leading experts on natural Chinese remedies, is leading a quiet lady-like revolution to bring herbal medicines from the Far East and elsewhere into everyday use in American homes.' Letha, trained in traditional Chinese acupuncture and Asian herbal medicine, is adjunct faculty for New York Open Center, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and The Renfield Center for Nursing Education, Beth Israel Medical Center in New York.

Letha has been featured on many national television programs, including Barbara Walters' The View, NBC's Today Show, Donnie and Marie, Extra!, The Learning Channel, The Food Network, CNN, and CBS. She writes regular natural health columns for New Living magazine (USA and online) for award-winning Heal India magazine (Delhi, India) and Healthy You magazine (India, Singapore, and Middle East.) Letha updates her books, articles, and videos at: www.asianhealthsecrets.com. Her natural health and beauty advice is featured on many other global websites and blogs.

Letha is a regular health expert on talk radio, including "Montel Across America" with Montel Williams at airamerica.com in the U.S. and abroad. Her topics range from seasonal health problems--flu, depression, and Asian foods or herbs for beauty issues--to events such as Chinese New Year. Letha's articles have appeared in popular magazines, including GreatLife, Allure, Marie Claire, Self, Fitness, Body and Soul, Natural Health, Let's Live, and Jane. Letha was on the cover and the lead article for Delicious! magazine. She was featured in the November, 2009 issue of Conde Nast Traveler (Spain.) Letha's walking tours of Asian herbal markets in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are famous. Her natural health and beauty students and readers come from all walks of life.

Letha is the author of personal transformation, natural health and beauty books, including Asian Health Secrets: The Complete Guide to Asian Herbal Medicine (Crown/Three Rivers Press: 1998). This finely illustrated Washington Post best-seller has a foreword by H H. the 14th Dalai Lama. Called a 'treasure' and 'a modern classic in alternative medicine' it has become the bible in its field for medical professionals and individual readers.

Personal Renewal (Harmony/iUniverse:2008) with a foreword by Dr. Bernard Jensen, guides readers, troubled with menopause, divorce, and other life changes, toward a path of healthy self-discovery. The book features a practical "Herbal Calender" to organize herb-use. Personal Renewal has been called "a treasure for the personal self." and "a love song for enlightened maturing."

Healthy Beauty (Wiley 2003; Backinprint and Kindle 2007; with a foreword by Clif deRaita)features easy to use beauty treatments for men and women. It offers help for complexion, hair, posture, voice, and inspires readers to discover their personal beauty. Reaching beyond the usual health or beauty book, it proves that our beauty should not be limited by convention: the social, ethnic, sexual, racial or other prejudices of the popular media.

Feed Your Tiger: The Asian Diet Secret to Permanent Weight Loss and Vibrant Health (2003; coming soon at iUniverse) is filled with delicious slimming international recipes, Asian SuperFoods, and easy, enjoyable ways to lose weight and keep it off. For example, Letha describes how she taught herself swimming for healthy weight management watching Esther Williams movies.

All of Letha's books are beautifully illustrated by Letha's mother, Letha Elizabeth Hadady, who lives in New Mexico and paints flowers.

Letha, raised in New Mexico, sang opera in Europe, and has a Masters in psychology from the University of Paris. She is nationally certified in acupuncture (NCCAOM) after studying at Tri-State Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, New York and the Institute of Acupuncture and Meridian in Shanghai.

MEDIA PRAISE FOR LETHA HADADY

"I can't thank you enough for sharing really useful, practical health information with us."--Montel Williams on Montel Across America

"I used to think I knew something about alternative medicine. When I read Asian Health Secrets I learned something new on every page."--Bill Thompson, AP Radio

"Hadady is an ambassador between curious Americans, trying to overcome their ignorance of alternative medicine, and Chinese herbalists, who are uneasy about opening their customs to the scrutiny of outsiders."--Newsday, L.A. Times syndicate

"The tall, slender herbalist found her calling after a life-threatening illness. . . Her encyclopedic knowledge of health and beauty is evident."--Daily News

"Letha unearths the wisdom of the ancients."--New York

"Letha has all natural ways to change your life. She looks so young!"--Barbara Walters,'The View'

"I am confident that Letha Hadady will bring the ancient knowledge of the great cultures of Asia to a larger public."--Tenzin Gyatso, H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama

"Letha Hadady is a blessing to those she touches. Her contribution is a treasure of knowledge for the personal self."--Dr. Bernard Jensen, doyen of the natural medicine movement

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love that Tiger! Beware the Crab!, February 3, 2007

By 

M. Foster "Tough Turk" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Feed Your Tiger: The Asian Diet Secret for Permanent Weight Loss and Vibrant Health (Hardcover)

It is an early winter morning and I am reading Letha Hadady's FEED YOUR TIGER: The Asian Diet Secret for Permanent Weight Loss and Vibrant Health. This is obviously a different sort of diet book, a venerable but new (for some Americans) approach to weightloss. The aim, says the jacket copy, is "a slim physique, potent energy and stamina, optimal health," I could use all of that! The author, by her photo, is also new as diet books go: a very attractive blonde with a knowing look. Frankly, I am tired of being told how to live, let alone eat, by homely guys waving pages of statistics--whose hand I wouldn't want to shake.

