Looking for some new reads to supplement your fitness and wellness bookshelves this summer? The trainers at FIT Carrboro are sharing their current top book picks. We've included links to each book, as well as images and excerpts. (We do not own the rights to any of these texts or images).
Happy reading!!
Lauren's Book Picks:
Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement by Katy Bowman
"Humorous, fascinating, and science‐based, Move Your DNA addresses the vast quantities of disease we are suffering from, identifying our lack of movement as the primary cause. All readers can use the corrective exercises and lifestyle changes Katy has created to help each of us recover our healthy, naturally moving bodies.
Move Your DNA explains the science behind our need for natural movement – right down to the cellular level. It examines the differences between the movements in a typical hunter-gatherer’s life and the movements in our own. It shows the many problems with using exercise like movement vitamins instead of addressing the deeper issue of a poor movement diet.
Best of all, Move Your DNA contains the corrective exercises, habit modifications, and simple lifestyle changes we need to make in order to free ourselves from disease and discover our naturally healthy, reflex driven selves. From couch potatoes to professional athletes, new parents to seniors, readers will love Katy’s humorous, passionate, and above all science-based guide to restoring your body and reclaiming your life."
Bonus Read by Katy Bowman: her newest book, Rethink Your Position: Reshape Your Exercise, Yoga, and Everyday Movement, One Part at a Time
I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual by Luvvie Ajayi Jones
"In this hilarious book of essays, comedian, activist, and hugely popular culture blogger Luvvie Ajayi inspires us to good behavior, one sharp and funny side-eye at a time.
The go-to source for bracingly smart takes on pop culture at her enormously popular blog AwesomelyLuvvie.com, she has also become a bulwark of good humor and crucial common sense at what can seem a common sense-free time. I’m Judging You dissects our cultural obsessions and calls out bad behavior in our increasingly digital, connected lives. With a lighthearted, rapier wit and a unique perspective, it’s the handbook the world needs now, doling out the hard truths and a road map for bringing some “act right” to our popular culture, social media, and our lives."
The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self by Martha Beck
"As Martha Beck says in her book, “Integrity is the cure for psychological suffering. Period.”
In The Way of Integrity, Beck presents a four-stage process that anyone can use to find integrity, and with it, a sense of purpose, emotional healing, and a life free of mental suffering. Much of what plagues us—people pleasing, staying in stale relationships, negative habits—all point to what happens when we are out of touch with what truly makes us feel whole.
Inspired by The Divine Comedy, Beck uses Dante’s classic hero’s journey as a framework to break down the process of attaining personal integrity into small, manageable steps. She shows how to read our internal signals that lead us towards our true path, and to recognize what we actually yearn for versus what our culture sells us."
Gayle's Book Picks:
Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond by Stacy T. Sims
"For active women, menopause hits hard. Overnight, your body doesn’t feel like the one you know and love anymore—you’re battling new symptoms, might be gaining weight, losing endurance and strength, and taking longer to bounce back from workouts that used to be easy. The things that have always kept you fit and healthy just seem to stop working the way they used to."
"But menopause doesn’t have to be the end of you kicking ass at the gym, on the trail, in the saddle, or wherever you work out. Once you understand your physiology, you can work with it—not against it—to optimize your performance. That’s where Stacy Sims, PhD comes in. In Next Level, you’ll learn the underlying causes of menopause: the hormonal changes that are causing all the symptoms you’re feeling, and their impact on your wellness and performance. Then, what you really came for—what to do about it. Inside you’ll find science-backed advice about training, nutrition, sleep and recovery and supplements, as well as sample exercise routines, meal plans, macronutrient planning charts, and case studies from real women Stacy has coached through the transition. It’s the ultimate guide to navigating the Next Level."
The Hormone Repair Manual: Every Woman's Guide to Healthy Hormones After 40 by Laura Briden MD
"Hormone Repair Manual is published by Pan Macmillan. It’s a practical guide to feeling better in your 40s, 50s, and beyond. It explains how to navigate the change of perimenopause and relieve symptoms with natural treatments such as diet, nutritional supplements, and bioidentical (body-identical) hormone therapy.
Topics include:
Why everything is different after “second puberty.”
How perimenopause can be a tipping point for long-term health.
The four phases of perimenopause.
How testosterone and insulin cause weight gain.
How to speak with your doctor about hormone therapy including natural progesterone.
Treatment protocols for all common perimenopause symptoms including night sweats, insomnia, migraines, and heavy periods.
Risk reduction for osteoporosis, heart disease, and dementia.
