STOP THE DIET, I WANT TO GET OFF! by Lisa Tillinger Johansen, MS, RD (Book Blitz)

We're happy to be hosting Lisa Tillinger Johansen and her STOP THE DIET I WANT TO GET OFF RELEASE DAY BLITZ today!

 

About the Book

Title: Stop the Diet, I Want To Get Off!
Author: Lisa Tillinger Johansen
Publisher: J. Murray Press
Pages: 275
Genre: Nonfiction/Nutrition/Health

Purchase at AMAZON

The Paleo.  The Zone.  The Gluten-free.  Another day, another diet.  We’re caught in a never-ending merry-go-round of weight loss plans, fueled by celebrity endorsers, TV doctors and companies angling for a piece of a $60 billion industry.  But do these diets really work?  And how healthy are they?

Registered Dietitian Lisa Tillinger Johansen examines dozens of the most wildly popular diets based on medical facts, not hype.  And along the way, she reveals tried-and-true weight loss strategies, relying on her years of hospital experience, weight-loss seminars and community outreach efforts.  With insight and humor, Stop The Diet, I Want To Get Off shows that the best answer is often not a trendy celebrity-endorsed diet, but easy-to-follow guidelines that are best for our health and our waistlines.

Book Excerpt

The idea for this book began at a wedding.

Who doesn’t love a good wedding? The clothes, the flowers, the romance, the food…

Ah, the food. As we moved into the banquet hall, the culinary feast was on everyone’s minds. It was all anyone seemed talk about. But for some reason, guests weren’t conversing about the dishes being served; they were swapping stories of diets they had heard about from friends, magazine articles, even celebrities on talk shows.

I’m a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in nutritional science and years of clinical and health education experience. I’ve counseled thousands of patients and clients on all of these diets. But hearing the guests only momentarily distracted me from my horrible faux pas of wearing white (gasp!) to a friend’s wedding.

“I’m on the Blood Type Diet,” said a woman with an impossibly high bouffant hairdo. “You’ve heard of that, haven’t you? It’s the one where you choose your foods based on your blood type. I’m an AB, so I’ll be having the fish.”

“Really?” her friend replied. “I swear by the gluten-free diet. I’m on it, my daughter’s on it, and my granddaughter’s on it.”

I happened to know her granddaughter was six and didn’t have a gluten sensitivity or celiac disease.

Then there was the stocky guy who was trying to impress one of the bridesmaids. “I’m a paleo man myself,” he said, piling his plate high with beef kebabs. “It gives me more stamina, know what I mean? It puts me in touch with my inner caveman. There’s a restaurant near my apartment that’s paleo friendly. Maybe we can grab a bite there sometime, or…Hey wait, where are you going?”

And there were three Weight Watchers sisters who typed furiously on their phones and argued over their meals’ point values. Apparently there was some discrepancy between their various apps, and the sisters’ discussion was becoming more heated by the moment.

I’m past the point of being surprised by the wide range of weight-loss strategies—

some worthless, some crazy, some quite reasonable—being tossed around. In the past few years, there has been a tidal wave of diets washing up on the shores of our nutritional consciousness. Celebrities prance across our screens, promoting a variety of weight-loss schemes on talk shows and infomercials. Medical doctors star in their own syndicated television programs, exposing millions to weight-loss techniques, often unsupported by medical research. Other diets get traction on the Internet, racing all over the globe in social media posts, YouTube videos, and annoying spam e-mails. It’s hard to walk past a shopping center vitamin store without being approached by salespeople trying to pitch the latest weight-loss supplements. It seems that everyone wants a piece of the pie; the American diet industry tops $60 billion annually.

It’s classic information overload. You can’t blame people for being confused by all the diets out there, even as crazy as some of them may sound. I didn’t speak up to my fellow wedding guests that day, but it occurred to me they would benefit from some hard facts about the diets they so ardently follow.

So during the toasts, I thought to myself, I should write a book.

I counsel clients on these matters each week, giving them information they need to make the best choices for their health and waistlines. I find that all too often there’s nothing to the diets that are presented to me in my counseling sessions and classes. They just plain don’t work, particularly over the long term. And some of them are harmful, even potentially lethal. But it’s also unhealthy to carry extra weight on our frames. So how do we separate good diets from the bad?

In the chapters to come, we’ll take a good, hard look at the various weight-loss plans out there. I’ll pull no punches in my professional evaluation of some of the most wildly popular diets, both bad and good, of the past few years. And along the way, I’ll explore tried-and-true strategies for losing weight, based on my years of hospital experience, weight-loss seminars, and community outreach efforts. More often than not, the best answer is not a trendy celebrity-endorsed diet, but instead a few easy-to-follow guidelines that I’ve seen work in literally thousands of cases.

