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Gift Ideas
For Fitness Fans
From good food to good workouts to a Zen state of mind, some gift ideas for the physically fit (or on the path to be!).
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about this
Organic food is the best food possible. It’s synonymous with premium quality, delicious flavor, conscientious farming, and optimum health. It’s what we need to feed our kids, it’s what we deserve to feed ourselves. And thanks in part to Myra Goodman, co-owner and cofounder of Earthbound Farm with her husband, Drew, organic food is now available just about anywhere fresh food is sold, becoming more mainstream every day.
Not only has Myra been growing organic food for over twenty years, she has been cooking with it, too. In Food to Live By she combines her twin food passions, serving up hundreds of recipes, ideas, shopping and cooking tips, health notes, and more. Illustrating the book are full-color photographs throughout that bring readers right into the breathtaking California sunshine.
This is perfect cooking for friends and family, packed with irresistible dishes for weeknight dinners and casual entertaining, festive breakfasts and fall picnics. Recipes are all about the ingredients and their intrinsic qualities, not fancy techniques or time-consuming steps. Marry chicken with three simple accompaniments— rosemary, lemons, and garlic—and it’s transformed. Heighten the flavor of a springtime fava bean and orzo salad with an unexpected fava bean “pesto.” Combine Meyer lemon juice and soy sauce to create a marinade, tenderizer, and sauce that results in a perfect grilled flank steak.
Food to Live By also includes a wealth of information about organic farming and how to make the wisest food choices; there are full-color Field Guides—to gourmet greens, apples, heirloom tomatoes, winter squash—and Farm Fresh ingredient guides to sorrel, corn, melons, avocados, organic poultry, asparagus, artichokes, ginger, and more, featuring what to look for plus care and handling. The book is a boon to food lovers.
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By Myra Goodman
$35.00(USD)
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2
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about this
Hipper than Taebo, sexier than Pilates, The S Factor--stripping--is the hottest new fitness trend. Created by actress Sheila Kelley (LA Law, Sisters, and a host of film and Broadway roles), S-Factor classes are wildly popular and generating an avalanche of attention from Extra, Entertainment Tonight, The Los Angeles Times, Allure, Us magazine, Fox News, and CBS's 48 Hours, which proclaimed: "Women don't even know they're working out until two months later when they say, 'I've never had a better body in my life. I'm strong, I'm limber, I feel great.'" Sheila even convinced Barbara Walters to try a pole dance on The View.
No wonder. Combining yoga, dance, and erotic movements, The S Factor is a program that tones muscle, firms the body, increases flexibility, promotes weight loss, and gives you a few new tricks for the bedroom. Illustrated in hundreds of photographs that show step by step how each move is done, the exercises are sensual yet demanding, requiring a balance of strength and finesse. There are slow, rounded warm-ups, the Spine Circles and Hip Circles. Strenuous motions, like the Rocking Cat-Cow. Peels and rolls, grinds, pounces, arches. And pole work, from the Firefly to Descending Angel.
Something else happens, too: These exercises and routines boost self-esteem and give women a new way to think about their bodies. Stripping is a liberating act, out of which comes a new look, new body, new confidence, new you.
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By Sheila Kelley
$24.95(USD)
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3
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about this
Take two-they're small. And they perform miracles. Suffering a career-ending, potentially crippling injury to her back and right leg, a young dancer named Elaine Petrone tried everyone from orthopedists to yogis to turn her pain and prognosis around. Nothing worked-until she healed herself through a unique program of therapy and exercise based around the use of two small, squishy balls. From there she turned her passion into a mission that is helping the thousands of people who visit her classes conquer pain, stress, and injury.
Now, for relief for sufferers everywhere, comes The Miracle Ball Method, a healing kit containing two miracle balls and a fully illustrated book, all packaged together in an attention-getting clear plastic cylinder. The work itself is simple. Take a sore back: By resting your aching back on the grapefruit-sized balls and letting your body sink into them, you're unworking the muscles that hurt. Pain and tension drain out of the body. Petrone shows how proper breathing (which she demonstrates) works in conjunction with a range of unexercises that call for placing the balls under the back, head, knees, hip, elbow-wherever there's pain-and then resting, rolling, or rotating on them. She points out that relief can come in surprising ways: Lower back pain may be helped by placing the ball under your neck, or a bad knee might be helped by hip work. It's a revolutionary program of relief, from head to toe.
