Member Reviews

Decent book, takes some time to get through though. I have read some similar books, how not to die etc and found this one nice.

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A good cookbook for those who want to try a keto-style diet. Tips, tricks, instructions, and recipes that most anyone can enjoy.

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Thank you NetGalley, BenBella Books and Benjamin Bikman for the DRC of How Not To Get Sick for review consideration. All opinions are my own. This book is a companion to Benjamin Bikman’s prior book “Why We Get Sick”. The first part of the book summarizes the first book and explains insulin resistance and how diet, exercise, sleep and stress affect it. The recipes sound delicious and are not too difficult . There are nice photographs which I love with recipes. This book will certainly help you stay well.

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“How Not to Get Sick,” by Diana Kevilian

I did like this book and there was a lot of good information, but I didn’t realize it was just for insulin resistance and I hoped the title of the book would have made it clear by being in it. There were a few inconsistencies like how it’s unhealthy to skip breakfast but during the fasting section is said to skip breakfast or dinner. The author does repeat the same information several times in the next sentence, and it got a little tedious. Other than that, it was a good book. I have a bunch of recipes and workout ideas that looked good and useful. The recipes looked like they weren’t too complicated, and I will be using them. 4 out of 5 stars.

Thank you for the ARC, Netgalley.

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This book dove in depth to the ways to prevent illness. Discussing insulin resistance, fasting, sleep, protein and much more. If you are looking for a better understanding on your health and how to stay on top of what is going on in your body this is the book for you!

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I like the recipes and the pictures. My biggest complaint is it's too wordy in the beginning. It reads too much like a text book, break it up more so people stay interested.

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I loved the recipes in this book. I appreciate the perspective from a doctor on this topic having food options included.

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Chock full of super useful information about insulin resistance and how to help yourself in a more natural way. This is the type of book you would keep on your shelf for reference.

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Great book for people with insulin resistance! I’m personally trying to reverse that so this book has been very helpful. It has information on insulin resistance, and what we can do to help reverse it, there are aerobics and straight exercises and then recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

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This book is only based on one aspect of health and the sicknesses that go with it. Focused on Insulin resistance, those books break down the diagnosis. how to fight and recover, which can help. The author says that anyone with insulin resistance disease and who is on medication should speak with their doctor. The recipes are easy to follow and you are given a list of foods that are helpful and harmful.
I urge you first to first ensure you are insulin-resistant. The recipes are low-carb and high-fat. For healthy people, a balanced diet is a much better health control. Also, people with other illnesses such as kidney disease should not follow this diet; high protein intake can be more damaging to the kidneys. Also, I couldn't even count how many recipes had heavy cream.

I feel this will be helpful to a specific audience. The title is misleading as this looks at one type of disease and it's comorbidities. It's not a general health guide to keep you well.

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How Not to Get Sick is a brand-new book covering a scientistic approach to getting better health. Insulin resistance is something most of us are affect by. Only about 12% of people are in the healthy range in all metrics. The metrics included was waist circumference, fasting blood glucose, blood pressure, and two blood lipid measurements. In the book, they explored how to improve people’s health. They looked at the benefits to fasting and when you should fast. They explained how to prioritize protein, eating fats, and carbs and what kind to eat. They looked at movement and how much we should be moving regularly. The included a few exercises and pictures explaining the moves. The book covered sleep and how critical it is to sleep and how a lack of just two days can spike your insulin levels. The book contains a few different reverse meal plans. There is even a recipe section. Some of these included, spiced butter chicken, chicken alfredo spaghetti bake, grilled Sunday steak, creamy garlic shrimp, peanut butter chocolate layered mousse, sweet and salty dessert bark, strawberry cheesecake smoothie, and much more.



I would recommend this awesome book on tips and techniques to combat insulin and becoming insulin resistance. The book is very insightful on learning how to control our glucose. I immensely liked the healthy version of new favorites recipes and they seem like they will assist you in your overall health. It was very shocking to read how many of us are failing in the metrics and I’m including myself. This is very well researched and if you follow along and put in work and effort you can begin to see positive changes.

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How Not to Get Sick was way different than what I was expecting. I was expecting a guide more along the lines of herbal or eastern medicines and foods that would help prevent sickness. However, How Not to Get Sick focused more on illnesses like diabetes, high cholesterol and how your diet can affect these illnesses. There was a lot more scientific information than I was expecting and even included exercises to do alongside your diet. There was a good variety of recipes and I liked how they labeled each recipe as preventative, maintaining or reversing. Although How Not to Get Sick wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, I did find a lot of great information and recipes to incorporate into my diet!

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Like Bikman‘s first book, this basically all boils down to insulin levels for him and it’s mostly a low-carb and keto book with some stuff thrown in about exercise and sleep and such. It felt very light to me. There was nothing I didn’t already know (though I read a lot of health and nutrition books) and he focuses solely on insulin levels.

It’s annoying for me to have just finished a book about gut health and how important various prebiotic and postbiotic foods are, and then there’s no word about these things here and it’s totally different foods that are dangerous or vital. This is true for all of these books on any other topic too — how important it is to eat at least 30 different plant foods a week for gut diversity according to three other books I’ve read recently and neither author said a word about these.

Anyway, this is more of his first book and then a short cookbook section with decadent low carb recipes featuring lots of meat and dairy and keto sweeteners. There are photos and nutritional information for those recipes.

I read a temporary digital copy of this book for review.

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How not to get sick was a helpful resource to limit the times one will get sick. I found it useful for there were many tips to follow. Being around a lot of kids in my field, it's difficult to not get sick. I'm glad I found this resource for the pointers provided were very helpful. I recommend this book for anyone.

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Interesting topics covered in this book. Lots of ideas about how to eat and the section with exercises was nice. Recipes were nice but doubt I’d make any.

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This is a clear, educational book on approaches to insulin resistance. It starts with a clear explanation of what role insulin plays in the body and how to be tested for resistance. The authors then talk about lifestyle factors that can influence insulin resistance (diet, exercise, sleep, stress). The remainder of the book is a guide for how to apply these principles to either reverse or prevent insulin resistance or maintain insulin sensitivity.

I appreciated the step by step instructions for various exercises and clear exercise plan.

The sections on recipes are fairly simple, which is helpful for incorporating the ideas behind the book. Overall they sound tasty, satisfying, and accessible. I prefer to avoid artificial sweeteners, so some of the recipes are not something I would try. It's also important to note that the book is based around moderate to very low carbohydrate diets, which is not something I'm in support of long term. I can see the benefits of limiting carbohydrates and understanding how they impact our bodies, however, so I do see value in this book!

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Thank you BenBella Books and NetGalley for the advanced electronic review copy of this book. This book has a lot of health and wellness as well as exercise information, but the recipe section was not what I was expecting. It has many meat and dairy recipes, which felt disjointed from the health and wellness section. It was an ok read for me.

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Basic good for anyone starting out and wanting learn about food and a health diet option for better over all health

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I am ready to recommend this book to anyone who will listen. I can’t wait for it to be published and out to the public.
I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the human body and what we can do to help our health in a society that is so confused about health.

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This is a very interesting book with quite a bit of great and valuable information in it and is written in a way that you can take what you need out of it and use it to your advantage. I liked the recipes as they are easy to follow and have the type of ingredients you can easily get.

This is a well written book that can and will help you in your quest for a better and healthier life. And although I am already quite healthy I am always looking at ways (especially recipes) that will give me new ideas for staying on the right path to good health.

Thank you NetGalley and BenBella Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

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