Fast Food Facts
by Marion Franz

Completely updated to include the top 40 fast food chains and over 2000 menu items, this best-selling guide offers a fast-food philosophy you can live with.

Dining Lean
by Joanne V. Lichten, R.D., Ph.D.

A great new book (just published) that not only give you tips on ordering healthier at restaurants, but also provides counts for calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates, and food exchanges. It also has guides showing serving sizes, and lists nutrition information for dozens of your favorite restaurants, including fast food.
(hardcover) (paperback)

The Restaurant Companion
by Hope S. Warshaw

This is a great guide for eating in restaurants. It shows preferred choices for 18 different style cuisines, from ethnic to airline food.

The Healthy Eater's Guide to Family and Chain Restaurants
by Hope S. Warshaw

This book gives suggestions for light and moderate choices in over 100 restaurant chains.

Fast-Food Guide
by Michael Jacobson, Ph.D. and Sarah Fritschner

A great resource for making healthy choices at fast-food restaurants. This guide includes nutrition charts, complete ingredient lists, and suggestions for best and worst offerings.

Lean Star Cuisine
by Terry Conlan

The author is an excellent chef at the Lake Austin Spa and Resort. In his cookbook, he details low fat/low cal recipes he has created and served to the patrons of the resort. The recipes are great, with an emphasis on southwestern cooking.

The Joy of Soy
by Dana Jacobi

This book is a great introduction to adding soy to your family's diet. Dana Jacobi talks about the different kinds of soy products, and teaches you how to use them in recipes.

This Can't Be Tofu
by Deborah Madison

Many of us like the idea of tofu better than the reality, and few of us know how to cook with it. Chef Deborah Madison's This Can't Be Tofu addresses such qualms, offering 75 recipes for this healthful (high in protein and low in salt, fat, and calories) food. Beginning with an introduction to tofu varieties, Madison then discusses tofu purchasing and basic preparation techniques such as draining and pressing, which make tofu a useful flavor medium.

5 Ingredient 15 Minute Cookbook
by Cooking Light

My new favorite cookbook, especially in the summer, when I don't want to spend time in the kitchen. Cooking Light always has great recipes, and these are especially fast and easy.

As always, Cooking Light provides great recipes with nutrition analyses.

Better Homes and Gardens New Dieter's Cookbook

If you buy only one light cookbook, this should be it. I recommend this cookbook most often. The recipes are clear, fairly easy, use common ingredients, and (best of all) turn out looking like the accompanying pictures (and taste great).

Favorite Desserts Made Lighter
by Better Homes and Gardens

Delicious desserts don't have to be fattening, as evidenced
by this cookbook. Recipes go from cakes to cookies, with everything in between, for those of us with a sweet tooth. As in all their other cookbooks, Better Homes and Gardens does a great job of providing good directions, nutrition information, and wonderful pictures.

The Volumetrics Weight Control Plan
by Barbara Rolls and Robert Barnett

Volumetrics is based on "the science of satiety"--what researchers have learned about the food choices that make people feel full. The authors teach you how to eat low-calorie-dense, high-volume foods so that you feel like you've eaten plenty, even though you've eaten fewer calories. You'll lose weight without feeling hungry or deprived.

Thin For Life
by Anne Fletcher, Jane E. Brody

What a novel idea: if you want to know how to successfully lose weight, study the real experts--the people who have done it! Registered dietician Anne Fletcher did just that. She surveyed 160 "masters" who succeeded in losing at least 20 pounds and keeping the weight off for at least 3 years. Thin for Life presents their success stories, strategies, motivation, inspiration, and tricks.

How To Get Your Kids to Eat...But Not Too Much
by Ellyn Satter

Satter stresses her "Golden Rule" of parenting: parents are responsible for what is presented to eat and the manner in which it is presented. Children are responsible for how much or even whether they eat. Early chapters describe basic feeding principals. Satter then stresses ways to develop and maintain normal eating patterns from birth through adolescence, and provides solid information (and information on "solids") to both empower and relieve all parents worried about how their child eats.

Eating Well for Optimum Health
by Dr. Andrew Weil

This book clarifies the mishmash of conflicting news, research, hype, and hearsay regarding diet, nutrition, and supplementation. Dr. Weil, the director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, combines traditional and alternative medicine in his approach to overall health.

Intuitive Eating
by Evelyn Tribole

Stating that listening to your body is more effective than dieting, a guide to eating intuitively explains how to reject the diet mentality, separate feelings from food, and eat without fear.

16 Myths of a Diabetic Diet
by Karen Hanson Chalmers and Amy E. Peterson

This book, published by the American Diabetes Association, helps to dispel the many myths about eating with diabetes. Yes, you can eat all foods!

9 Truths about Weight Loss
by Daniel Kirschenbaum

This refreshingly credible book may not tell you what you want to hear, but it does give you the straight facts about dropping excess pounds.

Jane Brody's Nutrition Book
by Jane E. Brody

I still think this is one of the best general information books on good nutrition. Jane Brody is a well-known, respected columnist who provides up-to-date, easy-to-understand information.