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By Elaine Petrone
$17.95(USD)
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about this
Co-written by one of the country's most prominent internists, Dr. Henry "Harry" Lodge, and his star patient, the 73-year-old Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women is a book of hope, a guide to aging without fear or anxiety. This is a book of hope, a guide to aging without fear or anxiety. Using the same inspired structure of alternating voices, Chris and Harry have recast material specifically for women, who already live longer and take better care of themselves than men. New material covers menopause and post-menopause, as well as cardiac disease, osteoporosis, sexuality, and more. This is the book that can show us how to turn back our biological clocks—how to put off 70% of the normal problems of aging (weakness, sore joints, bad balance) and eliminate 50% of serious illness and injury. The key to the program is found in Harry's Rules: Exercise six days a week. Don't eat crap. Connect and commit to others. There are seven rules all together, based on the latest findings in cell physiology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and experimental psychology. Dr. Lodge explains how and why they work—and Chris Crowley, who is living proof of their effectiveness (skiing better today, for example, than he did twenty years ago), gives the just-as-essential motivation. Both men and women can become functionally younger every year for the next five to ten years, then continue to live with newfound vitality and pleasure deep into our 80s and beyond. |
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By Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D.; Foreword by Gail Sheehy
$12.95(USD)
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5
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about this
This retitled, redesigned edition of Too Busy to Exercise offers fun, easy fitness tips that don't involve expensive health clubs or exhausting workouts.
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By Porter Shimer
$9.95(USD)
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6
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about this
The easiest diet going is now even easier--and tastier. Off to an explosive start, The G.I. Diet quickly landed on New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists, and required five quick printings (for a total of 190,000 copies) to keep pace with demand after national publicity discovered the "Canadian miracle diet" (Woman's World). Now, continuing to build on the nutritional wisdom of the glycemic index, Rick Gallop follows up with the essential companion--a cookbook and strategy guide for living the G.I. Diet.
Organized around the simple, intuitive principle of green-, yellow-, and red-light foods--if you can follow a traffic light, you can follow this diet--Living the G.I. Diet gets right into the kitchen with 135 dishes that are as easy to prepare as they are unrecognizable as diet food. Grilled Pesto Salmon with Asparagus. Beef and Eggplant Chili. Garlic Shrimp Pasta. Thai Chicken Curry. Pork Tenderloin with Grainy Mustard and Chive Crust. Cinnamon French Toast. Florentine Frittata. And desserts: Baked Chocolate Mousse, Basmati Rice Pudding, Pecan Brownies--that's right, brownies.
In addition, the book spells out how to lose weight (Phase I) and maintain weight loss (Phase II); how to make G.I. eating a family affair; navigating holidays, restaurants, vacation eating; and exploring the psychological and emotional aspects of food and food cravings--everything you need to stay on this proven track.
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By Rick Gallop; With Emily Richards
$21.95(USD)
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about this
Yoga addresses all of the basics of the discipline, including health benefits, different styles of yoga and which one to follow, all of the basic postures, how to practice, breathing techniques, meditation, and much more. Two-color illustrations offer at-a-glance instruction, and inspiring photographs set the mood. Packaged with a beautiful satin-bound cover and clasp.
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By Michele Picozzi
$12.95(USD)
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8
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about this
Developed by weight-loss experts Drs. James O. Hill and John C. Peters, co-founders of America on the Move™, The Step Diet Book is a motivational walking program that will help millions of overweight Americans lose weight and keep it off forever.
Combining a book and pedometer--in itself a $20 value--plus conversion charts and dozens of fat-burning Step Recipes, this is a complete package. At its core is a simple concept called energy balance. Calories come in, calories go out--and when intake is greater than output, you gain weight. The Step Diet Book attacks the problem from both ends. First, use the pedometer to figure out how many steps you take in an average day, then raise the number by 2,000--it's as easy as pacing while talking on the phone, or parking at the far end of the lot. Second, eat one-quarter less of your food--which counteracts our tendency to supersize meals. Once balance is achieved, get fit and lose weight by adding more steps to your day. You can even enjoy a guilt-free lapse by knowing exactly how many steps to tack on at the end of your day.
