Real-Life Guide to Diabetes

Real-Life Guide to Diabetes by Hope S. Warshaw and Joy Pape (American Diabetes Association, 2009, ISBN: 9781580403146), is full of information suitable for those newly diagnosed with diabetes, or for people looking for updated medical information and dietary advice.

Each chapter is split up into easy to read chunks. There are myths and facts listed, questions commonly asked about diabetes, definitions, statistics, red flags and tips and tactics. The fonts are larger than the average book, which is also a bonus.

Diabetes Prevention and Management

Type 2 is the most common type of diabetes. One of the main reasons type 2 cases are rising is because the number of obese people is increasing. According to Real-Life Guide to Diabetes, if people eat healthier, become more active and lose 5 to 7% of their body weight, they can prevent or prolong the likelihood of developing Type 2 diabetes. If they have already developed it, the suggested steps are still helpful with managing diabetes. Extensive information about type 1 diabetes is also included.

•     Chapter 2 focuses on “knowing and controlling your ABCs”. This includes information about how to understand blood glucose numbers and the importance of recording and monitoring it.

•     Chapter 3 stresses the importance of obtaining a positive support system. This includes health care providers, family, friends, support groups and members of your community.

Lifestyle Changes and Healthy Eating

Chapter 4 and 5 and 6 offer important information on behavioral changes and instructions on how to eat healthier. Lifestyle changes are difficult, especially if negative patterns have been followed for years. There’s interesting and useful information about behavior change theories that will aid in the transition. It's valuable for anyone but particularly helpful for diabetics trying to make major changes.

For meal planning, there are some simple portion control tools and methods to follow that are helpful. Suggestions on what types of food to eat are offered along with information on carbohydrates, fiber, protein, fat and salt. There’s a quick formula to calculate what an individual’s energy needs are and how many calories they would need depending on their level of activity.

Important information about food label’s nutrition facts is also included. One of the reasons it’s important is because the portion size is clarified. Portions given on food labels are often smaller than what a person actually ingests, so when tracking calories, carbs, sodium, sugars or fat intake, calculations may need to be doubled.

Other chapters focus on the importance of physical activity with diabetes, medications that lower blood glucose, alternative methods, stress and depression, monitoring glucose and blood pressure, losing weight, managing diabetes when on vacation or off schedule and sexual health.

It’s an extremely detailed yet straightforward book that could be used as an ongoing reference for anyone who has diabetes or is interested in it. The great thing about the Real-Life Guide to Diabetes is that it is flexible so it offers solutions that are realistic for everyone.

About Hope Warshaw and Joy Pape

Hope Warshaw has 30 years experience as an author and is also a dietitian and diabetes educator. She’s the contributing editor for Diabetic Living and she continues to volunteer to help others with diabetes. Other books Hope has authored include Guide to Healthy Restaurant Eating, Complete Guide to Carb Counting and Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy.

Joy Pape is a certified diabetes nurse educator and certified foot care nurse. She has personal experience because diabetes has been in her family for generations. After she was diagnosed with pre-diabetes, she lost 60 pounds and has kept it off for 20 years. Joy also has over 30 years of experience in the health care field.

Sea Changes by Gail Graham

Sea Changes revolves around the character Sarah Andrews who is lonely in Australia and still grieving her dead husband.

Sarah sees a psychologist but doesn’t feel that he fully understands. She didn't socialize much outside of her husband so has trouble adjusting to the culture in Australia. Her daughter decides her mother has mourned long enough and pushes her to move on with her life.

Underwater World

She stumbles across a fascinating parallel world in the sea where she feels loved, accepted and at peace. Sarah's original plan was to commit suicide but instead she decides to help her new friends. What’s real and what’s fantasy becomes clouded, especially when she begins to confide in her psychologist.

Suspense, Mystery and Murder

A missing celebrity who happens to look like one of her new friends from the sea adds to the mystery. This complicates her quiet life, as she becomes the prime suspect, which leads her to feel more misunderstood and abandoned. Her own family becomes distant and she can no longer trust her psychologist.

Sarah finally starts to put herself first and is surprised at her new found strength and independence. Eventually, she finds herself cornered and is forced to choose between the two worlds. Should she feel obligated to the family that she has left and her husband’s memory or embrace the love and friendship she has found with a new man?