Nutrition for Dummies
by Carol Ann Rinzler

This book is easy to understand, and gives good basic information on nutrition. I really like the "dummies" books, especially for those who need basic information, and have little background in the area.

Dieting for Dummies
by Jane Kirby, et. al.

This book provides sound information on diets and dieting, including the pros and cons of different types of diets.

The Dance of Anger
by Harriet Goldhor Lerner, Ph.D.

I think this is one of the best books around on changing the pattern of relationships. While it focuses on anger, the principles and ideas can be applied to most aspects of human relationships.
(paperback) (audio)

Fight Fat After Forty
by Pamela Peeke, M.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Peeke discusses, with her wonderful sense of humor, the physical and emotional changes both women and men go through as we age, and offers realistic and sensible tools to combat them. While this book primarily focuses on perimenopausal years, it's a good book on aging in general.
(hardcover) (audio)

Nutrition for Women
by Elizabeth Somer, M.A., R.D.

This is a great reference book on women's health, covering topics from diet to pregnancy to athletes' needs to drugs to aging.

Strong Women Stay Slim
by Miriam E. Nelson, Ph.D. with Sarah Wernick, Ph.D.

The "strong women" books emphasize the role of exercise, particularly strength training, in maintaining a healthy and fit body as we age. A good reference guide to the roles of diet and exercise, along with suggested programs.
(hardcover) (paperback)

Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom
by Christiane Northrup, M.D.

This is a great reference book about all aspects of women's health, both physical and emotional. Dr. Northrup focuses on the mind-body connection, and provides up-to-date information on an entire range of women's health issues. Both conventional and alternative prevention and treatments are discussed in an easy-to-understand format.
(hardcover) (paperback) (audio)

Your Personal Trainer
by Douglas Brooks

One of the premier personal trainers in the United States shows how to develop a customized training program at a fraction of the cost. . Readers will learn how to get guaranteed results through Brooks' time-efficient workouts and his proven cardiovascular, stretching, and strengthening programs. Brooks also helps them tailor their programs according to physical limitations, personal preferences, and individual goals.

Stretching
by Bob Anderson

Now in its 20th edition, this remains one of the best books on stretching. The type of stretching Anderson recommends--called "static," meaning you sit in one place and hold the stretch for a specified amount of time--isn't exactly trendy, but it remains the most accessible way for entry-level exercisers to improve their flexibility. (Or, perhaps more important, to keep from losing whatever flexibility they have as they get older.)

Power Yoga
by Beryl Bender Brich

In Power Yoga, the first book on astanga yoga, a unique form of hatha yoga designed to build strength and stamina, Birch brings the ancient spiritual and physical practice to the West. Through anecdotes, detailed instructions, and hundreds of illustrations, Birch provides a total workout plan that's perfect for elite athletes, weekend warriors, and people just starting a fitness program.

The Ultimate Fit or Fat
by Covert Bailey

Covert Bailey's back with a new spin on the Fit or Fat principles. This book teaches you how to get fit faster and raise your metabolism. To improve your fitness level most quickly, Bailey recommends his "Four Food Groups of Good Exercise": aerobic exercise, cross training (varying your exercise choices), wind sprints (short bursts of high-intensity activity), and weight lifting.

Fitness and Health
by Brian Sharkey

This is the ideal reference for those who want to learn how to improve and maintain their health through regular and enjoyable physical activity. Logically organized, clearly written and effectively illustrated.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Pilates Method
by Kare Karter

This book teaches the basics of the Pilates method of fitness, a whole body workout that strengthens the abs and back and straightens the posture.

Muscle Mechanics
by Everett Aaberg

For anyone who weight trains, this book shows you how to perform exercises properly, and focuses on technique to enable you to get the most out of your workout. It may seem a bit technical for some, but this fitness director of the renowned Cooper Clinic in Dallas really knows his stuff. The accompanying pictures enable you to get a really good idea of how to perform the exercises, start to finish.

Smart Exercise
by Covert Bailey

This book provides useful information and practical advice on many aspects of exercise. Covert Bailey makes this book very user-friendly with his great sense of humor. He covers topics such as types of fuel used in exercise to metabolism to the role of food in exercise performance.

Fitness for Dummies
by Suzanne Schllosberg and Liz Neporent, M.A.

This easy-to-follow book talks about how to get started with exercise, types of activities, as well as things to look for when choosing a club, a trainer, a class, equipment, or videos. A great book for the beginner, and a lot of useful information for those more knowledgeable.
(paperback) (audio)

The Pocket Food and Exercise Diary
by Allen Borushek

This 10-week food and exercise diary is simple to use and very effective. University studies show that people who use a food diary not only lose more weight, they also keep it off! It is non-dated so can be started anytime. There are separate columns for food calories and exercise calories. At the end of the day columns are totaled and exercise calories can be deducted from food calories. A further column allows for fat grams.

DietMinder Personal Food and Fitness Journal
by F. Wilkins and D. Wilkins

A great journal for tracking your food and activity. Plenty of room to record your meals, etc.

Thin For Life Daybook
by Anne Fletcher