Customer Reviews

Fight Fat After Forty: The Revolutionary Three-Pronged Approach That Will Break Your Stress-Fat Cycle and Make You Healthy, Fit, and Trim for Life

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4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
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1 star:		(10)

 

 

While the book may be aimed at women and uses case histories from a number of Dr. Peeke's women patients, the larger lesson is about fat and stress and that is not just a woman's issue. I'm a marathoner, running seven races in the last 15 years. I slowed down my training and stopped competing in races when work and travel took up more and more time. That drop in exercise, along with natural aging and a slowing metabolism made me a prime candidate for the "toxic weight" that Dr. Peeke talks about. I know I'm at higher risk for heart disease and diabetes and her book has been a wake up call for me to get back into exercise and put into effect the good lessons she writes about. I'm paying attention to my "carb clock" and watching what I eat after 5 pm. I'm finding ways to fit exercise back into my life and that includes trips to a gym for planned strength workouts with a trainer, a direct result of her lesson on "make time for yourself." I recommend that men don't let the case studies about women get in the way of the good information in this book.

To sum up this review- just go buy this book! If you found this book as part of a frantic search for another "diet miracle"...you may have just found it- only in a very different form! For me, the diet books and plans were part of my desperate search for the answers as to how I could manipulate the food, move my body and suddenly (and quickly) escape this burden of fat and unhealthiness.

I instinctively knew as I committed to each diet, exercised until I dropped and obsessed about food, something was very wrong with this entire drama. Was I just born with defective will-power? Was my metabolism so slow that a cookie meant no jeans for a week? I just could not find a medically sound explanation as what in the world was going on and why I kept failing. Being smart, well-educated and tenacious wasn't enough. Having tried so many plans and having purchased an entire library of books... nothing had changed and I was still lost as to how to fix it. The "fat experts" and medical community had let me down and I had no idea what to believe. Every Monday morning I would pledge a new insane plan of attack!

"Fight Fat After Forty" IS the answer to this dieting insanity and could be anyone's escape from "dieter's hell". Dr. Pamela Peeke has tackled this dilemma from a scientific- "let's figure this mess out" approach. She actually used "women" in her studies and has based all of her findings on what she and her associates discovered regarding the vicious cycle and patterns of weight management. You will learn exactly what is really happening to you and why the "dieting game" is so destructive and unproductive! This book is really for any woman or man interested in a healthy lifestyle regardless of age.

For me, this book explains so thoroughly and accurately the "whys and hows" of my body and why I was compelled to participate in the crazy rituals around food and exercise.(It is so liberating to finally get it!) Dr. Peeke refuses to merely reproduce a diet plan and exercise sheet. The food alone was never really the problem. There is no magic food plan or exercise regime. It is simply a balancing act dealing with real food, specific exercise, hormonal balance and stress management coupled with positive thinking that makes up a solution that actually works.

The subtle key to this book lies in how it teaches you the paths to changing one's thinking, eating, body movements as well as how to recognize and CHANGE how one deals with STRESS. Dr. Peeke guides you through the science as well as each part of the plan helping you design a new "lifestyle" that will meet your needs. Your finished plan will be a practical one that you can adhere to indefintely and will stay realistic far into the future. NO MORE FADS!

Through these chapters, you will learn so much about yourself. How many of the past "diet books" cared about your specific needs or explained the science behind their plans? Some common questions Dr. Peeke addresses include- why am I so tired all of the time? Why can't I stop eating after a meal? Why does food calm me down or keep me going? Dr. Peeke explains, for example, the complicated link between your chronically stressful day and that empty gaze into the fridge as one begins another evening "feeding frenzy". IS ANY OF THIS SOUNDING FAMILIAR?

The book goes into great depth regarding these links between stress, hormone changes and how we (especially women) cope with life's stressors. Can one really expect to be healthy, well fed and nurtured when many of us have put ourselves last on our priority list? We all need some sense of reward in our lives of a job "well done". For many of us that reward is food.

I caution you not to skip through the book and find the "diet plan and exercise regime". This is a packaged deal and without the UNDERSTANDING as to what is going on- this will become another diet book treating the symptoms without a diagnosis or solution. In fact, you will stay as stuck as before with no clue as to how to gain back your health and sanity permanently.

I sincerely thank Dr. Peeke for ending my "dieting nightmare" where I have been stuck for a very long time. I have already lost weight, have more energy, but most important, I have lost that insane panic driving me to decide what am I going to do next. I don't wake up every morning promising this time to stay on a new plan...for I now have one that works for me. Isn't that what we were all looking for?

