Customer Reviews

Mariel Hemingway's Healthy Living from the Inside Out: Every Woman's Guide to Real Beauty, Renewed Energy, and a Radiant Life

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I saw Mariel Hemingway a while back on a Rachael Ray show in which Rachael cooks with celebrities in their homes. I was impressed with Ms. Hemingway's healthy recipes on the show, so when I saw that this book was being released, I pre-ordered it from Amazon.

The book is truly a "lifestyle" book and not merely a diet and fitness regime. She divides the book into 4 categories - Food, Exercise, Silence and Home - and then details her prescription for healthy living in each of these categories based on her personal experience.

The book is based on the solid foundation of incorporating healthy routines in all aspects of your life, and promotes many of the same practices that so many other books out today promote, e.g., reducing sugar intake, walking, taking up yoga, etc. But Ms. Hemingway presents it in a truly unique way by integrating her own story with gorgeous photos, many self-examining questions, and brief "healthy living" summaries in each chapter. I found her chapters on the Home particularly interesting, as they incorporate the idea that your surroundings "profoundly influence your internal safe," and focus on cleaning out the clutter in your home and not just in your diet. The same can be said about the section on Silence, which goes in depth into the importance of reducing stress and finding balance in your life (and includes many suggestions for how to do so).

The book ends with a 30-day quickstart program including all 4 categories of "healthy living," which suggest such simple things as trying a new lunch or dinner recipe on a particular day (she includes recipes in the book, although I wish there were more and hope she eventually comes out with a cookbook) or walking and practicing yoga each twice per week.

Overall, this would be a lovely addition to anyone's library and provides a truly moderate and balanced perspective on what it means to live a happy and healthy life and how to go about doing so. Five stars.

I'll readily admit that I am a sucker for any kind of yoga/healthy lifestyle book. I always enjoy reading different perspectives - and then picking and choosing what I think works for me. When I saw this book on the shelf, I knew I had to have it. Little did I realize what a gem I had in my hands. Mariel Hemingway has put together an easy to use guide that gives the reader the ability to create a holistic and healthy life without tedious or complicated instructions. This is not just a 'diet and exercise' book either - Mariel gives insight into meditation, transforming your house and creating balance in your hectic life. This empowering book will give you ideas and encouragement to get rid of the toxic habits in your life and replace them with wholesome and healthy habits.

There are four fundamental topics that she covers: food (she gives details about her own struggles with trying to figure out what is healthy as well as what works for her body and encourages the reader to be more concscious about choices), exercise (Mariel is a devotee of yoga, a system that keeps you grounded, flexible and fit), silence (she advocates cutting down the 'noise' in our lives and slowing down to enjoy the journey), home (here she offers ideas on cutting the clutter and creating a sanctuary). This is a real program for real people. There is no mumbo jumbo, no calorie counting, no complicated feng shui - just a practical program that anyone can implement. The 30 day quick start program in the back of the book gives you day by day ways to make this program work for you easily. You will feel healthier and more at peace if you just give some of her tips a try!

I've always enjoyed watching Mariel Hemingway on the silver screen - she is and always has been a unique and intelligent beauty. With the recent Hollywood "trend" towards ultra-thin acresses and models, it is nice to have a role model such as Hemingway.

An amazing system, many books in one, integrated beautifully and accessibly. Here is an author who really really cares about the benefit of the reader. This is an amazing textbook which will become a favourite for many workshops and all readers who will pick it up. I even picked up some extra copies to give as gifts. Mariel Hemingway put all of her life into this work of art. I also like that I can pick it up for 5 minutes and learn something new very well which stays with me. The information is layed out accesibly and visually attractive with beautiful and inspiring pictures. There are very valuable yoga poses which, as a beginner I learned in minutes. The information is very rich, well researched yet very easy to understand and remember. It is not dry -as most textbooks are- it is engaging and personal, it is fun. For a busy mom of two little kids this is a life revolutionizing system. A very valuable tool. Thanks to authors who really want to put out gems for their readers. We can really trust this one. I would give it 10 stars and I hope they make a DVD out of it.

I have always liked Mariel Hemingway...as an actor and person. I read her first book "Finding my Balance" and enjoyed her honesty and subsequent growth immensely so when I saw this book...I jumped at the chance to buy it.

I didn't realize what a profound effect it would have on me. I enjoyed all the chapters on food, exercise, silence and home but what really resonated with me was the emphasis on being kinder and gentler to ourselves.

Today I didn't feel up to doing much. I had a very busy week job-hunting and was up really late last night. So I had a very laid-back day...part of which was spent reading her chapter on the home and realizing with pleasure that my bedroom is my haven and that I have it set up perfectly for me. But more importantly...there was no guilt that I didn't do the laundry or work out for an hour or call friends because I didn't have a date and would be alone on a Saturday night.

And yet it was still a very "mindful" day. The cats were curled up on my bed...it was comfy and cozy...the laundry can wait until tomorrow and I know I have already put in five hours of working out this week so only doing 15 minutes today wasn't going to set me back.

