Brajesh's Review : Don't Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight

In my attempt to throw some weight around, I have been reading a few health related books over the last few months. Rujuta Divekar's "Don't Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight" has been the most sensible, logical and holistic one that I have found so far.

I would heavily recommend this book to every person, irrespective of your current health or weight state. Essentially if you are going to read only one book on weight loss (or to be correct as per the book - fat loss) this must be the one.

I am not saying this because Rujuta is Kareena's dietitian and is credited for getting her to size zero (a fact which she totally debunks in the book, including the myth of size zero). I recommend this book as it outlines an extremely balanced and sensible approach to healthy and happy living. Rujuta is totally against starving or deprivation based fat loss. In fact her favorite often repeated line in the book says, one must eat more to lose more.

She also allows enough leeway to indulge in one's favorite gajar-halwa and aloo-parathas. So if I have now piqued your interest, go pick this one up and change your life forever.

Disclaimer :- if you are looking for another fad diet which will make you lose 30 pounds in 30 days, this is not your book. (In that case you should try and read Kalli Puri's incredibly funny book titled 'Confessions of a Serial Dieter')

Rating : 5 / 5

Brajesh's Review : 9 to 5 Fit - A Working Person's Guide to Looking Great and Performing Better!

 
9 to 5 Fit  - A Working Person's Guide to Looking Great and Performing Better! by Namita Jain deserves a 4 on 5.

Given my perpetual struggle with food and weight, this book helped me start (or re-start or re-re-restart) a few of my routines. For office working professionals like me this is a great book. Simple, straightforward and hugely practical, the book never preaches. So if you are fighting the flab like me , read this short 200 page book Now.

Rating : 4 / 5

Brajesh's Review : Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul

I picked up "Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul" in my quest to add knowledge and gain inspiration for my own weight loss regime. Must say, I was mighty disappointed. All the stories have an identical theme and hardly any layers or insights.

American lifestyle leading to a moment of crisis, which brings a lifestyle change resulting in significant weight loss is the common script of all stories.

Only one story stood out for me, where the writer relates his over-eating problem to childhood deprivation. To some extent I could relate to it. The book is a totally avoidable read. If you want to read a good relatable book on weight loss I would recommend "Confessions of a Serial Dieter" by Kali Puri.

Rating : 2 / 5

Kim's Review: JB Lobo's Home Encyclopaedia

JB Lobo's Home Encyclopedia is the only recipe book my grandmother ever referred to when cooking, so almost every woman in my family has a copy.

The book is plain text, there are no glossy pictures and an average of 3-4 recipes on each page. A bare bones recipe book, it expects the reader to have a good grasp of cooking.

It does have some rare recipes like that for suckling pig Manglorean style that are difficult to find elsewhere. While it claims to have recipes from other parts of the world, remember that this book was written over 25 years ago, so those recipes aren't completely authentic. But the Manglorean recipes are really good.

More than half the book is taken by the home encyclopedia which has home remedies for everything from sore eyes to snake bites and scorpion stings. There is a section on how to guard against burglars, how to clean ivory articles and how to buy a cow by checking her udders. There is even a section on sex education.

While the book at 900+ pages is quite heavy, only 250 pages or so are dedicated to recipes. I do wish they would come out with a version that has just the recipes. It would be so much easier to manage while trying to cook from it.

The book is also published in Kannada as Gruha Sangaathi & I think it has both a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian version.

Rating : 4 / 5

Kim's Review: Confessions of a Serial Dieter

I must confess that I was aghast when Brajesh came home with this book from his last trip. A "How-To / Self-Help" book??? and one on DIETS to top it off??? I thought I had married a man with more sense than that! We don't read How-to books and while we both need to do something concrete about our weight, we both know that diet books are not the solution that they advertise to be.

He had loved the book and recommended quite strongly that I should read it. Now he has been recommending "2 states" for quite a while, but I still haven't gotten to it. However, since we were packing over 40 books to get autographed at the Jaipur Lit Fest and Kalli Purie was going to be there, this book got packed too.

At Jaipur, the days were obvioulsy hectic and I wanted very light reading for 15-20 minutes before dropping off to sleep. So I decided that if I had to read this book, this was the ideal opportunity. The first few pages in and I was hooked.

This is not a "How-To" book in the strict sense of the word. Yes, Kalli does outline over 40 weightloss methods from the Cabbage soup diet to bullemia and Gastric surgery. But the book isn't just about that. This book is about her experience with each one of these techniques/diets. So its like having a friend who has tried out multiple diets and weight loss techniques telling you what her experience with it was and what she felt worked for her and what didn't.

Her account is candid and honest (right down to stopping her tryst with bullemia when water from the toilet splashed back on her face and into her eyes during one of the purging episodes) and its like getting advice from a friend. Also she doesn't adopt a serious, stuck-up - "I know better than you" tone. The mood is always light and funny while imparting nuggets of wisdom.

Its an excellent buy for someone who is trying to lose weight. Because of the range of techniques that Kalli has experimented with, she gives a lot of information on what worked for her and what didn't. The reader can cull from this information what techniques/diets he/she would like to try for herself and what will fit into their own lifestyle.

This is not a typical "How-To" book, but it does have a lot to offer.

Rating: 3.8/5

Brajesh's Review: Confessions of a Serial Dieter

Absolute cracker of a book which I finished in one go over a four hour flight. Not only was the book unputdownable, I actually took out a page and penned learnings and summaries for myself. Normally a huge sceptic of self-help books, I think my own one-pager is the biggest tribute to this book. The book is especially suited for the most failed dieters, as it gets into the psyche of a "fat person". The journey of Kalli from 103 to 58 Kgs is beautifully outlined with all the horrors and delights of every weight-loss regime.

Rating : 4/5
If not for the limited high-society view-point, I would have given this a 4.5