AARP Stop Prediabetes Now: The Ultimate Plan to Lose Weight and Prevent Diabetes

by Jack Challem

AARP Digital Editions offer you practical tips, proven solutions, and expert guidance. Prediabetes, which is usually closely related to being overweight, is now an epidemic affecting close to 100 million Americans.

In Stop Prediabetes Now, Jack Challem offers a practical, all-natural program for improving eating habits and using nutritional supplements to reverse prediabetes and related weight problems. Stop Prediabetes Now also includes shopping instructions, meal plans, and easy-to-prepare recipes.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Self Help

388 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Craig Childs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book shortly after my diagnosis with prediabetes. It provided a solid base of understanding of what was wrong with me, and what I needed to do next. Subsequent study has led me to question some of the author’s suggestions, but no dietary or nutrition book is perfect. The scientific research is contradictory, and every author tries to put a unique spin on it.

This book begins with a concise, helpful overview chapter on prediabetes. What is it? What causes it? What tests should your doctor run after you’ve been diagnosed? What treatments are available? What will happen if it is left unchecked?

Subsequent chapters offer down-to-earth practical advice on turning your health around. I really learned a lot from chapters like “Food Isn’t What It Used to Be”, “Figure Out What Food Labels Really Mean”, and “Navigate Restaurants and Menus”.

I thought “Rediscover the Joy of Cooking” was overdone; it’s basically 30-page cookbook featuring the author’s favorite homemade dishes.

The most detailed chapter was “The Best Supplements for Improving Blood Sugar”. The authors are huge proponents of supplemental vitamins and minerals (an industry with a dubious reputation among doctors). I’m not a big fan of supplements myself, so I was annoyed, for example, that a lot more detailed science was cited about vitamin pills than the benefits of exercise.

My only real complaint about the book was the suggestion that readers can change their health by simply replacing “bad” food (sugars and sugarlike carbohydrates) with “good” foods (healthy fats and nutrients). This is a common claim in most diets, and it works for some people, but in my experience the only thing that works for me is reducing carbs and calories, so that I consume less energy than I burn.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

So-So. Some good info, but nothing earthshattering.

[Penny Evenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has good information!

[Miranda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn’t finish it. There are way better options out there if you want to learn more about this topic. The authors have a very condescending tone.

[William Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first three chapters on symptoms and background are wonderfully informative. The plan itself also appears good for those suffering from or in risk of prediabetes. While Challem does push the reader toward fish and vegetables, and acknowledges that fish is better than red meat, he also dismisses vegetarian diets and contradicts the facts of the benefits of a vegetarian diet. He bases his conclusions on the failure of a small sampling of a minority of vegetarians who don't know what they're doing with the diet. With this approach he falls back into the same old pro-protein diet, which also leads to pro-animal fats, but thankfully not to the extreme of the deadly Atkins diet. Again, the first three chapters alone are worth a read.

[Mina · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very competently written, accessible and helpful read. I am skeptical of the recommendation of seemingly limitless egg consumption, and I have to admit I skipped the whole chapter on supplements because it seemed like an inclusion for people who are focussed on a quick fix. Mind, the authors do make clear that there is no quick fix, so due credit to them for that. To me, the book felt very targetted at middle-aged people just discovering they might develop diabetes and just-shy of panicked about it. I don't fit that target group and therefore read it in a perhaps unusually detached way. However, as a person concerned about potentially developing diabetes, I did find it informative and, as mentioned, helpful.

[Nancy Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very good read - very informative. I have read much now on the subject of diabetes and preventing it, because I've had one high fasting blood sugar on my annual labs in the past, and therefore felt that I might be prediabetic. IMHO, these authors are a bit extreme, however, in pushing organic, and not allowing enough good carbs, such as whole grains.

[Michelle Hoogterp · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a terrific book for someone who hasn't read anything about diabetes or prediabetes before, or someone who wants some basic information to help someone with this problem. I'd read Jeff O'Connell's Sugar Nation first, and found that to be terrifically enlightening...This book by Challem doesn't have a lot of new information for me, though I found the section on supplements useful.

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book caught my eye one day because I have two children with new onset Type 1 diabetes. This book is about Type 2, which is 90-95% of diabetics and doesn't have anything to do with my kids. However, I still learned a lot. Some chapters were good, some were not very interesting and seemed to be more fringe alternative medicine ideas.

[Felicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall had good information - a good resource book and starting off point.

[Jay Reaser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Explains all about the pre-diabetes subject in a very understandable way.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative. Perfect for the proactive. Very "meaty".

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! It has been a long time since I couldn't put a book down but here was one. kept me guessing until the end. A detective solves a mystery about the death of a family.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too stringent.