Customer Reviews

The Food-Mood Solution: All-Natural Ways to Banish Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Stress, Overeating, and Alcohol and Drug Problems--and Feel Good Again

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jack Challem seems to have written this book just for me. I was so tired of seeing doctors who merely prescribed multi-bad-effects medications and who each told me a different cause of my problems. I had to became very proactive to save my own health.

I was always exhausted, in body and spirit. I felt like I was in a constant brain fog, getting early Alzheimer's! I awakened more tired than when I went to bed, longing to take naps, no needing them. I have had fibromyalgia for 15 years and am taking medications for this, taking two medications which help tremendously but cause side effects. I have hypertension, am an adult with ADD. Like most people I am stressed, anxious, impatient, lack focus, taking care of an elderly parent......sound familiar? But I am an early retired teacher who loved her job and should be more relaxed and healthy. I want and need my active life-style back. I'm not "that old"!!

Well, I was literally sick from taking meds, so I picked up Mr. Challem's book just by chance and found I COULD help myself, was doing so many wrong nutritional things, made some of his easy, suggested changes and, to my disbelief, found great relief within two weeks! I have always taken supplements and watched my health - so I thought - but still felt bad most of the time. And only the suggestions made in this book have helped me feel so much better. This author makes sense.

In the easiest reading and well organized presentation, Mr. Challem specifically presents HOW food affects mood and four steps to change. He discusses real, every day problems: how to realistically reduce our levels of stress and anxiety, how to handle our irritability, how to have more energy. And his suggestions, fully explained so even I would understand them, worked!

He goes on to take us step by step through a "recovery" process in which we can "fix" ourselves - armed with nutritional understanding and easy to do changes in our diet and life style. And best of all Mr. Challem clearly points out the specific connections between foods and moods and gives the reader things to DO and things to avoid....along with some of the best recipes I have ever tried.

While all his information is data based, I could easily understand the author and put his connections and suggestions to use immediately. And they have made a wonderfully positive change in my health, my entire life.

And he sells no supplements!

This book is a perfect gift for any friend or family member (underlining and notes will have you hold on to your own copy!) who has hypertension, fibromyalgia, ADD, exhaustion, depression, who is overweight or those irritating characteristics of impatience, irritsbility, stress, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, forgetfulness ---- characteristics we certainly notice in THEM but seldom admit about ourselves!

Buy this book for your own health and sanity --- and some to give as gifts to those you care about. These ideas make sense and work.

Full disclosure here: I'm a holistic doctor, so I'm biased towards natural interventions for mood disorders, and this is stuff that I talk to patients about on an almost daily basis. But I've seldom seen natural therapies for psychological conditions presented in such a balanced, clear, scientific fashion.

I sometimes blanch at the outlandish claims made by some health books that deal with mental conditions. I think they cruelly mislead patients to believe that there's a vitamin or a supplement for every psychiatric complaint. Reinforcing denial is not good for patients at risk to themselves and others. But Jack Challem is versed in the latest science, and never strays far from the evidence in making his case for natural approaches.

There's clearly a place for drugs in the treatment of mental disorders, but I wish books like this got wider circulation because we could relieve untold suffering with a few basic suggestions herein. Studies have actually shown that good self-help books cure sufferers of mild to moderate depression at a rate comparable to that of Zoloft, Paxil and other commonly used drugs. They've even coined a term for it: "Bibliotherapy"!

So take this book and call your shrink in the morning--it may really not be so far-fetched! I think I'll start stocking it in my dispensary to give to my patients.

Ronald L. Hoffman, MD, New York City

The old adage, "you are what you eat" is not anywhere more true than for our mental state and well being. In easily understandable terms, Jack Challem meticulously lays out the underlying biochemistry that links diet to mood. This book is a must read for anyone who suspects that certain foods such as dairy, wheat, refined sugars, refined vegetable oils and/or other staples of the western diet may be at the root cause of chronic mood alterations.

Loren Cordain, Ph.D. Author of The Paleodiet; The Palediet for Athletes; and The Dietary Cure for Acne [...]

I really looked forward to reading this book after I read the introduction. The first part of the book, discussing neurotransmitters and nutritional impacts on them, was very interesting and compelling (though sometimes lacking in citation). Unfortunately, the rest of the book went from bad to worse.

The "4-steps" of Challem's book are basically: eat right, exercise, de-stress, and supplement. I thought he would go into detail about the four steps, but really that's all you get. The recipes in the second portion of the book are some of the most basic foods imaginable (like scrambled eggs) and are all centered around meat, meat, and more meat (saying nothing about the fact that the modern diet is oversaturated with meat products and the ill-effects saturated fats from even chicken and fish have on health). His exercise and de-stressing tips are a banal regurgitation of a pamphlet you'd find in a doctor's offic.

The last half of the book was the biggest disappointment. He talks about specific "guidelines" for treating various mental health issues, but all he does is reiterate the plithy suggestions from the first half of the book. The level of his discussion of various mental health issues is elementary at best, and if you have any knowledge of the subject you will be flipping through pages looking for something significant only to find the end of the book.

Sadly disappointed.

This is one of the most informative books regarding food and mood and how they are intertwined. There is also an extensive section on supplements and how some of them can be used to treated illnesses such as depression, anxiety, OCD, etc. I recommend this book to anyone suffering from a mental illness and would like more insight or health professionals out there that would like more information.

Our behavior is greatly affected by how we feel. How we feel is greatly affected by what we eat. Feeling good leads to being healthier and happier. Jack Challem clearly explains ways to improve our moods with the right eating habits. The "Food-Mood Solution" is well written, easy to understand and apply. The book is broken down into three sections... each building on the one before. They are: "The Food-Mood Connection", How to Improve Your Moods" and "Improving your Specific Mood and Behavior Concerns". Great Job!

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Controlling moods with food is nothing new for me. The trouble was I went to the wrong foods for a quick fix that had a negative effect on my health, weight and moods. Jack Challem's book is full of stories I can relate to and it is worth the price for his recipes alone. They are terrific!

This is the first book I've read in a long time with advice that's easy to apply to real life. Although people need medication at times, I like his drug free approach to healing mood disorders. His works have helped me live healthier and gain insights for my blog at [...].

Are you tired of medical solutions that are anything but? Then, you're likely to benefit from _The Food-Mood Solution_ natural approach.

Based on a four-pronged strategy of taking supplements, eating mood-enhancing foods, upping physical activity level, and changing life habits, the approach outlines a holistic solution for improving well-being. Even if you just incorporate some of the book's key suggestions--such as taking a high potency vitamin B complex, increasing protein/healthy fat/non-starchy fruit and vegetable intake while decreasing processed/highly sugared foods, exercising in ways that make you happy, and creating and maintaining healthy boundaries in your life--you're likely to notice huge mood improvements.

_The Food-Mood Solution offers both general suggestions for achieving optimal psychological health, as well as specific suggestions for individual mood issues--including irritability, aggression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, overeating, pre-diabetes, sleeping problems, and drug abuse. Packed with information, and the tools to effectively incorporate this information, _The Food-Mood Solution_ truly lives up to its name.

A concise, insightful, easy to understand read that can liberate the average person from the downside of the average American diet. Look around and see how right Mr Challem is, then test his theories in your own life. It's a relief to see what great, quick results you can get when you try his solutions.