Although Sarah could be a depressing sort of character, Gail Graham has created her as an adventurous widowed woman who still sees the humor in things. She has also experienced the loss of her own husband and child and is able to describe the grief very accurately.

Sea Changes (Jade Phoenix Publishing, May 2009, ISBN: 9780692001004), comes alive with so many exciting twists and turns that it becomes impossible to put down. Gail Graham manages to maintain the suspense throughout the novel and the realistic details make this unlikely story believable.

Mourning and New Hope

Although it’s an entertaining fantasy, Sea Changes is also an emotional journey that offers hope to others in mourning. Things can never be the same after losing a spouse, but eventually other reasons to live provide opportunities and offer enough strength to continue. This is an excellent book to recommend to anyone grieving or facing depression because it offers hope that eventually, things do get better.

Writing Romance by Vanessa Grant

Vanessa Grant gives detailed and practical advice on how to write a successful romance novel in Writing Romance, Self-Counsel Press,1997-2007.

Subjects covered in Writing Romance include the business of beginning the story, creating conflict, pacing, revision, finding a publisher and preparing for the marketplace. Over half of the fiction books sold in the world are romance, so there’s a huge market for them.

Romance Subgenres

Most novels contain some romance, so Writing Romance would be helpful for almost any author beginning their novel. It makes sense for authors to write about what they enjoy because it will come easier and the story will be better because of it.

There are some excellent notes on writing suspense, paranormal and science fiction along with romance.
A whole chapter is devoted to suspense including the rules and how to keep things unpredictable. It’s important to keep the outcome hidden. Anyone who has read a book where they could predict what was going to happen next knows that doesn’t make for a fun read.

Archetypes

Writers often use common archetypes without even thinking about them but it’s interesting to break them down into recognizable categories. A couple of the familiar standbys are the virginal heroine and the Alpha hero. To keep things interesting it would be wise to throw in a wild woman or passionate artist.

The setting can be a simple background or the main focus in the story. It depends on how strongly the setting influences the characters. Guidelines on how to create a strong descriptive setting authentically are included even if you’ve never been there.

Plot and Conflict

While the plot is important, without strong characters and conflicts there won’t be much life in the romance novel. Helping the reader get attached to characters makes the story better because they will sympathize when they have huge problems. Victory at the end will also be much sweeter because the reader cares about the people in the story.

 Brainstorming with a series of questions is one of the techniques used to flesh out characters. As the questions continue, they get harder so more bizarre or interesting scenarios and characters are created.

Controversial Issues

In some cases experiences with such things as alcoholism, mental illness and/or dysfunctional families become beneficial to the writer because they can relate to those issues easier. For alternative lifestyles, occupations or diseases that there are no experiences with, Vanessa Grant shares how to go about researching them.

About Vanessa Grant

Vanessa Grant is a popular romance writer who has authored 30 books and successfully sold over 10 million romance novels. She runs workshops on romance writing and offers online seminars and courses.
The CD-ROM included with Writing Romance is full of writing resources. These include templates for writing the book, an eight part seminar on writing romance, and links to publishers and market information.
Writing Romance is a fantastic step-by-step guide for learning how to write a successful romance novel. Also included are two of Vanessa Grant's novels Taking Chances and Yesterday’s Vows in eBook format. To explore more of Vanessa’s writing resources like her workshops or online courses see VanessaGrant.ca.

How to Quit Smoking Without Gaining Weight

In How To Quit Smoking Without Gaining Weight, Martin Katahn has formulated two programs. One is for those ready to quit and the other is for those still struggling.  

It’s explained in detail the reasons why people gain weight even if they don’t ingest more calories. Apparently an ex-smoker’s metabolism slows down so much that it equals as much as 200 calories. According to Martin Katahn, 70% of all people who quit smoking gain weight.


Knowing these things doesn’t help lose the weight, but it helps by reassuring others that it’s common. His plans go into greater detail about how to either prevent weight gain before quitting or lose the weight after quitting. There's a 7 + 7 Program for those about to quit and an Ex-Smoker's Weight Management Program for those wanting to lose the weight gained after quitting.


The two things that will help someone quit are to be highly motivated and confident about it being a success. With this well thought out and researched plan; it’s more likely to be able to quit smoking successfully. Other benefits are that healthier eating and exercising habits will replace smoking and energy levels will increase.

