Sugar Nation: The Hidden Truth Behind America's Deadliest Habit And The Simple Way To Beat It (2000) - Plot & Excerpts
An interesting mix of autobiography and medical reporting. The author is a thin fairly young man who was diagnosed with pre-diabetes. One gathers he was very fit, but had a punk diet. He argues loudly for the benefits of a low carb, high protein, and incidentally high fat diet and a serious exercise program, in his case a mix of weight training and HIIT.This is all well and good and his own experiences are fairly interesting. The one catch is that he doesn't have too much to say about the evidence that he found new or compelling, so there isn't a whole lot new here for somebody who has read, say, Gary Taubes. Not to be evangelical about it, but this book was a huge revelation into so much of myself. As someone who has a long list of health issues I have to keep in mind and accomodate, every day, the subject matter naturally appealed to me. Being young means I'm often surrounded by young, ergo healthy, people and so reading about the matters that concern me make it less of an isolating struggle. Jeff O'Connell did a terrific job of sharing his initial fear, concern, and anxiety about a health matter he researched thoroughly to work on eradicating within himself. There was so much attention to detail, but more importantly, each thought or idea was fully followed through and then heavily supplemented with evidence. O'Connell also made it clear when the evidence was anecdotal (his or others personal experience) vs quantitative (medical research). Do I believe modern medicine is necessary? Well, yes because as a cancer survivor (how dramatic), I would not be here without it. Yet modern, Western if you will, medicine does not do very much to help cure a disease. Far too oten, we are given medication to treat symptoms. If you're lucky, you are given pills to help you scrape by, with no regard to the quality of life you are living. Being told to live with anything that made my life shitty never sat well with me, and so a few years ago I began the journey of learning about the human body, my body, and how to heal it as much as I could with healthy living, certain ways of eating, the best ways to exercise, so on and so forth. As someone who is both very young and very young in my journey, I still lack in the belief anything I'm doing here helps, so reading Sugar Nation really reinforced the intent behind my efforts for me.On the whole, I feel so much more educated, and armed, to deal with my life for the rest of my life. No supplement or brand being pushed was a huge point of relief for me, and I'm glad I got through the book not feeling like an idiot for trust O'Connell's message because there was a pitch in Ch. 13 (there never was).Long story short: Read the book. Even if your body doesn't need it, your mind most certainly can benefit.
What do You think about Sugar Nation: The Hidden Truth Behind America's Deadliest Habit And The Simple Way To Beat It (2000)?
Some good information but wrapped up in a lot of unnecessary verbiage.
—Emely20
Officially the scariest book I ever read.
—ToInfinityTW