Enough is enough. It’s time for the madness—and the diets—to stop.

 

About the Author
 

LISA TILLINGER JOHANSEN, MS, RD is a Registered Dietitian who counsels clients on a wide range of health issues. Her debut nutrition book, Fast Food Vindication, received the Discovery Award (sponsored by USA Today, Kirkus and The Huffington Post).  She lives in Southern California.

Her latest book is the nonfiction/nutrition/health book, Stop the Diet, I Want To Get Off!

For More Information

• Visit Lisa Tillinger Johansen’s websites – Stop the Diet, Consult the Dietician and Fast Food Vindication.
• Connect with Lisa on Facebook and Twitter.

OVERCOMING ANXIETY by David Berndt, PhD (Book Blitz plus Excerpt)

 

 

Overcoming Anxiety

By

David Berndt, PhD

Genre: Mental Health, Self-help
Released July 27, 2015; 188 pages

Book Blurb

The good news is that anxiety can be overcome without relying on medication. Psychologist David Berndt, Ph.D., in Overcoming Anxiety outlines several self-help methods for relief for anxiety and worry. In clear simple language and a conversational style. Dr. Berndt shares with the reader powerful step by step proven techniques for anxiety management.

You will learn:

• A Self-hypnosis grounding technique in the Ericksonian tradition.
• Box Breathing, Seven Eleven and similar breathing techniques for anxiety relief.
• How to stop or interrupt toxic thoughts that keep you locked in anxiety.
• How to harness and utilize your worries, so they work for you.
• Relief from anxiety through desensitization and exposure therapy.

Designed to be used alone as self-help or in conjunction with professional treatment Dr. Berndt draws upon his experience as a clinician and academic researcher to give accessible help to the reader who wants to understand and manage their anxiety.

 

 

 

Author Bio

David J. Berndt, Ph.D. was an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Chicago where he published or presented over 80 papers and articles before establishing a private practice. Dr Berndt currently lives in Charleston, S.C. where he also teaches in an adjunct capacity at the College of Charleston. He is best known for his psychological tests TheMultiscore Depression Inventory, and the Multiscore Depression Inventory for Children, both from Western Psychological Services. He also contributes to several psychology websites including www.psychologyknowledge.com.

Praise for Dr. Berndt’s work

About Overcoming Anxiety

“Dr. Berndt is a creative and forward-thinking psychologist who has contributed to advancing psychology both with his research and clinical practice. He has helped countless patients with their depression and anxiety, and his conversational and accessible style of writing makes Overcoming Anxiety a book you would want for your top shelf."- Charles Kaiser, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the College of Charleston

Links  

Website: http://psychologyknowledge.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/authorfriendly

Facebook: https://facebook.com/DavidJohnBerndt

Blog: http://authorfriendly.wordpress.com
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YVE4J30


EXCERPT

As a clinical psychologist who works every day with clients to help them find ways to navigate their anxiety, I have had the privilege of teaching, developing, and refining, with the feedback and input of my clients, several useful anxiety management tools. Many of the techniques stand on the shoulders of my peers and mentors. In addition to providing a strategy for anxiety relief, several of the skills introduced in this book also are applicable to managing worries, panic, and dread.

Anxiety medication can sometimes be helpful as well, but medication interventions are not the focus in these pages. Indeed, anxiety medication, while effective in treating anxious feelings, serves as a support in much the way a leg brace can help hold an injured knee steady. The aim of psychotherapy, to continue this metaphor, is more akin to working on stretching and exercising leg muscles so that you can regain balance and walk normally again without external support. The strategies and exercises in Overcoming Anxiety have been very helpful when implemented by my clients, and these tools can help you to deal with anxiety if you adopt and modify some of the ideas.

Of course the support and feedback of a trusted therapist who can fine-tune these and other strategies is a good idea, and a good therapist can see your problems with a fresh set of eyes. A therapist brings the wisdom of practical experience helping people like you, and having one as an ally is nearly always better than going it alone, or relying solely on pills.

The first five chapters explore various techniques from which you can draw, and once you have understood and mastered them, I encourage you to combine, customize, or borrow from the various procedures so they become tailor-made for you, and your unique situation.

For those who want to gain a better grasp of anxiety as a disorder of the brain and body, I have followed these early chapters with some educational material in Chapter Six; if you need to know more about the biological and neurophysiological components of anxiety you might want to skip to those materials, where I discuss these aspects in a way that I hope is accessible. Each chapter can be read independently, however the information may be easier to understand when read in sequence.

