Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted

Some very good information but not very many recipes. Beautiful photos of everything. Some useful text. A nice list of brain healthy foods. For the price there could have been a lot more recipes even if they were raw food recipes. The doctor condones eating mostly vegetarian foods with minimal processing and cooking along with several healthy herbs for seasoning. But the recipes do include fish and poutry and one lamb recipe. With vegetarian options. Would have given it 5 stars if it had been more for the money.

This book has confirmed what I have said for years, "My problem is in my head! " It has helped me understand how important our brain is and its affect on all areas of our lives. Learning to take real good care of my brain, my whole body truly comes alive in more ways than I could imagine. Wanda

Excelent info and i wish everyone would but this book and follow it religously.I think the info about future senility and staving off senility are right on the money, exercise and nutrition are important

Very informative and interesting I find it difficult to put down. It's a book that you can't read enough of, there is so much to learn from it. This can really help you find an alternative help not only for yourself but for your child. I have a 5yr son that has a sever case of ADHD, ODD and mood disorder; this books has given me other options besides just medicating my child. I have talked with my son's therapist and doctors about his care and they are on board with it.

Eating healthy is more important then we know. This is a super healthy eating cookbok. I have not tried all the recipes yet but the ones I have tried are good to very good. If you want a healthy body and brain and a GREAT price on this book buy it from the store! I went to Dr. Amen's seminar and they are much higher there or on his website. Great brains and great bodies start with healthy food!

This book was very enlightening. It motivated me to get off the couch and exercise. I also learned that the supplements I had been taking for years might not be the best for my brain type, causing me to switch. I recommend this book to anyone that wants to understand their motivations (or lack thereof) better and is ready to do something about it!

I benefitted immensely from Dr Amen's book on ADD (Healing ADD: The Breakthrough Program That Allows You to See and Heal the 6 Types of ADD). To me, that work was God sent. It explained ADD/ADHD using the brain imaging techniques that Dr Amen had developed in his clinic. Till this date, his "Six Types of ADD" stands head and shoulders above the work done by anyone else. Even though medical community is reluctant to accept the significance of his work, there simply is no better way to diagnose AD/ADHD and fine tune the medication. As a matter of fact, no other diagnostic tools come even close to a simple questionnaire developed by Dr Amen for identifying ADD and its co-morbid conditions.

In similar line, he went ahead and written another book on treating Anxiety and Depression (Healing Anxiety and Depression). It was another seminal work.

But, unfortunately, somewhere along the way, he got himself a well balanced brain (he claims in the book) and became more of a salesman and less of a scientist (I claim this one). He had never brought the brilliance, rigour and originality to any books other than the above two. This book, sadly, suffers from the same shortfall.

Following is the gist of what you will find in each chapter in the book:
* 1. The Brain-Body Solution: Brain health affects the body health and vice versa
* 2. The Craving Solution: Neuro-transmitter imbalance may lead to over eating (serotonin deficiency leads to carb craving; dopamine deficiency leads to impulsive eating)
* 3. The Weight Solution: Fine tuning the balancing of neuro-transmitter (choosing between Serotonin and Dopamine and some obligatory reference to GABA and Cortisol)
* 4. The Nutrition Solution: Synopsis of heal related articles published in "Reder's Digest" (of course, I am joking)
* 5. The Exercise Solution: Move to burn fat; best kind of exercise is Table Tennis (you are better off reading "Spark")
* 6. The Skin Solution: Long list of reason that may cause skin problem (e.g.: if you have dementia, you may not remember to take medications, to wear sunscreen, or to follow a skin healthy beauty regimen)
* 7. The Hormone Solution: HRT with itsy bitsy reference to thyroid, androgens and growth hormone (read "Ageless" instead)
* 8. The Heart Solution: Reader's Digest speaks on Heart health
* 9. The Focus and Energy Solution: If you have problem with focus or energy, the issue may be with your brain, hormones, infections, blood sugar, anemia, toxins, stress...nothing new here either
* 10. The Sleep Solution: If you sleep you look beautiful and healthy (I'm brain dead by now); and of course, if you have sleep problems, try hypnosis first
* 11. The Stress Solution: Stress busting solutions that you have read last year...or the year before that
* 12. The Memory Solution: Laundry list of heal issues that my result in memory problem
* 13. The ANT Solution: Brief introduction to CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy)
* 14. The Passion Solution: Have more sex; Tantra is great
* 15. The Brain Health Solution: Brain disorder may affect your body
* 16. Change Other People's Bodies: 5 pages of sweet nothings
* Anx A. Important Numbers: How to calculate BMI, how many hours you need to sleep, blood sugar levels, etc.
* Anx B. Questionnaire: Quick and dirty diagnosis of your brain health (this is from his original work; a gem)
* Anx C. Supplements: Brief list of various supplements and how you can buy some of them from Dr Amen himself

If you are a teenager or you are absolutely new to reading books on health management, you will have patience to read through this one. But for anyone else, the book lacks depth.

That is sad because Dr Amen had done such an original work in understanding the brain. He could've brought so much fresh perspective to health management. Unfortunately, there is only a smattering of original content in this book. The rest is just a collection of information from various health management literatures that it could have been easily written by a journalist who got a little help from the good Doctor!