While TIGER's method of weightloss appears to be based on four animal types of Chinese martial arts--in combat, you not only assume a pose, you imagine yourself to be a tiger, dragon, bear, or soaring crane--the book is not all that Asian. The author is Hungarian, the endorsements come from a couple of French chefs, a Turkish researcher, and a French physician. Lessons learned from all those delicious cuisines permeate the book's style and approach to dieting. It is sophisticated in the best sense. As your appreciation of good foods increases, you will lose weight permanently. Taste more, eat less--the author, also the French, the Japanese and Thais have figured that out. As the author notes, "Good cooking enhances all areas of life."

Basically, the book instructs you on how to determine your energy type and then which foods are dangerous for you and which are beneficial. For example, bears are gregarious, have broad facial features, tend toward weight in the middle (a paunch), are at home in the kitchen and love sweets. I and my Russian ancestors plead guilty! The remedies offered by TIGER, in addition to carefully tailored diets, include the herbal and the homeopathic, all easy to obtain in health food stores, supermarkets and pharmacies, and online. Easy exercises and massage techniques are explained. I particularly like the Korean hand massage to tone circulation for the entire body. My computer keyboard is my, and maybe your, best pal and worst enemy.

Miss Hadady has realized--eureka!--that successful weightloss and health are about what you eat and enjoy your life long. Failed dieting is about those foods (carbs, red meat, sugar, salt, chocolate--is there anything left?) that you abstain from for a while, then go ahead and binge on. Back comes the weight and a loss of self-esteem. The author stresses that eating fat and being fat is essentially an addiction, and so is binge dieting. Her point is for the reader to lose weight as he/she gains energy and feels and looks better--once and for all. Gee, that might put the vast American weightloss industry out of business! But the TV pill pushers and hawkers of prepared meals needn't worry. There is a fifth animal type that will keep them in business forever--the crab.

The crab is a bottom feeder with a hefty bottom. He/she will eat garbage, feel bad about it, go on a fad diet and pinch anybody who comes in his/her way. The crab can't see very well, can't think straight, and is washed about by the tides (fads). The crab believes the whole ocean is made for itself and what it needs ought to just come floating by to be grabbed. The crab can make for a tasty cake but only after being declawed, pounded, and cooked. This is a type I like to stay away from.

In contrast, this TIGER of a book will feed your belly, heart, and soul. I buy and sell gold for a living. I like the golden tiger in the wild, and this book's golden author. Ignore the crab. Go for the gold!

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a GREAT BOOK!, February 6, 2007

By 

Craig A. Bulger (Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Feed Your Tiger: The Asian Diet Secret for Permanent Weight Loss and Vibrant Health (Hardcover)

This is the only lifestyle book I have found that treats food addictions, including emotional bingeing, as an opportunity for weight loss. Using the Feed Your Tiger baseline diet recommended for everyone, I lost weight because it simplifies eating without counting calories. Following the author's recommendations for teas, spices, and simple dishes I finally lost weight after years of trying. No diet ever lasted longer than a week because they were boring. This one is not.

I love the idea of being a dragon - instead of an overweight person!! Most weight loss books stress "don't" foods or push extreme foods. I have applied the Feed Your Tiger diet to my own Italian meals--a smaller portion of whole grain pasta, more salad, more hot spice, and lots of tea. Lots.

This book has recipes for cooks - not my thing-- and easily available supplements for non-cooks. My favorite new snack food is spicy popped corn. Now I also devour toasted seaweed. I even ordered a reishi mushroom extract. WOW - It gives my day a charge!! I feel great and after eating like a Dragon for a month my friends have asked me: What happened to you? This book deserves at least 10 stars.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars feed your library...with this book!, February 8, 2007

By 

Naisa Thaker "apsara214" (Jamaica, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Feed Your Tiger: The Asian Diet Secret for Permanent Weight Loss and Vibrant Health (Hardcover)

I gave this book as a gift to my sister who's been battling weight loss with "quick fixes" for the past 15 years. After her success with "Feed Your Tiger", I tried it myself. I was never overwieght or chubby really, but the book was excellent in unlocking my inner eating beast and helping me stay in control of my crazy cravings and urges to binge! Thanks to the recipes I can satisfy myself without the guilt. The recipes themselves are exotic and my boyfriend absolutely loves "my new cooking style". None of our family dinners are now complete without one of Letha's recipes. The trick is in confronting your wieght issues at the core issue and assessing what type of eater you are. After all, acknowledging your specific emotional or stress issues, for example, is half of the solution to managing your weight.