The methods discussed in Overcoming Anxiety do not focus exclusively on cognitive behavioral therapies for anxiety. In that distinction, it differs from most of the modern books on anxiety, especially those in the self-help literature. Some useful cognitive techniques are discussed and relied upon throughout the book, especially in Chapter Five, which is drawn, although with some creative license, from the cognitive approaches most commonly recommended to anxious patients, whether in the self-help or mental health literature.

The earlier chapters tend to explore tools drawn from a variety of therapeutic approaches. More than anything, the methods introduced in the first five chapters were selected because I wanted to share with you the approaches that my patients and I have found most helpful in the trenches.

 

 

LONE RIDER (The Montana Hamiltons #2) by B.J. Daniels (GIVEAWAY)

We are only few days away from the release of Lone Rider, second book in The Montana Hamiltons series by B.J. Daniels (Harlequin, July 28) and the author is treating her readers to a fantastic giveaway: pre-order Lone Rider and receive  a FREE digital copy of  Outlawed. Plus, the first 200 people to register will also receive an exclusive FREE cowboy bookmark. You can enter the giveaway here.

 

 

LONE RIDER

by B.J. DANIELS

Harlequin; August 1, 2015; Western Romance

336 pages; $7.99 U.S./ $8.99 CAN.

ISBN-978-0-373-78841-5

 

A cowgirl at heart, Bo Hamilton does her best thinking in wide-open spaces. So when money goes missing from the family foundation, Bo rides into the Crazy Mountains to figure things out. But a killer hiding among the sawtooth ridges takes her captive and isn’t planning on ever letting her go.

Bo’s disappearance gets folks thinking she’s the guilty one who’s run off with the money, but Jace Calder would bet his ranch that she’s innocent. Not that he has any reason to trust the beautiful, spoiled senator’s daughter. Still, Jace is going after Bo and bringing her home to face the truth. But in the wild, rugged Crazy Mountains, he finds Bo at the mercy of a suspected murderer. Jace is her only hope, and he’s about to find out what they’re both made of.

 

Praise for B.J. Daniels

 

 

 

“B.J. Daniels writes the best western suspense. I love her Montana setting, a state I fell madly in love with the moment I stepped onto its soil. Ms. Daniels’ male characters are real men, strong and protective, with plenty of love to give to the right women.” –Romance Junkies

 

 

“

…Daniels’ new Montana Hamiltons series will draw readers in with its genuine characters, multiple storylines and intense conflict set against the beautiful Montana landscape –RT Book Reviews

 

 

 

“B.J. Daniels will absolutely move to the top of your list of must-read authors.”

–Fresh Fiction

 

B.J. DANIELS, a USA Today and New York Times bestselling author, wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of 37 published short stories. That first book, Odd Man Out, received a four and a half star review from Romantic Times magazine and went on to be nominated for Best Intrigue for that year. Since then she has won numerous awards including a career achievement award for romantic suspense and numerous nominations and awards for best book. Daniels lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and two springer spaniels, Spot and Jem. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Thriller Writers, Kiss of Death and Romance Writers of America.

Guest Post by Margaret Verble, Author of MAUD'S LINE

Far From The Maddening Crowd, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2015

 

 

The Sexy Female Protagonist Problem

If you read my new book, Maud’s Line, you will probably deduce fairly quickly that I like heroines who take things into their own hands and do whatever has to be done. Scarlett O’Hara shaking her fist as she swears, “God as my witness, I’ll never be hungry again,” is one of my favorite fictional images. Likewise, Lila from Elena Ferrante’s, My Brilliant Friend, has a recklessness defiant attitude that I admire in a heroine. And one the most fully rounded characters of this same brand is Bathsheba Everdene, heroine of Thomas Hardy’s, Far from the Maddening Crowd. Bathsheba is head-strong and independent, or, as we would say if she were a man, fully human and yet admirable.

I don’t think it’s coincidental that all three of these characters, developed by novelists in three different centuries, are alluring to men. Sexuality, in my opinion, is a timeless and necessary ingredient for an interesting protagonist. However, in female characters we sometimes still see this as a flaw, whereas in male characters, unless they have a kinky drive they can’t control, we nearly always see it as a strength. So James Bond can bed whoever he wants, but woe be to a fictional female who enjoys her sexuality and gets away with it. Women, most often, have to pay the price -- even if they are relatively innocent. Think about Tess in the eponymous, Tess of the D’Urbervilles or Hester Prynne in The Scarlett Letter.  Think about Fiona Maye in Ian McEwan’s newest novel, The Children Act.

