Books: "The Full-Body Fat Fix" By Stephen Perrine

The Full-Body Fat Fix: The Science-Based 7-Day Plan to Cool Inflammation, Heal Your Gut, and Build a Healthier, Leaner You!

By Stephen Perrine

St. Martin's Press; hardcover, 272 pages; $30.00

Stephen Perrine is the co-creator of Better Man, a national health and wellness TV show, the New York Times bestselling author of The Whole Body Reset, and the co-creator, editor, and publisher of the Eat This, Not That! book series. He is the former editorial creative director of Men's Health, as well as the former publisher of Rodale Books, and he currently manages all health and wellness content for AARP Publications.

In the new insightful book, The Full-Body Fat Fix, Perrine details a groundbreaking new way to eat that can reverse inflammation, heal your gut, and improve overall health, fitness, and athletic performance in just one week's time. The thing about this, unlike quick-fixes, is that it is a sustainable formula to keep off weight for the rest of your life.

Perrine explains how chronic inflammation and an unhealthy microbiome are the underlying causes of weight gain, and how the usual "dieting" strategies, which include cutting calories, eliminating certain foods, and picking certain times to eat, have actually undermined weight-loss goals.

The new science of weight management is more exciting, as well as delicious, than anyone could ever imagine. Backed by eating a greater variety of plant-based foods, with at least 30 different plants each week, which can include vegetables, fruits, whole grains, seeds, nuts, herbs, and legumes; and not getting in a rut with the same tired "healthy" foods, science shows we can bring healthy back to our guts. This is the way to turn off the mechanisms that cause inflammation and reduce our risk of obesity, and the related diseases that came come with it.

Perrine starts his formula with "The Fire Fightin' Five," a combination of five meals and snacks that will give you 30 unique plants in one day. With the 7-Day Challenge, readers can track and monetize dietary goals, and make an exciting game out of healthy eating and weight loss.

There also are dozens of recipes that show how east it is to add new foods to their routines, but at the core of the book is the prism-shift that eating a variety of nutrients will almost effortlessly give your body what it needs to work well.

Dr. Roshini Raj wrote the introduction to The Full-Body Fat Fix, and in this excerpt, she discusses the evolution of this field: "When I was first studying medicine at NYU in the 1990s, we were taught that the microbiome - the teeming trillions of bacteria and other microbes that reside in our intestines - is responsible for just one main task: digestion. This complex ecosystem of belly bugs basically hung around in the gut and helped us process the fiber and absorb the nutrients that passed through. But beyond that, modern medicine really didn't give the microbiome a second thought.

Today, we've learned that the microbiome is, in many ways, the epicenter of our physical and emotional health. How healthy your microbiome is can have far-reaching effects throughout your body, impacting everything from immunity to blood sugar control, from our metabolism to our weight. Scientists now thing of the gut as the 'second brain,' as we continue to learn more and more about how the microbiome helps control our hormones, our emotions, and even our energy levels. (And maybe it ought to be considered our 'first brain.' After all, the microbiome in our gut weighs roughly four to five pounds. The brain in our skull weighs only three!)

More than 2,500 years ago, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, issued an edict: 'All disease begins in the gut.' Today we know just how true his words were. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression - even diseases of aging such as osteoporosis, sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss), and Alzheimer's disease - all have connections to the gut, a scientific fact that the world of medicine is only now relearning.

And that means we have more power over our own health and wellness than we one thought. About 85 percent of the microbes in our guts have been shown to be beneficial; they help manufacture hormones like serotonin, the very compound that antidepressants look to boost; they help create a barrier in the lining of your intestines, protecting you against inflammatory compounds and unhealthy bacteria that cause a host of diseases; they even help regulate the immune system, impacting our ability to respond to infectious diseases from the common cold to COVID-19.

But as with any diverse population, there are some bad actors in there. When you take care of your microbiome, the beneficial microbes that aid in digestion, reduce inflammation, and protect against disease are all able to blossom. But when you're not taking care of your gut, the troublemakers start to take over. Like a handful of drunk hecklers at a comedy club, they ruin the party for everybody else - sending out inflammatory compounds, disrupting the lining of the intestines, messing with our hormones, and signaling the immune system to react in unhealthy ways.

Your microbiome is never static - it's always changing. How well you sleep, how much stress you're under, the medications you take, the exercises you do (or don't do) - they all affect the microbiome, in ways that we're still learning about. But the most significant factor in determining the health of your microbiome is your diet. When we think about foods that are 'good for your heart' or 'good for your brain' or even 'good for your skin,' what we might as well be talking about is how good they are for your microbiome. Indeed, your next meal will immediately impact your microbiome and help determine if the good guys are winning or the bad guys are getting the upper hand.

Fortunately, by choosing to educate yourself about the connection between your gut and your overall health, you've already taken the first step toward changing your life for the better. When you eat well and take care of your body, your microbiome responds quickly; changes in your overall health begin within days."