Samantha Heller - Get Smart: Samantha Hellers Nutrition Prescription for Boosting Brain Power and Optimizing Total Body Health

Samantha Heller not only gets it, she gets the details right. This is a funny, readable book spiced with great information on what you need to make healthy choices in nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle. We would all do well to follow her advice. Much more than just another diet book, Get Smartgives you the tools to make healthy choices.

Edward K. Kasper, M.D.

E. Cowles Professor in Cardiology

Director, Clinical Cardiology

Johns Hopkins Medical School

A book dedicated to keeping our minds fit and sharp with foodwhat a smart idea! Samantha Heller provides a wealth of information on how to nourish your brain with the right ingredients and offers fun, fresh meal ideas to get you off and running.

Joy Bauer, M.S., R.D., C.D.N.

New York Times bestselling author of Your Inner Skinny

Nutrition and diet expert for The TODAY Show

I am the Sneaky Chef, and I strongly recommend that you read this book! I am proud to have contributed recipes to it. As a mom, I am even more convinced by Samantha Hellers book that brain health is as much a factor of your lifestyle as the rest of your bodys health. This book outlines a simple way to protect your brain, help prevent dementia, improve your mood, and enhance cognitive abilities at any age.

Missy Chase Lapine

Author of The Sneaky Chefbooks

Samantha Heller makes it easy to get smart and boost your brain power throughout your life cycle by following her user-friendly, realistic tips about what to put on your plate. This book will surely help you protect the organ that calls the shots about how you think, feel, actand eat!

Bonnie Taub-Dix, M.A., R.D., C.D.N.

National Spokesperson for the American

Dietetic Association

Samantha Heller is a vibrant, passionate teacher. She is all about energy of the positive kind. Even better, she is an expert at where that energy comes from. That it cant be bottled, but that it can be developed. She knows the foods that contain this energy and she knows the combinations to the vault of good health. In Get Smart, she tells us her best secrets. We would be wise to listen.

Marc Siegel, M.D., New York University

Medical director, Doctor Radio

Health columnist,Los Angeles Times

Fox News Medical Contributor

Samantha Hellers Nutrition Prescription for Boosting Brain Power and Optimizing Total Body Health

Samantha Heller, M.S., R.D., C.D.N.

Notes to the reader: Diet, exercise programs, and the use of medications are all matters that by their very nature vary from individual to individual. You should speak with your own doctor about your individual needs before beginning any diet or exercise program or taking any medications or other preparations. These precautionary notes are most important if you are already under medical care for an illness.

This book is not meant to substitute for medical care of people with cognitive difficulties and treatment should not be based solely on its contents. Treatment for medical illness must be developed in a dialogue between the individual and his or her physician.

2010 Samantha Heller
All rights reserved. Published 2010
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1

The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu

Recipes: On pages 198203, from The Most Decadent Diet Ever! by Devin Alexander. Copyright 2008 by Devin Alexander. Reprinted with permission from Broadway Books, a Division of Random House, Inc., New York. On pages 193, 19596, and 2034, reprinted by permission of Barbara Smith. On pages 18081 and 18687, from The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids Favorite Meals, by Missy Chase Lapine, copyright 2007 by Running Press Book Publisher. On pages 18182 and 2057, reprinted by permission of Rosa J. Donohue, M.S., R.D., C.D.N., Nutrition Consultant. On pages 19798, reprinted by permission of Frances Largeman-Roth, R.D. Recipes on pages 18385, 18893, 19495, 2045, and 2079, reprinted by permission of Amie G. Hall, CHHC, AADP.

Illustrations by Joe Weissmann.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Heller, Samantha.
Get smart : Samantha Hellers nutrition prescription for boosting brain power and achieving total body health / Samantha Heller.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-9375-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8018-9375-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-9376-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8018-9376-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Brain. 2. Nutrition. 3. Brain chemistry. 4. Mental healthNutritional aspects. I. Title. QP376.H317 2009
612.82dc22 2009007055

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or specialsales@press.jhu.edu.

The Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible. All of our book papers are acid-free, and our jackets and covers are printed on paper with recycled content.

To my mother, Terry Strong Heller, for her grace, intelligence, dignity, and humor

FRED CAME INTO MY office for his appointment and said, Look, I need to lose weight. Just give me a diet.

No, Fred, I do not hand out diets.

He looked at me and asked, carefully, Then what do you do?

Fred, I said, I dont believe in dieting. The word diet instills fear and loathing in people. It means temporary, hungry, and deprived. My goal is to first, teach you what healthy eating is, and second, give you the tools you need to make healthy choices on a daily basis. Together you and I will create meal plans based on foods you like and have available at work and at home.

Fred was not thrilled with that approach. He wanted something simple, in print, that he could follow for a week or two. A standard 1,200 or 1,500 calorie per day diet does not work, because everyone has different needs. Plus, a cookie-cutter diet does not take into account your life, where you work, food allergies, social situations, traveling, and such. Healthy lifestyle choices need to fit in with your food preferences, budget, and work and home schedule. These choices have to work for you so you can keep them the rest of your life.

Your assignment (should you choose to accept it) is to take the information in this book and mold it to fit your world. Will changing your current eating habits and lifestyle take some discipline and thought? Definitely. Will there be times when it seems hard to stick to a healthy-brain eating plan? Yes. But thats OK. Just keep referring to this book for support and advice. You may consider seeing a registered dietitian if you really get stuck. Since you are reading this book in the first place, you are motivated to make some changes for a healthier brain.