It took me years of failed dieting and finally two years of therapy to discover that the root of my weight trouble was caused by low self-esteem which led to excessive spending. I wish I had read this book years ago along with the other book mentioned, "SIMPLE MONEY SOLUTIONS," by Nancy Lloyd. Each book has shown me unique ways to control the "excesses" in my life and slim down my debt and my waistline. My blood pressure has also dropped (without the use of medication) because I no longer feel stressed all the time and I am finally HAPPY!

As a certified personal trainer specializing in women's health and lifestyle managment, I have found Dr. Peeke's book to be an invaluable resource. The information about the link between stress and weight and the three-part approach for leading a healthy lifestyle has been useful and applicable to all of my clients, not just those in the forty-and-over age catagory. I have recommended this book to several of my clients, co-workers and friends who have also found it to be extremely helpful in their efforts to develop more centered and healthy lifestyles.

In the first section, Peeke presents historical and scientific information about stress and its physiological impact on the human body in a manner that is interesting and easily understandable. Her humorous and sensitive approach and her use of real-life examples allow us to feel we are not alone in our stuggles with stress and weight managment. Furthermore, Peeke teaches us how to identify our personal stress profile, recognizing that, as individual human beings, a standard cookie-cutter approach does not work.

I was most impressed by the section of the book where Peeke talks about regrouping. Unlike other books I have read about fitness, weight loss and lifestyle management, FFAF includes a "back-up plan" for what to do when life throws a curve ball. Peeke recognizes that we WILL make mistakes along the way and fall of track. She explains that it is okay not to be perfect and we need to accept and embrace our imperfect selves.

Peek goes on to provide reasonable and manageable approaches to changing eating patterns and habits. Once again, her real-life examples help make this information more understandable and applicable to us as readers. As a personal trainer, I am appalled by how much misinformation there is about nutrition among my clients and even my colleagues. It is refreshing to see that FFAF includes accurate and appropriate guidelines for nutrition. I found the information on portion sizes and how to navigate the "Cortizone" to be particularly useful in addressing my clients' nutritional issues.

I applaud Peek for the chapter on weight lifting and exercise. Too often women who are forty and over are afraid to lift weights and don't realize the benefits of strength training. Peeke explains how weight lifting is important for increasing metabolic rate and preventing osteoporosis. I was also glad to see Peeke included information on flexibility training. Stretching is so important, particularly for injury prevention, and it is often left out of exercise regimens.

FFAF presents profound insight about the roots of our stress and how it is linked to eating and weight gain. It provides a "game plan" for dealing with stress and eating when the going gets tough and teaches us to be gentle with ourselves and accept that we are not perfect. I would highly recommend Peeke's book to any woman who is seeking an effective and reasonable approach to changing her life to make it more healthy and manageable.

I would bet there are tons of women like me who have gained weight eating the way I did, not much food during the day and compulsive cravings at night. Duh, why didn't I figure this out. I'm smart. Heck, I've purchased and read every diet book out there. Dr. Peeke's book and approach to eating works and it works effortlessly without crazy diets. I've lost over 20 lbs in 2 months without dieting. I merely changed my eating schedule to get most of my calories in before 5pm, no starches after 5pm and no food after 8pm. I even cheat at night a bit by having a piece of fruit or an ice cream bar occasionally. The big surprise - I'm not hungry at night - no cravings. Why? Because I'm eating properly and often during the day, starting with breakfast. Like most people, I'm not always hungry in the morning, but I make it a point to eat a good balance of protein, fat and carbs every 3 hrs from breakfast on until 5pm and I feel wonderful, no hunger, no wild cravings. Normal eating, normal living, no dieting, no binges. This is so easy, so liveable and the weight is dropping steadily.

Buy this book, follow the advice and you will lose weight while eating well. Such a simple change, but what a difference. I can't imagine not eating like this now. It's so nice to feel satisfied and not experience the compulsive night cravings any longer. This is a lifestyle strategy I can live with forever; only wish I had bought her book sooner.

Fight Fat After Forty, brings such understanding to so many questions I've had and some of the stories parallel my own situation. It's very interesting how the studies have come about to help find solutions to this "constant weight battle" and stress. Finally, so many things I've pondered are being confirmed. As a single parent I have been operating under extreme stress for several years. Though I've fought the yo-yo weight all my life, I am now 45 and I just don't have the strength to do it again. However, because my children as well as myself worry about a heart attack or other ailment I am establishing healthy practices for the rest of my life. I just recently purchased a treadmill and am eating different. But something I couldn't understand was why I kept so much weight around my waist! I use to lose all over fairly evenly and always had a waist. It's been very discouraging to work so hard with the results taking four times as long as it used to! There are so many "programs" out there and it wearies me to feel I am so far behind. I've always been the "show me" kind and this really makes sense! I thank the Lord for giving understanding, reminding me I am not alone and Pamela Peeke for bringing "Us" hope.

