9 Books to Kickstart a Healthy Lifestyle 

Our own healthy (or unhealthy) lifestyles begin early. What we experience as children sets the tone for many of our adult relationships, including our relationship with food, with exercise, and more. 

But starting our kids out with healthy relationships to food is often easier said than done. That’s where this “complete guide for raising healthy children from pregnancy to late childhood” comes in (Neal Barnard, President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine).

This “essential guide full of important information for raising children healthfully” will help you turn even the pickiest eaters into happy, healthy eaters in no time (Beth Motley, MD, Family Medicine/Lifestyle Medicine).

The more we learn about aging, the more we understand the key role that brain health plays in staying active, alert, and healthy well into our later years. 

The question becomes, how do you take the best care of your brain as you get older? The answers are in this “friendly, wide-ranging tip sheet for understanding and maintaining the human brain” from health and science writer Sondra Kornblatt (Publishers Weekly). 

Packed with holistic exercises that are meant to improve memory and reduce stress, this indispensable guide is full of ways to help overcome brain fog and improve cognition, with everything from brain games to food that’s good for your mind.

Supermodel, actress, bestselling author, and “raw food expert” Carol Alt is the host of the hit Fox News show A Healthy You, where she has interviewed countless doctors, dieticians, fitness coaches, and other experts on topics ranging from healthy eating to alternative exercise routines. 

In her first fully illustrated lifestyle book, featuring over 150 photos, she shares some of the best tips, tricks, and advice from her years as a lifestyle guru for readers at every stage of their health and fitness journey.

From healthy everyday habits to tips on how to make your own chemical-free beauty products and so much more, get ready to embrace the best version of you!

Member of Greenpeace and PETA, Julie Fisher-McGarry was once a personal fitness trainer to Saudi Arabian royalty. 

In a book that can “lift your spirits and help you put your best foot forward even on depressing days,” she brings a day-by-day guide to “a low-impact lifestyle that will […] positively affect the Earth for generations to come” (Ingrid Newkirk, cofounder and president of PETA; Cheryl Hahn, founder and president of Tomorrow’s World). 

With activities and suggestions organized by month, this one-of-a-kind daily chronicle offers tips on living greener, supporting local economies, nourishing yourself and the planet, and simply creating a more sustainable lifestyle.

In a landmark study, Harvard Medical School followed more than 800 subjects from their teens through old age. Drawing from that one-of-a-kind data, Harvard’s George Vaillant has produced “an outstanding contribution to the study of aging” (Publishers Weekly).

In this “highly recommended” book, filled with “astonishing observations," Valiant offers practical advice for successful and happy aging, how lifestyle changes we make now can make us more resilient, and how we can live a more satisfying and rewarding life (Library Journal; New England Journal of Medicine).

One thing we know about diets is that most of the time they don’t work. Sure, you usually lose weight early on, but the changes aren’t sustainable. Soon, you plateau, then regain the weight. 

So, what’s the answer? Hailed as “not just another weight loss book” by Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning, Kris J. Simpson’s All Inclusive Diet offers a guide to change not just your eating and exercise habits, but everything from your sleep to your emotional awareness, in order to create changes that last.

If you’ve struggled with fad diets in the past, All Inclusive Diet may be just what you’re looking for.

Many health and lifestyle guides leave readers feeling like they are struggling against their own habits and genes — a struggle that often feels doomed. 

Taking advice that works in the boardroom, lifestyle coach Maria Teresa Kline instead shows how to work with your own genetics, habits, and predilections to take control of your health and feel better every day.

Using methods such as “food combining,” Kline instructs you on how to eat better without giving up what you love, and finding exercises and routines that work for you, no matter what your level of fitness or inclination.

What is Ayurveda? This spiritual and practical tradition has been practiced for thousands of years throughout the Indian subcontinent, with ayurvedic texts dating back to the first millennium BCE. 

Comprised of alternative medicines but also practices such as massage, meditation, yoga, and lifestyle changes, as much as 80% of the population of countries such as India and Nepal report using aspects of ayurveda in their health and daily life.

In this accessible book, traditional Ayurveda practitioner Janesh Vaidya offers lessons from this popular practice for those who wish to try it to improve their health and well-being.

What if it only took 10 minutes a day to sharpen your mind, improve your memory, and help to stave off the effects of the mental aging process? 

That’s the premise behind the principles and weekly workouts offered in this training program, helping even those who have already begun to feel the effects of memory loss reclaim their brain and train it to be more resilient. 

Designed to be easy to use, this day-to-day guide offers everything from advice on planning routines to daily brain games and teasers to help sharpen cognition and prevent memory loss.