Drop Dead Healthy

Jacobs, A.J. Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012. Print

First Sentences:

For the last few months, I’ve been assembling a list of things I need to do to improve my health. It’s an intimidatingly long list. Fifty-three pages. Here’s a sample:

•   Eat leafy green vegetables
•   Do forty minutes of aerobic exercise a day
•   Meditate several times a week
•   Watch baseball (lowers blood pressure, according to one study)
•   Nap (good for the brain and heart)
•   Hum (prevents sinus infections)
•   Win an Academy Award (a bit of a long shot, I know. But studies show Oscar winners live three years longer than non-Oscar winners.)

Description:

Don't we all want to be just a bit more fit, lose a couple of pounds, be smarter, see better, hurt less? Well, so does A.J. Jacobs, author of Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection, only he wants it all.

After compiling his 53-page list of improvements he wants to make in himself, he methodically organizes his areas for change by body part or function. Stomach, heart, immune system, brain, teeth, back, and eyes all need work. He also intends to improve his lower intestine, hands, bladder, butt, and even the inside of this eyelids ("for a perfect night's sleep").  

Drop Dead Healthy documents his full-out assault to become the best in every area. He (and his ever-patient wife and family) allow two years to complete this complete make-over.

Each chapter details his efforts on a specific body over one month. Self-improvement techniques come from his consultations with professionals, personal research, and his own common sense. 

And what does he try? He walks on a treadmill while typing this book (and reaches over 1,000 miles before it is completed); dons a bike helmet when walking to safeguard against accidents; wears 3-D glasses to do "weight training for the eyes;" takes a juice cure; joins a laughter club to relieve stress; and explores how much sex is needed to optimize his aerobic capabilities. 

Progress is monitored each month for basic changes to weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, pulse, miles walked, etc.  But Jacobs also includes off-beat highlights such as, "Cans of steel-cut oatmeal consumed this year;" "Times unsuccessfully attempted to switch to green tea;" "Number of yoga instructors who have been surprisingly rude to me;" "Minutes singing per day;" "Frog calls memorized to keep my brain sharp;" ... well, you get the idea.

It's a wonderful mash-up of the scientific and the ridiculous, as he researches and then willingly incorporates into his life any strategies that might improve his health. "The trick," he says, "is to avoid quackery at the same time  as maintaining childlike enthusiasm for innovation."  

Serious? Definitely in his purpose, plan, and willingness to try anything and everything. Comedic? Of course, and delightfully so as we follow him from body part to body function, expert to quack, with varying degrees of success.  

Best of all, he writes in an engagingly dead-pan style that simplifies complex issues about our bodies into terms he (and we) can grasp.  I love his intensity, his curiosity, his commitment to improvement, as well as his candor in sharing every thought, every detail of this quest.

And I did learn a lot about the body and what I actually can do to make improvements myself. 

Happy reading.


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

 

Jacobs, A.J. Mr. Know-It-All   

The same author attempts to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from Volume A to Volume Z, carrying readers along with him, letter by letter, in his quest for knowledge and trivia. Fantastic!