Never Say Diet

Just in time for the seasonal resolutions that come with the New Year territory is Chantel Hobbs' Never Say Diet. Her writing reflects the title. She does not want people to diet but rather change their lifestyle and approach to food.

The book has three parts. In the first section, Chantel explains five decisions that you, the reader, need to make in order to truly lose weight and achieve a healthy life. First is to stop making excuses! She lists twenty that can keep us from taking the first step toward a healthy lifestyle, a few of which are: “I don’t have enough hours” “I’m too old” “I have too much weight to lose” and “I have the fat gene”.

The author writes this book from experience, as she started out in 2001 at age 29 weighing almost 350 pounds. Her first step was to surrender the weight battle to God. She understood she had a choice. With God’s help, she committed to choosing to lose weight and get fit. “I didn’t need the unconditional love of strangers; I needed unconditional commitment from myself.” (pg. 15) Very openly, the author details her background, her struggles, pitfalls, the steps she took, her successes. Over and over again, she emphasizes that the most difficult aspect is changing the way we think. That has to be done with God’s help.

The second section of Never Say Diet is a suggested fitness plan, with food and meal lists, detailed exercises (with photos) and places to record progress. The third section fields common questions and answers. Also emphasized is that the lifestyle is not just for you only, but for your whole family. It’s right in tune with all the articles concerning childhood obesity that are prevalent today.

I found Never Say Diet easy to read, informative, and encouraging.

Published by WaterBrook Press, I have one book to give away.

I also have a copy of The Never Say Diet Personal Fitness Trainer to give away. The handbook is a 16 week, Scripturally based plan for healthy eating and exercise.

Both paperbacks can also be purchased from CBD and Amazon.com.

Only Nuns Change Habits Overnight

This short book, less than 200 pages, is billed as “52 Amazing Ways to Master the Art of Personal Change.” The main premise of the author, Karen Scalf Linamen, is that we are often too content to stay in the same old rut. Doing the same things repeatedly, we are often surprised when we keep getting the same results. At the end of each section, she offers questions and steps for diagnosing and pursuing changes that we desire.

I thought her main point, that we all have developed habits that produce either good or bad fruit, was well put when she wrote “Habits are the little anchors that keep us from straying very far from the lifestyle to which we’ve become accustomed, whether that lifestyle makes us happy or miserable” (pg. 54). Linamen notes that often habits are sometimes unnoticeable unless we really stop and think about why we act certain ways.

While it is humorous, I found it to be too “cutesy-poo” for my taste. Loaded with personal anecdotes, there are many of her own habits listed that she is aware of, desires to change, but so far hasn’t. I tired of the constant parenthesized side notes within sentences.

Page 120 began the meatiest portion of the book, with action #39. Finally, prayer enters the text. Even though there were a few Biblical passages previously listed for reference, it is in this section that Linamen actually suggests the reader pray, ask God, and expect to receive answers. Also presented is a very clear message of the importance of a personal relationship with Christ.

Only Nuns Change Habits Overnight is published by WaterBrook Press.
I have two extra copies if you are interested; just drop me a note.
It can also be purchased here:

Living Rich for Less

Living Rich for Less is an easy-to-grasp handbook of suggestions and proven ways for developing a lifestyle that you desire. In energetic fashion that jumps from the pages, author Ellie Kay relates the motivation she had to work on ridding her family of debt. She uses her personal experience of being a military wife and raising 7 children to persuade the reader that anyone can live a debt-free life.

The chapters are interspersed with websites of various organizations that can be consulted for places to give (time, materials, money), ideas for business, tools for financial calculations, and online sites for comparison shopping. I was impressed with her detailed explanation of the FICO score and how it’s figured and the practices of credit agencies.

Ellie Kay espouses the 10/10/80 rule: give 10 percent, save 10 percent, and be smart in how to spend the other 80 percent. She starts early on with developing an attitude of giving in all areas. She reminds us that the goal is to be out of debt and living contently in order to give more.

Her key principle to remember: R.I.C.H.

• Redemption: Claim financial redemption and admit you have a problem
• Instruction: Submit yourself to wise instruction
• Commitment: Absolutely commit to put any unexpected income toward debt repayment
• Hope: Befriend a companion named Hope

As a Dave Ramsey fan, I was curious as to how Living Rich for Less would compare with his publications. Most of the same principles are presented but in a slightly different fashion. Where he presents a detailed, steady, step by step process for getting out of debt, Ellie Kay gives mostly helpful tips and suggestions.

This is a good primer for someone who may never have looked at practical ways of spending less. Ellie Kay said she had the mindset that saving, spending less, and being out of debt in order to give more away was her “business.” That’s a key principle to making Living Rich for Less work for you.

Ellie Kay is a featured family finance expert in numerous magazines and newspapers.
Published by WaterBrook Press.
I have two copies available to give away if you are interested. Just drop me a note.

It can also be purchased from the following sites:
www.Amazon.com, www.ChristianBook.com, www.FamilyChristian.com

When the Soul Mends

Hannah has been living in an Englischer town, under the care of her aunt Zabeth who previously left the Old Order Amish community years before. She is working toward a degree in the medical field, something she would not have been allowed to do in her community. Close emotionally to Martin, a man raised by her aunt, she is helping him to raise his niece and nephew.

In the opening chapter, we find Hannah driving into Owl’s Perch in the midst of a funeral service for her good friend Matthew’s brother who tragically died in a shop fire. She is unsure of her reception after fleeing home under cloudy circumstances two years before, ostracized by her community. Her sister Sarah’s strange phone call begging her to come concerns her enough to cause her to make the bold trip.

Cindy Woodsmall’s new novel, When the Soul Mends, details Hannah’s struggles for finding help for her sister’s mental illness that will be allowed by the leaders of the community, acceptance, reconnection, and dealing with her conflicting feelings towards Paul, the young man she had been courting two years before. Woodsmall does a great job intertwining the various family and friend relationships. Envisioning Hannah’s assessments of Old Order Amish and Englischer customs, the reader can empathize with her wavering between the two.

Salvation, forgiveness, concern, understanding, love: all these and more are found in When the Soul Mends.

Published by WaterBrook Press, this is the third novel in the "Sisters of the Quilt" series by Cindy Woodsmall.

If you are interested in a very enjoyable book, I have two copies to give away.