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By James O. Hill, John C. Peters and Bonnie T. Jortberg; Foreword by Pamela M. Peeke
$22.95(USD)
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9
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about this
The bible used by heart patients and recommended by thousands of hospitals, The Road to a Healthy Heart is the cardiac patient's step-by-step guide to cooking and eating in the real world. Born out of Joe Piscatella's own experience of coming back from emergency bypass surgery—and his wife's determination to gather the recipes and prepare the foods that would keep her husband alive—this is a complete 10-years-in-the-making revision of the classic Don't Eat Your Heart Out Cookbook.
With: Silver Dollar Pancakes, Grilled Steak and Onion Salad, Tex-Mex Pizza, Linguine with Clam Sauce, Warm Caramel Pears, and Apple Cranberry Crisp.
The furthest thing from a diet of deprivation, these 30 family-friendly, Mediterranean-style recipes will help you prevent, manage and perhaps even reverse heart disease, lose weight and keep it off, and enjoy the double benefit of good health and good cheer.
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By Joseph C. Piscatella and Bernie Piscatella
$24.95(USD)
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10
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about this
Go beyond the gym with this all-new way to look at health and fitness. This sports-based plan is so enjoyable you may not realize you’re exercising, and it’s so effective you’ll be hooked forever.
The word “exercise” makes many of us think of the treadmill or pumping iron. But, according to The Chelsea Piers Fitness Solution, there’s a more enjoyable and successful way to achieve a lifetime of fitness. Getting it can be as simple as finding an activity you love and doing it with passion and consistency.
The Chelsea Piers Fitness Solution begins with a specially formulated quiz that determines your “fitness personality.” Next, choose a sport or activity that suits you from more than 25 options. Detailed chapters walk you through an overview of the sport; how to get started; what gear you will need; and where to find instruction. Also included are inspiring testimonials from ordinary people who’ve taken up the sport, information on nutrition, and advice on progressing with your sport.
The Chelsea Piers Fitness Solution is a can’t-fail, lifetime fitness program that will have you looking good and feeling great.
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By Elena Rover
$24.95(USD)
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about this
Here is the perfect book for beginning riders who are using muscles they never knew they had before, advanced riders who want to stay in top form (especially as they get older), and weather-bound riders who can't get out during the winter but want to be fit when spring arrives.
The Rider's Fitness Program details a fun and effective six-week program that strengthens the muscles riders use while improving overall balance, flexibility, and coordination. The book features more than 85 exercises designed to help new riders get over the aches and pains of getting started and experienced riders hone their skills and technique and prevent injuries. The ultimate goal, of course, is to achieve "oneness" with the horse.
The routines are flexible, so individuals can customize the workout they need for jumping, dressage, reining, endurance, polo, or rodeo. The exercises are accompanied by step-by-step photographs that demonstrate how to perform each action properly (with an emphasis on safety). The exercises are progressive, from basic to advanced, and suitable for riders at all fitness levels.
The authors also include fundamental information on diet, general health and safety, and what clothing and equipment are necessary.
The Rider's Fitness Program is a comprehensive handbook for riders of all experience levels, with workout routines for every type of riding discipline.
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By Dianna Robin Dennis, John J. McCully and Paul M. Juris
$19.95(USD)
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12
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about this
America is crisscrossed by a vast hidden web of hiking trails. Alongside our familiar grid of crowded streets and highways, those trails form an alternate reality—one that leads to wild nature and scenic beauty. Hiking on a wilderness trail such as the North Inlet Trail or the Long Trail takes you to rare sights: a one-hundred-mile view of a lightning storm or a freeze-frame glimpse of an eagle snatching a salmon from a stream. It takes you within earshot of a cougar’s scream or a loon’s lonesome cry. Trails can lead to solitude, to unexpected wonders, and back to basics—to a sense of what you can do and what the earth has to offer.