Cut Fat & Choose Healthy Carbohydrates

His simple but not necessarily easy methods include cutting down on fat. Along with that are suggestions on how to replace fatty foods with complex carbohydrates. Specific food choices are given with lists of alternatives to use as a reference. There is a detailed appendix called Fat and Carbohydrate Counter. It lists common foods and the serving size, total fat, carbohydrates and calories. Although there is a present trend to go low on carbs, they’re necessary for energy. Martin Katahn assures people that if fat intake is lowered, they choose healthier carbohydrates and they exercise, they will lose weight.

Recipes

One of the best parts of How To Quit Smoking Without Gaining Weight is the healthy but delicious recipes demonstrating how to make things like chocolate chip cookies, muffins and lasagna lower in fat and higher in fiber. Many of the recipes are included in the menu suggestions.

 Exercise

Exercise is one of the most important factors for quitting smoking and losing weight. It guarantees the ability to burn calories while increasing energy and confidence. Getting up and moving is also another way to fend off a nicotine craving. There’s a table that shows various activities and the amount of calories that they burn after 15 minutes. For example walking 4 mph. for 15 minutes burns 99 calories. It would only take about half an hour of brisk walking to burn 200 calories.


Anaerobic exercise or strength training is also encouraged and suggested as a method to help quit smoking and lose weight. Lifting small weights for ten minutes a day will suffice.


How To Quit Smoking Without Gaining Weight by Martin Katahn, publisher W.W. Norton & Company, 1994-2004, ISBN-10: 0743466233 is packed full of expert advice to assist those motivated to change their lifestyle and quit smoking. Marting Katahn is also the author of the T-Factor Diet and The T-Factor Fat Counter.

Life A LIfe You Love by Susan Biali

Live A Life You Love: 7 Steps to a Healthier, Happier, More Passionate You by Dr. Susan Biali, M.D. is all about learning how to an authentic person, which means doing what you were meant to and being happy.

Even if desires and dreams seem impractical, Susan Biali urges people to embrace them in order to get in touch with their true selves.

Read more...

Francis of Assisi by Michael de la Bedoyere

Michael de la Bedoyere tells the tale of St. Francis of Assisi, the man who hugged lepers, embraced simplicity and despised corruption.  A bishop told Francis that his simple lifestyle was unpractical. He replied: “If we had possessions, my lord, we should need arms to protect them.”

In his youth, Francis of Assisi was no angel and fought temptations, although his methods for dealing with them were unorthodox. Even though Francis was eccentric and defied rules and traditions, his loyalty to Christ and the Catholic faith was strong. This brought him attention from the bishops and they supported his work and encouraged his missions.

Francis became strong after being banished from his own family by spending time alone praying. He shared this advice with a crowd for facing their own challenges with people: “You will find some that are true, gentle and gracious. They will gladly accept what you say. But you will find far more who are faithless, proud, and blasphemous. These will mock and oppose you, and you will have to do your best.”

It was fascinating to read more detailed information about his life and personality so that Francis of Assisi became a real man instead of a mythical saint. Michael de la Bedoyere made Francis of Assisi: The Man Behind the Myths (Sophia Institute Press, ISBN: 978-0-918477-89-7, 1999) interesting because it showed how Francis had the same weaknesses as everyone else, overcame them and continues to inspire others to do the same.

Michael de la Bedoyere was a Catholic newspaper editor for several years. He also wrote The Remarkable Life of Francis de Sales and some of his works can be seen in SaintMaker.

Sophia Institute Press sent me a complimentary copy of this book to review.

Interview at Online Publicist

Lisa Roe from Online Publicist has been kind enough to welcome me into the book blogosphere. She's given me so many good books to review over the years and is fun to work with.

You can tell she loves connecting books with people. I also admire the fact that she takes the extra time to familiarize herself with the bloggers/reviewers. Lisa now has over 400 online book reviewers and I'm confident Online Publicist will continue to succeed and grow.

Check out Lisa's New Blogger On The Block interview. 

I just received the book When Turtles Fly: Secrets of Successful People Who Know How to Stick Their Necks Out by Nikki Stone from Anna at FSB Associates. It looks intense, so I'll get back to you with thoughts on it in a couple days.

 Book photo by Sanja Sjenero