We diet, lose weight and gain it all back again. Why? Like so many people my weight issues weren't totally about overeating. They were intertwined with issues about self-esteem and, of all things, money. It took me years to realize this but once I did I was finally able to lose the weight and keep it off. I found a combination of three books that helped me put an end to my self-defeating habits: "FIGHT FAT" has helped me with my final weight issues.

"NECESSARY JOURNEYS," by Dr. Nancy Snyderman helped me finally resolve my leftover anger and feelings of failure following my divorce.

"SIMPLE MONEY SOLUTIONS," by Nancy Lloyd helped me finally end my overspending and love-hate relationship with credit cards. My debts are now under control, I feel like a weight has been lifted and I'm almost down to my college weight. These three books have changed my life like nothing I've ever tried before. They could work for you too. You have nothing to lose but those unwanted pounds.

Dr. Peeke is an M.D. specializing in nutrition, stress andintegrative medicine who has worked at the National Institutes ofHealth and is currently Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Sadly, in spite of her impressive credentials, virtually none of the information presented in this book is new, though she does a decent job spelling out two commonly known, scientific contentions: (1) It is pointless to diet by briefly changing your eating habits, losing a few pounds, then immediately returning to your old ways. You will regain what you lost, and the new weight will be higher in fat due to losing muscle mass on the diet. (2) To lose weight, you need to exercise and stop overeating sugary and starchy carbs.

After she reiterated all this, I was ready for her to jump into the "revolutionary" insights her book subtitle promised me. I figured it might be something about metabolism, since Dr. Peeke made a big point of discussing (more commonly known information) that one's metabolism slows 5% every decade from age 20 on. But there was nothing about raising metabolism, and, ironically, the doctor didn't notice that most of her clients, as described in this book, are, in fact, a metabolic miracle. These women are sedentary and routinely consume 3500 calories a day, heavy on the sugary and starchy carbs. This means they have been eating at least 1500-1700 calories daily above what they need to maintain normal weight, yet, somehow, they are only 40-80 pounds overweight! But rather than the doctor congratulating these lucky women on their metabolic good fortune, she tells them to reduce to only 1300 calories a day by giving up virtually all their sugar and starch and stick to the standard 6th-grade-health-class diet of 15-20% protein, 25-30% fat, and 55% of "high-quality" carbohydrates (e.g., fruits and fruit juices, vegetables that are not starchy, oatmeal, yogurt). The doctor, of course, fails to warn these poor women that after even a couple of weeks at this low level of calories, they are practically guaranteed to bring their present, high metabolism to a sluggish halt. And once they fall off Dr. Peeke's boring diet, as they are perhaps 90% likely to do, and go back to eating the 3500 calories a day they were previously enjoying, they will find themselves in the same unenviable position as the rest of us poor mortals--putting on several pounds a week from an extensive amount of overeating.

As I read on, I continued to look for something new and helpful in this book, but all I noticed was the sad lack of a number of things that might have been useful, had they been included: (1) There is no mention of a personalized diet plan utilizing such elements as height, weight, current muscle mass, age, and level of physical activity. Instead, the doctor offers a simplistic, standardized pyramid which illustrates how one will put on weight eating a diet high in sugary and starchy carbs (particularly those consumed after 5pm) juxtaposed with a pyramid meagerly occupied by her suggested 1300 calories. (2) The author barely touches on the feminist issues involved in women and obesity, other than stating obliquely that women over 40 shouldn't lose weight for beauty reasons but to increase longevity. And even though she presents a stream of clients who are over-worked, under-appreciated, professional, working mothers--Baby Boomers stuck on the deadly treadmill of "you can have it all"--she never offers them any advice for abandoning the myth that is responsible for the lioness' share of the stress the doctor herself says is killing them. (3) While the author admits to a reality that every advertising agency working for a junk-food company revels in, that the eating choices of the average American are almost entirely whim-driven, she adds nothing new to the topic of compulsive eating. (4) As for the link between stress and overeating, a strongly psychological issue which is the professed main hook of this book and the sole source of the author's claim to "revolutionary" originality in the arena of nutrition, the author merely mentions lightly that in order to counteract the negative effects of chronic stress, including stress-stimulated binge eating, what is needed is "frequent nurturing." Here is her prescription for menopausal women to nurture themselves: (a) Make sure you have both a plan A and a backup plan B as to how you are going to eat 1/3 of the calories you used to eat from now on and limit the sugary treats, the mainstay of your current attempts to lower your stress levels, from a previous 28 or more servings a week to only two. (b) As a busy, professional woman, your eating is the one area in your life you have not carefully planned. If you will just plan that, too--voila!--your stress will go away and that nasty treat-eating habit of yours it stimulates will go away, too...

