8 Weeks to Optimum Health: A Proven Program for Taking Full Advantage of Your Body's Natural Healing Power

by Andrew Weil M.D.

Overview

Now expanded and updated–the #1 New York Times bestselling book in which one of America’s most brilliant doctors shares his famous program for improving and protecting your health

Eight Weeks to Optimum Health lays out Dr. Andrew Weil’s famous week-by-week, step-by-step plan that will keep your body’s natural healing system in peak working order. It covers diet, exercise, lifestyle, stress, and environment–all aspects of daily living that affect health and well-being. This revised edition includes the most up-to-date findings on such vital subjects as cholesterol, antioxidants, trans fats, toxic residues in the food supply, soy products, and vitamins and supplements, together with a greatly enhanced source list of information and supplies. Inside you will learn how to

• develop eating habits for greater health and well-being
• start an effective exercise program based on walking and stretching
• work with breathing patterns to decrease stress and improve energy
• solve sleeping problems
• eliminate toxins from your diet
• minimize environmental hazards in your daily life

Plus–programs tailored to the specific needs of pregnant women, senior citizens, overweight people, and those at risk for cancer.

“If there is a heaven, sixtysomething Weil is headed there, but if he practices what he preaches, probably not for some time yet.”
– London Times

“Dr. Andrew Weil is an extraordinary phenomenon.”
–The Washington Post

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307834188
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/17/2013
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	297,502
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Andrew Weil, MD, is a world-renowned leader and pioneer in the field of integrative medicine, a healing-oriented approach to health care that encompasses body, mind, and spirit. His newest book, Fast Food, Good Food, was released in 2015. Combining a Harvard education and a lifetime of practicing natural and preventive medicine, Dr. Weil is the founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, where he is also a clinical professor of medicine and a professor of public health, as well as the Lovell-Jones Endowed Chair of Integrative Rheumatology. Dr. Weil received both his medical degree and his undergraduate AB degree in biology (botany) from Harvard University. Dr. Weil is a New York Times bestselling author and internationally recognized expert for his views on leading a healthy lifestyle, his philosophy of healthy aging, and his critique of the future of medicine and health care. Approximately ten million copies of Dr. Weil's books have been sold, including Spontaneous Healing, 8 Weeks to Optimum Health, Eating Well for Optimum Health, The Healthy Kitchen, Healthy Aging, and Why Our Health Matters. He is the editorial director of DrWeil.com, the leading Web resource for healthy living based on the philosophy of integrative medicine.

Read an Excerpt

8 Weeks to Optimum Health

A Proven Program for Taking Full Advantage of Your Body's Natural Healing Power

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By Andrew Weil, M.D.

Ballantine Books

Copyright © 2007 Andrew Weil, M.D.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 034549802X

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From Chapter One:

You have in your hands a tool for changing your life, an Eight-Week Program for improving your health and gaining access to the power of spontaneous healing in your body. I will guide you through this program step by step, explaining the changes I will ask you to make in how you eat, how you exercise, how you breathe, and how you use your mind. I will recommend vitamins, minerals, and herbs you can use to protect your body's healing system, and I will give you ideas about how you can change long-standing patterns of behavior that impair optimal health.

The Eight-Week Program consists of small steps that build on each other until, but the time you complete it, you have laid the foundation for healthy living. You can then decide how much of the program you want to maintain on a permanent basis. I assume that you want to make changes in your life -- otherwise you wouldn't be reading this book. I see my job as pointing you in the right direction. I have no doubt that you can change, because I know from my own experience that people can do so if they really want to.

In moving files recently, I came across a yellowed clipping from The New York Times of August 12, 1971, with the headline: "Meat-Eating 230-Pound Doctor Is Now 175-Pound Vegetarian." The story concerns atwenty-nine-year old physician in rural Virginia who gave up animal foods except for dairy products, with a resultant increase in energy, well-being, and overall health. There is a photograph of the doctor in his kitchen preparing fresh corn. He has a full black beard, is wearing blue jeans and a work shirt, and looks content. Next to the picture is his recipe for a rich corn soup containing milk and butter, and another recipe for a barley-and-vegetable casserole that calls for a quarter-cup of peanut oil. According to the article, the doctor's interest in consciousness led him to experiment with yoga and meditation, and "since yoga calls for a vegetarian diet, he gave up meat 'in order to really do it right.' He has been a vegetarian ever since, to the amazement of his friends, who remember him as a voracious meat eater and a fat person while at Harvard ... In one year on his new diet he has reduced from 230 to 175 pounds. His recurring colds and allergies have vanished..."

My beard is no longer black, and I have not been able to maintain my weight at 175-pounds. I am still mostly vegetarian (I have eaten fish for the past 10 years), though now I don't make rich soups with milk and butter , use oil in such quantities, or ever cook with peanut oil. I think I am wiser with age and in general feel much happier now than I did when I was twenty-nine.

I will try to accomplish three things in the pages that follow. First, I want to try to share with you my vision of the body's healing system and encourage you to rely on it in all matters concerning your health. Second, I want to convince you of the importance of developing a healthy lifestyle and the possibility of doing so quickly and easily. Third, I want to give you very specific suggestions about those aspects of lifestyle I consider most important to health and healing. I know that I cannot motivate you to undertake the Eight-Week Program -- you must do that yourself -- but since you have read this far, I believe you are already interested in moving forward, and I will assume that you now want to know what moving forward entails and how to do it.


From the Hardcover edition.

Continues...

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Excerpted from 8 Weeks to Optimum Health by Andrew Weil, M.D. Copyright © 2007 by Andrew Weil, M.D.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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