It Starts with Food should be required reading.
Calorie counts on fast food and restaurant menus should be ditched and replaced with a one-page synopsis of the most important takeaways from It Starts with Food. I guarantee you many of us would, in turn, ditch our plans for the double cheeseburger with fries and special sauce. Because we would understand EXACTLY the havoc those food combos wreak on our bodies, and our quality of life - no matter how tasty they are going down.
It Starts with Food is, literally and figuratively, an eye-opening and ESSENTIAL gut check on what sort of eaters we have become as a whole - especially in North America.
If you are a yo-yo dieter wanting to understand why you crave sugar so often, read it.
If you are a weekend warrior trying to better understand how best to eat to perform, read it.
If you feel like you are all too often battling stomach `issues' and can't figure out why, read it.
If you avoid eating fat yet still can't drop those last 10 pounds, read it to learn why you're undermining your health and your lean-physique goals.
And if you want to chuckle after one sentence only to feel your jaw drop in amazement and wonder after another, read It Starts with Food.
This book by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig is right up there with Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma in terms of how it can improve our emotional relationship with food, and our understanding of food's true impact and interaction with every aspect of our health and performance. Sure, all we have to do is look around at any mall, airport or sporting event to see that far too many people have become what they eat: tired-looking, bloated, Franken-food-eating fast food-craving zombies. That isn't nice, I know. But it's true. We are what we eat, and many of us are crap. We feel like crap. We look like crap.
But even many of us who think we're eating healthy - whole wheat bagels, soy burgers, couscous, peanut butter, etc. - feel less than great and wonder why. It Starts with Food explains the science of why, in a way that would make sense even to a third-grader. More importantly, the authors offer a solution. Not a gimmick. Not a fix-in-a-pill or a "meal shake." A real, simple solution: eat from their list of recommended whole foods for 30 days and feel how your body responds. They call it the Whole30.
For 30 days, no "fiber bars," no frozen meals. No "food-like" products. Instead, go for animal proteins, fish, eggs, seasonal vegetables, fruits, healthy unprocessed fats like coconut and avocado, plus cashews and certain other nuts.
These are the foods they recommend based on research showing that all the other stuff - including whole grains and dairy - can seriously hurt our insides and inner workings by causing overall inflammation, hormone imbalances, sugar spikes and crashes, and worse.
The book is peppered with testimonials from Whole30 participants who found that in following the plan, their chronic ailments -- achy joints, high cholesterol, hypoglycemia, headaches, diabetes, skin conditions, low energy levels -- took care of themselves the way our ancient DNA intended.
"I completed my first Whole30 in March 2010. Through the process, the intestinal pain, gas, and bloating (of Crohn's disease) completely went away - and did not return....because now I understand its root cause." -- Sarah G., Fort Collins, Colorado
"The Whole30 has set me free of so many things. Now I can look at my plate ...and know when enough is enough. I have, for the first time in my life, learned to listen to my body. ...I am sleeping better. I am feeling better. ...My skin looks better. I have lost weight, and my clothes fit better." Laura C. Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, Ireland
The Hartwigs -- both trainers and certified sports nutritionists -- are a blend of drill-sergeant-tough, realism, humor and practicality. They aren't afraid to call B.S. on our lame excuses - noting, for example, that unless you face plant into the box of donuts at work, you don't HAVE to eat them. You CHOSE to eat them.
The idea of the Whole30 isn't that we eat so strictly forever. It isn't a low-carb fad diet or anything close to that. Rather, it is a way to clean the slate, so to speak, in our bodies. To eliminate the crap and irritating foods so that we can understand how our bodies perform with the GOOD food - and what happens when we slowly reintroduce things like dairy and grains back in.
They write: "Remember, the Whole30 is just a springboard into a lifetime of healthy eating habits. We don't expect (or want) you to stay on the program forever, or eat according to our rules all the time! Think of the Whole30 as a tool, allowing you to build new, sustainable habits that will be with you for the rest of your life."
It Starts with Food is methodical, walking us through every step and even providing adaptations for people who are pregnant, diabetic, athletes in need of extra calories and certain carbs. The book even provides recipes and shopping lists.
If you want better health in 2013, and if you read only one book in 2013, it should be It Starts with Food. BadassFitness.com
It Starts with Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways
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The concepts in this book are life-saving (and tasty too)!
Co-workers would ask me if I had had lunch if I was critical or demanding. They noticed that I was meaner when I was hungry and, unfortunately, I was hungry a lot. Eventually I was eating 6 times per day, but still got hungry. And as I got older, I got heavier. My body fat ballooned up to 37 percent. If you had known me in 1994 when I was competing in a marathon (26.2 mile) race every month, you might not believe it possible, but I gained 55 pounds. I decided to do something about it in 2008 and joined a CrossFit gym - lifting weights, performing gymnastic moves, and literally standing on my head doing high intensity exercise three times per week. I ran 5 to 10 miles every weekend. I ate better - lots of salmon and veggies from the frozen food case - but after two years of effort, my body fat was still 27 percent. I had lost 20 pounds, but remained pudgy. Then I heard about Dallas and Melissa Hartwig's Whole30 program. I did my first Whole30 in 2010. About two weeks into the program, I noticed that I was sleeping better. Then I started to set new personal records lifting heavy weights in the gym. I felt great and my energy levels stayed even across the day. I quit being so grumpy! I decided to keep following the Whole30 way of eating. After a few months, my annual blood work showed big improvements: good cholesterol - UP, bad cholesterol - DOWN. And I was losing weight. Nothing dramatic, but typically two pounds per month. The two pounds per month continued 15 months and I lost 30 pounds! I finally stopped losing weight when I was just 10 pounds above my marathon running weight from the 90's. And that 10 pounds was all new muscle! I first met Dallas and Melissa Hartwig in 2011 when I attended one of their in-person nutrition workshops. They were just as smart, friendly, and good looking in person as they were online. They are truly inspiring people. And their book - It Starts With Food - is just like them - smart, practical, informative, kind, tough, motivating, inspiring, hopeful... As someone who has read most of the information on their website and attended their workshops, I expected to be familiar with everything in It Starts With Food, but I was wrong. The discussions of food cravings, the psychology of eating, and much of the science was new to me. And the Hartwigs made the science interesting. I wish my high school and college biology teachers had been as clear and practical as them! The Whole30 program is discussed in the book and the Hartwigs explain how you can do your own Whole30 and start getting the same kind of results I got in mine. It Starts With Food is an incredible resource for anyone who wants to develop a healthier relationship with food or who just plain needs to because what they are doing now is killing them.
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2014
Top reviews from other countries
- All Day Earl GreyReviewed in Canada on March 26, 2013
Changed my life
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase -
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- Sherif SelimReviewed in the United Arab Emirates on May 29, 2025
The book cover is dirty and the book seems to be used.
