Book Review: The Lose Your Belly Diet

If I had only seen the main title to this, without the subtitle, I may not have checked it out, but I'm fascinated with the idea of health stemming from the status of your gut. This book, The Lose Your Belly Diet: Change Your Gut, Change Your Life, provides all the arguments for improving your gut health found in the wonderful book, The Brain Maker, but also includes prescribed recipes. Like Dr. David Perlmutter's book, Dr. Travis Stork's book points to the importance of the microbiome for all aspects of health, mental as well as gastrointestinal. Moreover, Dr. Stork breaks it all down into easy analogies and accessible language.

As the inside cover proclaims, "This plan is built around a very clear, research-based concept: Eating food that nourishes and protects the microbiome in your gut paves the way for weight loss, a slimmer middle, and better overall health." Stork begins by explaining current research into the gut environment known as the "microbiome." He goes on to outline many things you can do to improve your gastrointestinal health (things like eating fruits, vegetables, and pre-and-probiotics, while avoiding c-sections, formula-feeding, unnecessary antibiotics, and hyper-sensitivity to germs and bacteria).

While none of this information was new to me (having read Perlmutter's excellent book), I was impressed with how accessible Stork managed to make it all. Moreover, he does provide actual weekly menu suggestions and recipes (although I wasn't enticed by many of them). If you are looking for a plan to improve your diet, you couldn't go wrong in turning to this book. And if you are interested in learning more about how your gut influences the rest of your bodily functions, this is a good place to start. I still enjoyed Perlmutter's book more, but this book certainly offers up practical steps and tangible guidance.