5 Books to Read for Weight Loss With Real Food

A few years ago, I lost 47 pounds with a real food diet. If you’ve been reading my blog since the beginning, you’ll remember that’s when I started posting a lot about real food and health.

Learning about real food and transitioning my family from a Standard American Diet (SAD) to a real food diet became my number one priority for about a year until we settled into our new normal way of eating. I read and read and read and read until I knew why a real food diet was so important and just exactly what a real food diet was.

I shared a lot of great info with you guys then and I want to spark you to continue on in the real food lifestyle.

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Read Books and Lose Weight

Do you ever wonder how real food bloggers know so much about real food?  While it may be true that some of us were raised on traditional real foods and learned about healthy eating from our parents and grandparents, most of us grew up with a hefty dose of conventional dietary indoctrination spooned into our mouths.

So, how do we know which fats are healthy, why modern wheat is bad, and what your mother’s teeth can tell us about your health at birth?

We read.  Voraciously.

We devour books, take notes, re-read, contemplate the information and study it until we can break it down into manageable chunks for our readers to consume more easily.  Real food is a study and we are real food students.

Are You Confused About Real Food?

You’ll find a vast amount of food–and-diet related information on the internet.  You’ll read about everything from scientific studies to anecdotal stories and the gray space between.  And you should research diet information for yourself.

You shouldn’t simply take a blogger’s word for it when we relay the latest study to you in a blog post.  You should read the study for yourself.  When we quote another author and tout his or her book as the best, you should check it out for yourself and see if you agree.

Unfortunately, doing all that research for yourself might feel confusing. I get it. You’ll read conflicting information. That’s why I’ve compiled a short list of books to help you clarify which type of real food diet is right for you.

Now, I know that not everyone has time to sit around reading a college education’s worth of books, so today I’m sharing five books about real food that specifically talk about weight loss.

Of course these books talk about health and wellness, but since so many of us turn to real food for weight loss I think these five books are a great place to start.

The Top Five Books About Weight Loss With Real Food

1.  Eat Fat, Lose Fat

This real-food weight-loss gem from Mary Enig and Sally Fallon stars as my top recommendation.  I found this wonderful book after beginning my own real food journey and it confirmed everything about fat that I’d always suspected.

Spoiler alert:  Saturated fat is not the killer that we believed it to be.  But, you might wanna step away from the canola oil before it breaks your heart.  Literally. (Oh, and why not drop some pounds while eating your fill of butter and bacon?  It worked for me!)

2.  Wheat Belly:  Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, Find Your Way Back to Health

Can’t lose weight?  Have you tried cutting out wheat?  I know, I know.  I refused to give up wheat in the beginning, as well.  And frankly, I still eat it from time to time.  But, getting rid of wheat in my daily diet caused me to drop pounds faster than I ever imagined possible.

In addition, healing my IBS naturally hinged on my abstinence from wheat for a while.

In Wheat Belly, Dr. William Davis explains why wheat causes obesity and health problems now when generations ago it didn’t.  Not all wheat is bad, but the wheat you eat is likely doing more harm than good.  Even if you can’t feel it. And wheat definitely won’t do you any favors when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off.

3.  Why We Get Fat:  And What To Do About It

Think the calories in versus calories out model of weight loss works?  Think again.  It’s not about calories.

I’ve lost 47 pounds eating more calories (and saturated fat) than I’ve ever dared to consume before.

Gary Taubes tells us how nutrition science and the medical field have gotten it all wrong when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off.

He offers hope to those who resigned themselves to counting calories forever but still can’t lose the weight or keep it from creeping back on once they do.

4.  The Nourished Metabolism

Okay, maybe you’re already a real foodie but those pounds still aren’t budging.  What now?  If your body isn’t burning fat the way it should, it may be about more than your diet.

Lifestyle holds important factors that can inhibit the body’s ability to burn fat.  In order to get your metabolism in shape, there are areas of your life and daily habits that you may need change.  As well, nourishing your metabolism will provide other benefits such as having more energy, balancing your hormones, and giving you a remarkable zest for life.

Elizabeth Walling of The Nourished Life explains in this book how to feed your metabolism for weight loss and better overall health.

5. The Plant Paradox

Dr. Gundry surprised me with the information he presented in The Plant Paradox. I read The Plant Paradox several years after beginning a real food diet. At the time I thought a basic diet of meat, fat, and plants covered my needs.

And, in a way, it does. However, the amount of meat we eat and the type of plants we eat can either help or hurt our weight loss and wellness.

I love Dr. Gundry’s no-nonsense approach to eating a healthy diet.