Insights from Canadian endocrinology professor Jerilynn C. Prior.
Special topics such as insulin resistance and mast cell activation.
Suggested brands for supplements."
The Pilates Body: The Ultimate At-Home Guide to Strengthening, Lengthening, and Toning Your Body - Without Machines by Brooke Siler
"The Pilates® method may be today's hottest exercise, but it has been endorsed by physicians for almost a century. Originally developed by Joseph H. Pilates to help strengthen and condition muscles, Pilates is the ultimate mind-body exercise for anyone who wants to tone, streamline, and realign their body without the bulked-up results of more conventional workout methods.
Now, in The Pilates® Body, author Brooke Siler--one of the most sought-after personal trainers in the country and owner of New York's top studio for Pilates training, re:AB--provides a complete, easy-to follow program of Pilates exercises that can be done anywhere, anytime, and without machines.
With step-by-step instructions, Siler guides the reader through the complete circuit of mat exercises, each of which is clearly illustrated by photographs, line drawings, and unique visualization exercises. With Pilates you will not only streamline your figure--you will dramatically improve your posture, flexibility, and balance, and enhance your physical and emotional well-being. The Pilates Body shows you how."
Kevin's Book Picks:
The Joy of Movement: How Exercise Helps Us Find Happiness, Hope, Connection, and Courage by Kelly McGonigal
"Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it’s a chore. But, as Kelly McGonigal reveals, it doesn’t have to be. Movement can and should be a source of joy. Through her trademark blend of science and storytelling, McGonigal draws on insights from neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and evolutionary biology, as well as memoirs, ethnographies, and philosophers. She shows how movement is intertwined with some of the most basic human joys, including self-expression, social connection, and mastery–and why it is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness."
W1NNING: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness by Tim S. Grover
"From the elite performance coach for Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and many others—and the author of the powerful bestseller RELENTLESS—a no-holds-barred formula for winning that is ideal for business people, athletes, and anybody wanting to achieve success.
Whether you’re an athlete striving to win, an entrepreneur building a business, a CEO managing an empire, a salesperson looking to close a deal, or a high achiever determined to stand in the winner’s circle, W1NNING offers thirteen key principles for ramping up your performance to the maximum. If you’re addicted to the taste of success and crave more, then you’re ready for the results-driven performance formula found here. And if you’re already winning and want to learn how to execute excellence repeatedly—so you can own not just this moment, but the next, and the next—then W1NNING is for you."
The Psychology of Good and Evil: Understanding Extraordinary Behavior from Altruism to Atrocities by Catherine A. Sanderson
"Have you met a true hero? We’ve all read about truly bad people. Why do some people do extraordinary good while others choose evil? Are we responsible for our actions? What impact do genetics and upbringing have on moral choices? What does science show us about altruism, prejudice, authority, and group influence?
You will explore these and many other provocative questions in Professor Catherine A. Sanderson’s 15-lecture audio course, The Psychology of Good and Evil.
An award-winning psychology professor and celebrated author, Prof. Sanderson is known for her deep knowledge of current research as well as her humorous and engaging teaching style. This course is characteristic of her oeuvre: well-crafted, carefully articulated, thoroughly researched, and targeted to our historical moment.
Throughout the course, Prof. Sanderson alludes to the social ills and global conflicts that you hear about on the nightly news. Her elucidation of research from the fields of psychology, biology, and neuroscience will also help you put names to the positive and negative behavioral phenomena you’ve experienced in your own life.
Early on, you’ll learn how scientists define the notions of good and evil - concepts that are prone to oversimplification. From there, you’ll explore complex and fascinating questions about the predictors of such behavior. The knowledge you’ll glean this course will help you better understand yourself and the society in which you live."
Anna's Book Picks:
Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch
"Make peace with food.
Free yourself from chronic dieting forever.
Rediscover the pleasures of eating.
The go-to resource––now fully revised and updated––for building a healthy body image and making peace with food, once and for all."
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
"Read the book that started the Quiet movement, spent eight years on the New York Times bestseller list, is a #1 New York Times bestseller, and has been translated into over 40 languages.
At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society."
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach
"The alimentary canal -- the much-maligned tube from mouth to rear -- is as taboo, in its way, as the cadavers in Stiff, and as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. In Gulp we meet the scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks —or has the courage —to ask. How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Why doesn't the stomach digest itself? Can wine tasters really tell a $10 bottle from a $100 bottle? Why is crunchy food so appealing? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis?
We go on location to a pet food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. Like all of Roach's books, Gulp is as much about human beings as it is about human bodies."