Drop Dead Healthy
One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
After sharpening his mind in The Know-It-All and achieving spiritual enlightenment in The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs had only one thing left to tackle in the self-improvement trinity: the body. But his mission wasn't just to lose a couple of pounds, but to turn his current self - 'a mushy, easily winded, moderately sickly blob' - into a paragon of health and vitality.
Armed with a team of medical advisers and a 53-page task list, Jacobs set to work. He subjected his body to a brutal regime of exercise programmes - extreme chewing, anti-gravity yoga and shoeless jogging to name only a few; sampled every miracle diet going, beginning with the 'coffee, booze and chocolate' plan through the 'Rastafarian diet' to raw foodism; as well as sharpening his eyes and mind, testing every known method, and the patience of his long-suffering wife, in his quest to become as healthy as humanly possible.
Drop Dead Healthy is a hilarious account of one man's painful journey from slob to superman, and a fascinating and eye-opening examination of what it really means to be healthy. Revealing the ugly truth about the assumptions and obsessions we have about our bodies, this might just be the healthiest book you'll ever read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With three bestselling titles in his One Man's Humble Quest series, Jacobs decided to become "the healthiest man alive," first consulting medical experts, making a list of outr diets, and putting himself in unusual situations. To try out the Paleo movement's Caveman Workout, "which is all about being natural and savage and out in the wilderness," he ran bare-chested through the wilderness of Central Park. He investigated the antiaerobic "slow fitness movement" that requires exercising only 20 minutes a week. With a 70-page to-do list, he tried everything from acupuncture to Nature's Platform, a metal stand for squatting on top of a toilet since "there's bona fide evidence squatting is better for you." Each body part gets its own chapter; in "The Gonads" he recalls a urologist who told him, "When I do a prostate exam, it's easy. I use one finger. Maybe two if I want a second opinion." Jacobs achieves an instant intimacy with the reader, making his family life as much a part of the narrative as his many meetings with medical theorists and health gurus. He's a clever humorist who successfully takes his readers on a round trip from reality to absurdity, dispensing solid, valuable health information along with fascinating oddities.