To sum up: for those who already eat wisely and exercise regularly, Dr. Peeke is "preaching to the choir." For those who don't, I do not believe this book has what it takes to motivate them to change. In addition, women who are addicted to carbs (defined as not being able to stop yourself from regularly bingeing on sugary carbs), would be better off, if they aren't ready yet to give up food-bingeing, trying something like either the "carbohydrate addicts' diet" (controlled bingeing limited to one hour a day) or Dr. Atkins high-protein diet (bingeing on protein rather than carbs). If, on the other hand, a carb addict is truly, deeply ready to come out of addiction, it would be a good idea to seek out, instead of this book, one of the many excellent books addressing addictive eating. Such books will not tell her, as this book does, to use "planning" (another word for willpower) to overcome eating addiction.

No one ever talks about this but weight gain and growing debt often go hand in hand. Looking back I see that I started putting on weight shortly after I started putting on debt. Both problems got worse when I turned 40. Several months ago I bought a book that helped me take charge of my finances and pay off my debt.

"SIMPLE MONEY SOLUTIONS: 10 Ways You Can Stop Feeling Overwhelmed By Money and Start Making It Work For You," by Nancy Lloyd has shown me the way to solve my cash-flow problems. With my money problems under control I was finally able to start losing weight. "Fight Fat After 40" is helping me shed those last few pounds. Great book duo.

Tonight Dr. Peeke was on the news, telling about how stress can make you fat. The premise of the books is that our bodies don't know the difference between "fight or flight" (the kind of stress built into our bodies when God created us in order to hang onto needed calories during a crisis situation)and normal everyday stress which we all have.

Dr. Peeke said that Stress Eating causes Toxic Weight - I think most of us know that, even if we don't use those terms. She does use research to back up her ideas. She talks of the "cortizone" - the hours between 3pm and midnight when most stress eating happens. Most people simply don't "stress eat" first thing in the morning she says.

She says that our goal should be stress resiliance. And if we want cookies, we should eat 1-2 "real" cookies rather than half a box of the fat-free variety. An excellent point!! We have to watch calorie intake, not just fat grams!

Like any good eating plan, the emphasis is on eating high nutrition foods. She also mentions "glycemic index" made popular by Dr. Weil in another book. Which boils down to - some foods stick with you better than others. An apple will keep you satisfied longer than a handful of grapes, though both are good foods. A bowl of oatmeal will hold you over til lunch better than a bowl of Frosted Flakes.

Dr. Peeke spends a large part of the book talking about exercise and she recommends Dr. Cooper's Institute.

"Treading weight" is an interesting concept that's discussed in the book. When stress hits, control your eating enough to maintain, but don't expect to lose during that time. I think that's very sensible - so many of us fall off the proverbial wagon when we've had 1 day of poor eating choices and figure that all is lost.

Dr. Peeke recommends eating 65% of one's daily calories before 5pm. While this probably makes good sense from a scientific point of view, I think many will find that hard to do when most families eat their "big meal" together at 6pm or later. I do think that cutting back on late-evening snacking can't do anything but help!

I don't believe that any one book or program has the complete picture of this complicated issue. As for myself, I picked up a couple tips from "Fighting Fat", but I've also joined Weight Watchers, and I'm reading other books such as "Volumetrics" and "20/30 Fat and Fiber Diet", both of which I'm finding fascinating and helpful.

One last thing - I agree with one of the other reviewers that the author's creation of the word "menopot" to the describe shapely tummies that some of us mature women have, will be slightly offensive to some. Some of us, for a variety of reasons such as multiple abdominal surgeries, multiple pregnancies, medical problems, etc, will never have flat stomachs and I believe that God did not mean for all women be built alike. Of course we should all strive for inproved health and fitness, but that could well be different for each woman.

Enjoy reading this book. You can take away some helpful ideas from this book. Just don't make it the only book you read on healthier eating!