Being that I suffer from what I like to call "Dieting Anxiety" in addition to the fact that I am too busy to read an entire book in any given amount of sittings, not to mention I despise the maintenance involved in healthy cooking probably due to a combination of the two previously mentioned facts, I feel I am a great individual to write a review of this entertaining read!!
I am a 41 year old single, full-time working mother of three active children/young adults, who is training for the Boston Marathon on snow covered roads. I have not the time nor desire to ever go on a diet because let's face I like to have fun and in my opinion diets are not fun!! I was attracted to the Party Girl Diet because of the diet's name and the cover...which is a true representation of what is inside, a "Katy Perry" like version on ways of living the good life and looking good while doing it!!
I am at a point in my life where I need to make a concerted effort to eat healthier to maintain an energy level and healthy mind/body for my physical and emotional life demands. Upon reading the introduction of the Party Girl Diet I was relieved to discover that I did NOT experience the instant anxiety that so often plagues me when I read any literature pertaining to guidelines on healty eating, and exercise! The words "PGD's 9 PRICELESS Keys to Good Living" caught my attention. As I immediately flipped ahead to read these "9 KEYS" - a light went off and I realized AprilAnne Hurley hit the nail on the head for me in that it is not just about diet and exercise, there is more, laughter, sleep, and stress management to name a few. Her wording and talent for organizing an abundance of valuable information is presented in a nonthreatening understandable manner that makes for an enjoyable book.
The survival tips throughout could almost be defined as "cliff notes" for the busy reader! The Party Girl Diet not only became a self-help book for me on so many different levels, it is an information bank of healthy "lifestyle" tips, recipes, scientific formulas for fitness, nutrition and fun!! The 2 weeks of high quality recipes which include a lot of the foods I like, are the answer to my time constraint issues when it comes to shopping for, preparing, and serving nutritious meals to my family.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who can relate to the the fact that when it comes to healthy eating and exercise, (to quote Aprilanne Hurley in Chapter 4) one must "realize that there is no such thing as a 'one-size fits all' diet - period." Bravo, well said by the author and well read by the reader being myself, a mother, a professional, a marathoner, and a "party girl" at heart !!!