Lots of great and easy healthful recipes. Kind of nice to know not only are you losing weight, but everything you put in your mouth is good for you. Best of all, you feel full and never feel deprived.

I don't know the scientific validity of the information in this book, but it sure sounds good. Nothing seems extreme or absurd whether it be diet, exercise, or supplement recommendations. Any information or recommendations I have found in the book and checked do not seem to have any serious contraindications. I also appreciate the fact that author is not trying to sell me services or supplements, or pie in the sky promises, magic bullets, or easy answers.

::please read::

Two years ago I went to a depression/anxiety clinic for the first time in my life and was immediately prescribed Adderall and Lexapro and went into Mania and ruined my life. Had I read this book, that likely wouldn't have happened.
When I filled out Dr. Amens questionnaire it picked up that I might be Bi-polar and said explicitly "DO NOT TAKE anything the questionnaire suggests that increases Serotonin, because it could cause harm or mania.."
Had I read this, had I known 2 years ago, I wouldn't have screwed up my life and lost the most amazing woman I've met in my life.

I read "change your brain change your body" and have followed it for nearly 2 months and so far have lost 14 pounds, and had 3 people(2 which were guys) randomly complement my skin. I can see that my skin glows and is healthy, I'm a guy and I never really cared about my skin but seeing it and having other people notice without me saying anything is just proof enough to know some of this is true.

I can honestly say I have never felt better in my life, but it hasn't been easy.
I run at least 3 miles a day now, take vitamins(fish oil, multi, vit-D, green tea, and L-tyrosine.)

I think that is where a lot of the negative reviews come from. It's not overnight, and it's not a quick fix.
It doesn't advertise drugs though it will highly recommend vitamins but tailors those to your needs. Most importantly it gives you brain scans, and the neuro-science behind why it recommends what it does. This involves you doing some work and thought on your own. Most clinics will recommend Drugs right away, and it's an educated guess at best when it comes to the brain. Dr.Amen's books are designed to give you the tools to self evaluate and try correcting/healing yourself by taking the right vitamins, exercising and generally leading a brain healthy life. If this doesn't work there are other options but actually looking at the brain isn't cheap. This is a smarter more participatory way of looking at brain health, which as of yet isn't perfect.

I can pretty much tell you it will recommend these things; Fish Oil in conjunction with Exercise, and possibly meditation(yoga,prayer,tai chi.) But it will also have you fill out a questionnaire and suggest Vitamins to aid in areas you feel you have trouble with, but it will tell you why/how that vitamin works or aides the brain . It approaches this from a neuro-science, brain image point of view, it's not overly new agey, or pointlessly holistic. Ultimately should vitamins/exercise not work Dr.Amen has clinics that do brain scans and brain chemistry tests. They move on to Drugs only after they've seen what is going on in the brain and compare that to what they think is wrong based on what the patient describes. .. This isn't cheap, but it's a whole lot more reasonable than going to a Dr. being prescribed drugs and screwing up your whole life as was my case.

For me the basic information inspired me and showed me how important exercise and being healthy was. We all know this is true but this book gave me the scientific background to show me that it's NOT OPTIONAL for my brain. If I want to live well, feel good, and be mentally coherent into old age I must exercise and cut out lots of junk food, alcohol and take vitamins.

The book is not bad. There are very interesting information on brain types.

The big problem with the book is frankly a lack of focus. You may very well come away with an OMG-now-what feeling. That's because the author attempt to cover many possibilities that contribute to the same problem. Let's say you suffer from anxiety, by the end of the book, you will have been given 50 different things that could have contributed to you experiencing anxiety - and when you try to summarize all those "solutions" it tends to lead you to basic good commons sense: eat well, exercise, don't stress. Great! Now I know how to live.

That is not to say that book doesn't give good advice or that it doesn't have added information. But for 80% of the book, you would have already known the common sense information if you paid any remote attention to the usual batch of health and fitness related articles and magazines.

The big draw for me to purchase this book is to learn about the different types of brains that Dr. Amen has identified. And how each can be best managed via supplements? I focused in on supplements because I already have fairly good regime when it comes to food and exercise. He does provide the info I seek, but I had to shuffle through different parts of the book to piece the information together. The author did not make that easy. At the end of it, I came up with a one-page of summary from all those scattered writings. I'm OK with it but it is clearly not the best. It also indicate the value of your money, assuming you had some common sense about diets already.

The point is, if you don't know a lot of basic information to begin with regarding good eating and brain habits, then this book will be very valuable. If you know the basics already, you will find information that you've not seen before but it takes some work to extract out the info and it puts to question the real value you are getting.

The tittle of the book was definitely what called my attention to the book "change your brain change your body". I'm almost finished and I have enjoyed the medical point of view from the author and I like how
he has the ability to keep you interested. No one who does not study medicine is aware of all this information and how is link to our bodies, thoughts, hormones, etc wowowo.. Thank you for sharing all of your learnings.

The recipes are tasty and as described. This book is a must have complement to 'Change your Brain Change your Body'. The book is well organized and the recipes are easy to follow and very satisfying. You will need access to at least one well stocked health food outlet for the menus.