Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life [Paperback] Review

Thrive Diet is a relatively easy to follow program for athletes that have food allergies, are vegan, or just want to get their nutrition from whole foods. The hardest thing of going plants only is accepting you can get solid protein and nutrition. Thankfully, the author knows how to research and presents his findings dispassionately and with reason. The page on protein powders is worth the book itself. No where else have I found this information, and I've been looking through all vegan, vegetarian, and bodybuilding books. Keep in mind that this book is soy and tofu free, due to the author's concerns with allergies. That's a good thing. Tofu/Soy products are used MORE in N. America. I'm not anti-soy. Just pro-variety (and frankly soy hasn't gotten me to where I want to be anyhow.)

An important part of this book are the early chapters on different types of stress and how nutrition can assist recuperation. The author is not a big supplement taker, and focuses on nourishment rather than calories/protein/carbs counting.The recipes are simple to prepare. It's actually, dare I say it, kind of lazy food prep, minimal tools (food processor & blender), and maximum return. These are positives. Other vegan cookbooks have 20 steps, consume an hour of time and the end result is just a side dish. Of potatoes....

Now, the book is affordable, but there's a sticker shock that comes from going whole foods whole cloth. Thankfully I have a Whole Foods within 8 miles. They had most everything on the list, except yellow pea protein powder. The clerk said the co. that made that went bankrupt, so it's put a lot of folks in a lurch.My total bill? $227.00 The protein powders are about $15 each, the oils are around that price point, and maca and chlorella cost $15 a bottle.AND THIS IS WITH ALMOST NO PRODUCE OR VEGETABLES. $227. The upside is the convenience of Whole Foods having all this stuff. Nutrition costs...

I copied the shopping list to a pdf at orlandont dot com. Click on the Thrive link. Again, it's costly to just jump into it, so maybe transition using the energy bar recipes and grow from there.Still, this book is awesome and if you're serious about training or casually interested in losing weight or just understanding HOW your body functions, get this book.

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Product Description:
The thrive diet is a long-term eating plan to help all athletes (professional or not) develop a lean body, sharp mind, and everlasting energy. As one of the few professional athletes on a plant-based diet, Brendan Brazier researched and developed this easy-to-follow program to enhance his performance as an elite endurance competitor.
Brazier clearly describes the benefits of nutrient-rich foods in their natural state versus processed foods, and how to choose nutritionally efficient, stress-busting whole foods for maximum energy and health. Featuring a 12-week meal plan, over 100 allergen-free recipes with raw food options-including recipes for energy gels, sport drinks, and recovery foods-and a complementary exercise plan, The Thrive Diet is "an authoritative guide to outstanding performance" (Neal D. Barnard, M.D., Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine).

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The Core Balance Diet: 4 Weeks to Boost Your Metabolism and Lose Weight for Good (Paperback) Review

The Core Balance Diet is a must-read for women who have, well...gotten off balance (which would include probably 85-95% of American women). And Marcelle (with Genevieve) include six common ways that we have lost our balance: digestive, hormonal, adrenal, neurotransmitter, inflammatory, and detoxification. Which of us has not experienced imbalance in one of those areas, let alone two or three?

Marcelle challenges the woman who thinks she would be too overwhelmed to make some dietary and lifestyle changes: "If you could help your partner to lose weight, or help protect your child's health, by changing what he or she ate for a month, wouldn't you try and do it? Now, aren't you worth that same amount of attention?" And she is only asking you to try her program for a month! After that, she assures you, you'll be free from your food addictions and hooked on your feeling great!

Balance, as you might suppose, also entails eating approximately a 30/30/40 ratio of healthy fats, protein and complex carbs (though not as strict as the Zone Diet). But it includes much, much more than that.

The book begins with an explanation of how imbalances lead to weight gain and aging and provides a layman's easy-to-read explanation of the systems.

Marcelle provides a Core Balance quiz for you to determine which of your systems are weakest. This is followed by a chapter on each system. Each chapter(which is delight to read even if they don't apply to you as much as the others) contains the following: information on the imbalance and how to correct it; sidebars and boxes with interesting tidbits of info; a list of "Marcelle's prescriptions " for that imbalance; diagnostic tests to note the progress of that imbalance; foods to include and foods to avoid; supplements to take; "a day in the life" schedule for the lifestyle changes needed (exercise, when to eat, self- nurturing, etc.); a one-week menu;and frequently asked questions.

There are also 60 pages of recipes. Except for the medical diagnostic tests, this is a complete do-it-yourself book.

True to the Hay House spirit, there is also a chapter on the mind-body connection with the cute title, "Your Issues Are in Your Tissues" which alerts you to negative thinking and self-destructive behavior patterns that can sabotage your health.

I have read hundreds of books on health and nutrition (even wrote one myself!) and I give this book a hearty two thumbs up! I learned lots of interesting tidbits, such as how the liver is taxed on a low-fat diet, how Vitamin D deficiency is linked to obesity, and how not flossing can lead to body-wide inflammation. The only thing Marcelle could do to make it more complete would be to have a chapter on the importance of eating more raw foods since a raw diet taxes the digestive system far less.

This is a diet that can be, with a bit of imagination, used by anyone who has any dietary slant (vegan, vegetarian, raw fooder, etc). For example, if one is raw vegan, substitute raw hemp protein powder in place of meat and don't cook the vegetables.

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Product Description:

From the co-founder of Women to Women, one of the first clinics in the country devoted to providing health care for women by women, comes a whole new way to look at weight loss: The Core Balance Diet. Marcelle Pick draws upon decades of patient and personal experience to solve the mystery of stubborn, frustrating weight gain in women, whether you've just gained it or have been struggling with it for years. This breakthrough program, which has benefited many of the thousands of women who visit the clinic each year, is rooted in cutting-edge nutritional science that explores the weblike relationship between women's hormones, metabolism, and weight gain. In clear terms, Pick connects the dots between self-knowledge, self-care, and the ability to lose weight, extending the concept of body-mind-spirit to demonstrate why and how a woman's biography becomes her biology.


At its most basic level, The Core Balance Diet shows you how to self-diagnose one of six major biochemical imbalances that may be preventing you from losing weight. These include digestive, hormonal, adrenal, neurotransmitter, inflammatory, and detoxification imbalances. From there, Pick guides you through easy lifestyle and diet changes customized to heal your specific imbalance. Throughout, you will learn how to begin living in a manner that encourages optimal health-without a lot of deprivation and stringent dieting rules- by achieving core balance from the inside out, and, of course, weight loss for life.



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