The Latina Guide to Health: Consejos and Caring Answers

From the renowned director of the Hormone Center of New York: complete cutting–edge medical and alternative strategies for living happily with your hormones–including how to enhance your sex life safely with testosterone.

According to Geoffrey Redmond, M.D., a majority of the 42 million American women between the ages of 35 and 55 suffer from vulnerability to their own hormones. Appearance, feelings–and even sex drive–may be affected. Symptoms include thinning hair, persistent acne, mood swings, low energy, loss of pleasure in sex, weight gain, irregular periods, and migraines. While the media has emphasized the problems of menopause, Dr. Redmond explains that many women experience hormonal miseries even in their thirties. Lab tests are often normal because the problem is not the hormones themselves but how a woman's body reacts to them. Healthy, active women suddenly find that once quiescent hormones are ruling their lives.

Because their problems are often dismissed as trivial, women who are hormonally vulnerable are frequently thwarted in their quest for help. Too often they are brushed off with remarks such as, "Your tests are normal; there's nothing wrong with you." This is tragic because, as Dr. Redmond demonstrates, hormonal balance can nearly always be restored with the treatments he details, which include individualized use of prescription medications, herbal supplements, lifestyle changes, and even spiritual practices.

Many women have heard that testosterone can help sex drive, but most have not been warned about the damage that careless testosterone therapy can cause on skin and hair. In this book, Dr. Redmond, an internationally recognized authority on testosterone in women, explains the only safe ways to use testosterone.

With informative sidebars, quizzes, and personal stories of women who have overcome hormone vulnerability, this helpful book will empower you to find treatments for your hormone problems that are tailored to fit your own body, biochemistry, symptoms, and lifestyle.

Jonathan Safran Foer follows his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated, with an unexpectedly hilarious and affecting story about New York City in the period following September 11

"Wonderfully written...as in the slave narratives that inspired it, language is power."—Nancy Kline, New York Times Book Review

If you need to shed pounds fast and in a safe, effective, and lasting way, this is the book for you! Unlike many diet programs that starve you down to size, Dr. Mike Moreno’s 17 Day Diet relies on proven methods to help you take weight off and keep it off for good—whether you’ve got 10 pounds to lose or 100. His revolutionary program adjusts your body metabolically so that you burn fat day in and day out. The program is structured around four 17 day cycles:

Accelerate—the rapid weight loss portion that helps flush sugar and fat storage from your system

Activate—the metabolic restart portion with alternating low and high calorie days to help shed body fat

Achieve—this phase is about learning to control portions and introducing new fitness routines

Arrive—a combination of the first three cycles to keep good habits up for good. On weekends, enjoy your favorite foods!

Each cycle changes your calorie count and the food that you’re eating. The variation that Dr. Mike calls ‘body confusion’ keeps your metabolism guessing; this means that you can expect big changes in the first 17 days alone!

This is not a diet that relies on a tiny list of approved foods, grueling exercise routines, or unrealistic calorie counts that leave you hungry and unfulfilled. Moderation and proper portions are key factors in the 17 Day Diet—the trick is to figure out the foods and routines that work best with your real lifestyle. That’s why the book is filled with tips for how to avoid the usual food pitfalls like holidays, eating out, or even just a tempting candy jar. Along with a comprehensive explanation of how each segment works, every phase comes with an extensive list of foods, recipes, and sample meal plans to help make grocery shopping a breeze. Because of the diversity that you are allowed from the very beginning of the program, there is a way to make this diet work with almost any food allergies you might have or what cuisine you’re used to eating.

The 17 Day Diet is a simple plan that gets big, long-lasting results if you stick with it and let Dr. Mike help you along the way. Whether this is your first attempt at dieting or your fiftieth, you must believe that you can do this. What matters now is focusing on your goals, identifying what you need to get there, and taking action to begin the process. Your health and happiness are important, so stand strong, believe in yourself, and let your 17 Day Diet begin now!