Self Help
The Five Love Languages: My best friend recommended this book to me this past winter. The premise is this: everyone shows and hears love in different ways (well, five different ways). If you’re showing love to your spouse, they’re not necessarily interpreting it correctly.
The concept seemed obvious to me and I was skeptical, but ultimately I was wowed by this book. My love language is “Words of Affirmation” (which was unsurprising). It made me realize that I need praise and positive comments to make me feel good about myself. It changed my perspective about myself from “needy” to “knows what she needs.” Conversely, Steve is “bilingual” (which means he scored equally high on two – physical touch and quality time. I wasn’t surprised, but it’s helped me to be more aware of expressing love to him. A kiss on the shoulder and hug around the waist goes a lot farther for him than a packed lunch or coming home to a clean house. I understood before that he liked to spend time with me, now I make it more of a priority to sit and talk or to go on dates.
It’s helped me with my relationship with my mom too, for reasons I’m not going to detail right now. I would recommend this book to anyone, regardless if you’re struggling in your marriage or not. There are different versions: For Children, For singles, For Men and for teenagers.
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Healthy Living
The Unhealthy Truth was the first book I read about what actually goes into food. It blew my mind. This is the story of a woman whose daughter had an egg allergy. As she journeyed to discover what she could feed her kids, she realized how horribly food is affecting us.
The focus is definitely on how to feed your kids healthy (organic) food, but we should all eat the same things, right? Two things I really like about this book: it gives a very easy to follow setp-by-step guide on how to clean up your cupboards (let’s be realistic – a complete overhaul isn’t always realistic) and she preaches the 80/20 rule (as long as you’re eating 80% good foods, the other 20% is ok). It makes eating brownies or a Big Mac a lot less guilt inducing when you don’t associate a whole load of guilt and shame with your preferred indulgence.
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If you want to start running, or if you already run and want to increase your distance/speed/endurance, buy this book.
This book has – no lie – gotten me off the couch and around the block after I just had Alena, through two marathons, and everything in-between.
There are tons of distance/pace training programs in it, but even more important, every question you have along the way is answered in this book. Sneakers, cross training, clothes, injury prevention, stretches, even a section of not crapping your pants while you’re running (more of a reality/concern than you might imagine). This book, a pair of sneakers and a set of 8lbs dumbbells is all you need to get in awesome shape and change your life. Oh yeah, and some dedication.