The other alternative for a novelist who wants to write a strong female character who sticks in the imagination is to make her a child. I don’t think it’s by accident that so many of the females who have stood the test of time, particularly in American literature, are children. Think of Jo March in Little Women, Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, Dorothy Gale in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. By creating a girl protagonist, instead of one who is a grown woman, you can avoid the problem of either punishing her for her sexuality or not punishing her for it.

I can speak to this dilemma personally as the creator of Maud in Maud’s Line, a character who some have called a “magnetic,” but who others, in pre-publication reviews, have condemned for her wanton ways. The desire to punish a woman for her sexuality is still as alive and well as it was when Hawthorne made Hester an outcast. Since it is true that in real life women pay more for their sexuality than men pay for theirs, I don’t know that this problem will ever go away. I do hope, though, that novelists will give us more women who know what they want and try their best to get it. I prefer sexy ones, myself. They are more fun to write and, I hope, for most people, more fun to read.

 

 

 

 

About the book

Margaret Verble is the author of Maud’s Line, a historical novel chronicling the life and loves of a headstrong, earthy, and magnetic heroine (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, July 14). Eastern Oklahoma, 1928. Eighteen-year-old Maud Nail lives with her rogue father and sensitive brother on one of the allotments parceled out by the U.S. Government to the Cherokees when their land was confiscated for Oklahoma’s statehood. Maud’s days are filled with hard work and simple pleasures, but often marked by violence and tragedy, a fact that she accepts with determined practicality. Her prospects for a better life are slim, but when a newcomer with good looks and books rides down her section line, she takes notice. Soon she finds herself facing a series of high-stakes decisions that will determine her future and those of her loved ones. Maud’s Line is accessible, sensuous, and vivid. It will sit on the bookshelf alongside novels by Jim Harrison, Louise Erdrich, Sherman Alexie, and other beloved chroniclers of the American West and its people.

 

 

About the author

Margaret Verble is an enrolled and voting citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and a member of a large Cherokee family that has, through generations, made many contributions to the tribe’s history and survival. Although many of her family have remained in Oklahoma to this day, and some still own and farm the land on which the book is set, Margaret was raised in Nashville, Tennessee, and currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky, and Old Windsor, England. Many of the characters of Maud’s Line are based on people Margaret knew as a child and the setting is land she roamed for many years of her life. In part, Margaret wrote this book to keep those people and that land alive in her heart. Margaret has authored many academic publications and television scripts. Her short stories have appeared in various publications, including The Saturday Evening Post and the Arkansas Review.  

Buy Maud’s Line on Amazon

Visit Margaret Verble’s website

 

 

 

GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee: Read The First Chapter

A historic literary event

At four days from the release of Go Set A Watchman, Haper Lee’s sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird, The Guardian unveils the first chapter of the book with an interactive excerpt read by Reese Witherspoon. The Oscar winning actress is also the official narrator of the audiobook version.

Read Chapter 1 of Go Set A Watchman (24 minutes) here.

Originally written in the mid-1950s and due to be published on July 14 by HarperCollins, Go Set a Watchman was the novel Harper Lee first submitted to her publishers before To Kill a Mockingbird. Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014. Go Set a Watchman features many of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird some twenty years later. Returning home to Maycomb to visit her father, Jean Louise Finch—Scout—struggles with issues both personal and political, involving Atticus, society, and the small Alabama town that shaped her.

Exploring how the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird are adjusting to the turbulent events transforming mid-1950s America, Go Set a Watchman casts a fascinating new light on Harper Lee's enduring classic. Moving, funny and compelling, it stands as a magnificent novel in its own right.

Interesting facts about the book

The title comes from Isaiah 21:6: "For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth." It alludes to Scout's view of her father, Atticus Finch, as the moral compass (watchman) of Maycomb.

Though the book has been characterized in media reports as a sequel to Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, Go Set a Watchman was written in the mid-1950s, before she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, which was published in 1960. She set it aside when her editor suggested that she write another novel from the young Scout Finch's perspective. The manuscript was then lost for many years, until being rediscovered by her lawyer in the fall of 2014. It will be published as originally written, with no revisions.

News sources, including NPR and BBC News, have reported that the conditions surrounding the release of the book are unclear and posit that Lee may not have had full control of the decision. Investigators for the state of Alabama interviewed Lee in response to a suspicion of elder abuse in relation to the publication of the book. However, by April 2015 the investigation had found that the claims were unfounded.

 

Go Set a Watchman: A Novel is the most pre- ordered print title on Amazon since the last book in the "Harry Potter" series.

 

Harper Lee, 1961