I was asked if I would like to review WHAT TO EAT WHEN by Michael F. Roizen and Michael Crupain and as I’ve never read anything like it before I thought it might be an interesting read – and it was. I must say though that a lot of the information is just what I would call common sense, but I suppose not everyone has common sense. It’s A Strategic Plan to Improve Your Health & Life Through Food.

The main thing seems to be the timing of people’s meals. It’s suggested that people should fast for twelve hours overnight. I do that anyway. Eating late on in the day is not good for you as you’re more likely to put on weight that way as your body’s clock deals with the food differently as you sleep. It seems obvious to me that you shouldn’t go to bed with a heavy meal sitting inside you!

Pay attention to what you eat – that means don’t read or watch TV whilst eating. I so agree with this as people just don’t notice how much they are eating if they do it mindlessly. I would also add that people should chew food properly. Most of the very overweight people that I know eat so fast that the food hardly seems to touch the inside of their mouths. Don’t eat like a ravenous dog!

There are tips on what to eat when you’re stressed and hangry, fighting fatigue, bummed, experiencing grief, when you can’t sleep, when you get a lot of headaches, when you’re sick, when you’re in pain, when you have digestive problems, when you’re trying to get pregnant, when you need to shrink your prostate, when you have hormonal issues, when you have hot flashes, when you want to prevent type 2 diabetes … and many many more situations.

Unsurprisingly the advice is to avoid processed foods and there are tips on how to make that easier, but to me many of the foods suggested seem very uninteresting and quite boring, however I know from experience that it doesn’t take long to re-educate your taste buds. Nuts seem to feature a lot though as substitutes for something sweet. I find that if you are on a healthy eating kick then the best thing to do is to have one day off a week – for me it was Sunday so I always had a lovely Sunday dinner and pudding to look forward to during the week.

I don’t see myself ever getting excited over eating an egg white omelette.

Small amounts of dark chocolate are allowed. My brother in Holland was advised to eat that after he had his triple heart bypass so that must be a universal ‘medication’.

I actually think this is a good book for lots of situations as there’s advice on what to do if you have gout, kidney stones, restless leg syndrome, gallstones and also how to reduce inflammation. All in all it’s – Quite Interesting – and is written in an easily accessible style.

Thank you to Trish Collins of TLC Book Tours for sending me a copy of this book.