So thank you Mariel...for taking away the guilt that I have to constantly be in motion in order to be living a "productive" life. Today was productive because I re-charged my batteries and didn't berate myself.

This book is one that I will come back to time and time again...for a recipe or a Yoga posture...but mostly because I like the idea of being as nice to myself as I try to be to everyone else.

A unique and lush book with a wonderful perspective. This is a woman who obviously walks the talk and it is a pleasure to read.

*****
What a perfect manual for healthy living, a comprehensive guide for re-inventing your ofe around four priorities: food, exercise (especially yoga, which is emphasized), silence, and home (as in a healthy and nourishing home environment)! This is a beautiful (buy the book rather than the CD) and intelligent book.

I have quite a library of fitness and healthy living books, and this really is a gem. It integrates the confusing nutritional information available today into sound principles that can be individualized to your lifestyle. It covers exercise in general, but focuses on yoga, and on being out in nature. It discusses silence, not just in your home environment, but as in eliminating "noisy foods" and other aspects of your life that are overstimulating. And lastly, it discusses your home environment, and how you can improve it whether or not you have a lot of space or a lot of money.

I read it once, highlighting and underlining it, and now am reading it a second time, deciding what I want to implement. Mariel Hemingway includes a 30-Day Quickstart Program at the back of the book, but it is also great to use as I do, to pick and choose which principles fit my lifestyle right now.

If you are looking for an all-in-one healthy lifestyle book, and truly want to change your life, as the subtitle says, "from the inside out", this is the book for you---look no further!

278 beautiful pages, highly recommended.
*****

This book is pleasing to read and the advice is friendly and easy to put into practice. Most self-help books just perpetuate the need because you end up feeling inadequate to the tasks after a month, a week, a day-- an hour! Not so in this case. The recipes are worth the cover price and the living suggestions are divided into manageable bites. I feel successful and confident that my new sane and peaceful approach to livng will last. I especially liked the home chapter. Everybody should get their cows in order!

It was the anniversery of my beloved dog Rainy's death, and I have a tendency to dwell on the melancholy. I had seen Ms Hemingway on a local news show and she was so sincere and "Ernest" in explaining her lifestyle, I impulsively bought the book. It arrived Friday and I read it from cover to cover this weekend.

This book was like a lifeline to me in my vulnerable state. It was beautifully written, compelling and gently persuasive. I wish all goverment officials could read it and implement her practices. The world might just calm down a bit.

Reading this book was like reading poetry, if one reads it quietly and not rush through, you might feel as if you've already attained that meditative state. It's amazing how enriching and fulfilling the living room feels right now with the TV, computer, and phone ringer turned to off. And hot water with lemon sounds weird but tastes great!

As for me, this book provided me with great tools for soul-searching and having searched, I feel strong enough to visit the animal shelter this week--there are so many who are anxious for life, and all that love and loyalty going to waste is tragic. My new dog's name? Perhaps MURIEL!

I purchased this book because of all the good reviews it got and I'm glad I did. Although I wouldn't follow all of Hemingway's advice on food (she doesn't eat grains and dairy, which I find to be a bit drastic), some of her tips for eating healthy are useful. For example, the book really opened my eyes on just how much sugar we eat everyday, even when we try to avoid it. I was surprised to find out that food items such as fat-free milk have 13 grams of sugar per serving! Apple sauce which used to be my favorite light dessert has about 25 grams of sugar per serving. Also, what's the point of eating fat free yoghurt when it has as much as 27 grams of sugar per serving? How can that be healthy?
In terms of other parts of the book, I found the part that offers yoga exercise very useful. Hemingway doesn't overdo it with impossibly difficult postures. The part that talks about the clutter-free and comfortable home is nice too. All in all this book is good, with down to earth advice and some interesting personal experience that Hemingway has no problem sharing with the reader. The best part about it is that you can take parts of her book that you like and make little changes in your life. It's not like you have to do it all or nothing. The way I see it, if the book helped me make one smart lifestyle change regarding my sugar intake, it was definitely worth buying.

This book was given to me when I visited the USA, and I feel like ditching all the `miracle' diet and self-help books I've ever bought: this book is immediately appealing, making it clear that I myself can make changes in the important aspects of life that influence how I feel. The 30-day program actually looks do-able without the DON'T's and NEVER's you usually find in this kind of book. I like the idea that success will be gained by my own decisions. With all that I read and hear about yoga, healthy nutrition and environmental issues, it sometimes all seems rather overwhelming to someone of my age (I'm a grandmother!) but Mariel Hemingway's book suggests simple ways to introduce elements of all these things gradually into one's life (even I can handle three minutes' meditation), and this program isn't just for women - I have many friends, male and female, who could benefit, and who knows, maybe we'll all be yoga experts this time next year.

I feel that this book while written by a "personality" is not one written with airs. It is written with strength and facts throughout. Mariel Hemingway is not puttin on an sir of superiority for the readers. It is written as someone who has gone through quite a lot in her life with her family and wanting to make sure she leads the best life for her and the daughters she shares with her husband. She states that not everything will work for all but it is worth giving something a try.
I thin I will be giving this book out as a gift in the futre.