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By National Audubon Society
$11.95(USD)
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about this
In May 2001, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) broke a major pizza story on the ABC television program 20/20 and once again captured front-page headlines, just as it did when it released studies on movie popcorn and take-out Chinese food.
In Restaurant Confidential, Dr. Michael F. Jacobson and his CSPI team do for sit-down meals what their Fast-Food Guide--with 247,000 copies in print--did for fast food. Belgian Waffle or Rib-Eye Steak? Bloomin' Onion or Mrs. Fields's Double-Fudge Brownie? Americans are now eating almost one-third of their meals outside the home, spending $222 billion annually doing so-and watching their waistlines balloon. What's in this food? To answer, CSPI performs across-the-board restaurant profiles that give straight-shooting scientific data on the fat, sodium, and calorie content of the most popular dishes.
The information is organized by type of cuisine--Chinese, Mexican, steak house, and more--and covers all the major chains, such as The Olive Garden, Applebee's, and Outback. The book provides specific eating strategies for every kind of restaurant, as well as shocking facts: Did you know that a typical order of stuffed potato skins packs a whopping 1,260 calories and 48 grams--two days' worth--of saturated fat? A 10-point plan for ordering wisely, plus dozens of tips throughout, takes the information one step further by showing how to eat happily and healthfully. It's the nutrition book that reads like a thriller. Take the steak and brownies; a whole fried onion with dipping sauce has a blooming 163 grams of fat, and the seemingly innocent Belgian waffle with whipped topping and fruit has even more fat and calories than two sirloin steaks.
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By Michael F. Jacobson, Jayne Hurley and Center for Science in the Public Interest
$12.95(USD)
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People are serious now. They’re going to the gym and changing their diets. Hundreds of thousands of people are working on turning back their biological clocks, doing the exercise that can put off up to 70% of the typical decay associated with aging and eliminate 50% of the illnesses that afflict people as they get older.
Now, to make that promise even easier to achieve, comes the Younger Next Year Journal. This is a needed recordkeeper for every trip to the gym, or better yet, bike vacation or ski trip. Beginning with a short introduction to working out the Younger Next Year way—how to use a heart rate monitor, why keeping a journal is important, how to look at exercise as your new job—here is a 224-page fill-in book with prompts that help you keep meticulous track of your workouts, your heart rate, your diet, how you feel, how you’ve reached out to others, and more. In addition, the journal is filled with motivational tips from Chris Crowley—don’t skimp on leg weights, treat yourself to the best equipment, how to get your Significant Other to work out with you—and medical Q&A’s from Dr. Henry Lodge, covering the science of aging, low-fat diets, and more.
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By Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D.
$11.95(USD)
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15
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As one of the largest and most successful yoga-based retreat and education centers in the world, Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Lenox, Massachusetts, attracts many of the leading teachers of yoga and Buddhist meditation to its annual retreat, East meets East: Yoga & Buddhism. In Will Yoga & Meditation Really Change My Life? Stephen Cope brings to the printed page the fascinating dialogue that he has fostered in these retreats. Cope asks participating teachers to share their Tales from the Path, stories of how the long-term practice of these ancient traditions has changed their lives. The result is an inspirational volume featuring 26 distinct voices telling their stories, how they became interested in these traditions, the teachers who inspired them, and how the practice of yoga and meditation has shaped their lives and perspectives. The contributors, many of whom are authors of well-known books on these topics, speak of their experiences as real people living in our complex world, complete with spouses, children, aging parents, financial demands, illnesses, injuries, and all of the ordinary aggravations of everyday life. Many of these teachers have studied and explored the practice of yoga or meditation over the course of 30 years and have been pivotal in creating retreat centers, styles of yoga, and teaching techniques that have contributed to the widespread popularity of these practices in mainstream culture. The stories of these teachers ask the questions, What is possible for me, in my life, right now? How can my practice of yoga and meditation help me lead a more satisfying life? These are questions on which every spiritual seeker and practitioner of yoga and meditation inevitably must reflect. |
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By Stephen Cope
$22.95(USD)
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