Effortless Healing by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Effortless Healing by Dr. Joseph Mercola ISBN-13: 9781101902899 Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Harmony Released: Sept. 27, 2016

Source: Review copy from the publisher through Blogging for Books.

Book Description, Modified from Back Cover:
Do you have to tell your leg to heal from a scrape? Your body that it's hungry? No. Your body does these things automatically, effortlessly. Online health pioneer, natural medicine advocate, and bestselling author Dr. Joseph Mercola reveals the nine simple secrets to a healthier, thinner you.


My Review:
Effortless Healing is a self-help health book. Each chapter focused on a different aspect of health, with the most important changes listed first. You implement the changes in "Healing Principle #1" first and then tackle the next one. He talked about the food and drink you consume, exercise, and sleep. He explained things at a pretty basic level and described how to carry out these changes. At the end, he even had a chapter on how to set and achieve your lifestyle change goals.

While I've heard many of his suggestions elsewhere, others confused me a bit. For example, he suggested that most people reading the book had diabetes or pre-diabetes and needed to get their blood sugar under control. Yet he didn't base his selections of "good" or "bad" foods for them on the food's glycemic load. Rather, he simply threw out all grains (even gluten-free, whole grains) and some vegetables because they have a lot of starchy carbs. Yet he strongly recommended juiced vegetables, which I've read spikes blood sugar.

Also, he recommended skipping breakfast and avoiding snacking, yet his sample meal plans at the end all included a snack and usually had a breakfast. He mentioned some benefits to eating fruit, yet later recommended largely avoiding fruit because it contains fructose. Basically, the book didn't always seem consistent from beginning to end. Did he give some good advice? Yes. I should also mention that the "effortless" refers to your body healing itself if you do all of these steps, not the process needed to get there.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.