High Performance Health: 10 Real-Life Solutions to Redefine Your Health and Revolutionize Your Life

It isn't often that you find a book that truly touches you in a special way; this was the case with "High Performance Health." Written by a man who is not only an M.D., but has had much experience in keeping fit you immediately feel comfortable with what you are being told. This isn't your norm of a 'get-fit', book;you know the type, just listings, patting you on the back, and sending you on your way. No, our author puts real heart into this work and it can be felt within the read. In this book, Dr. Rippe gives us 10 solutions to redefine our health such as, The Dos and Don't of healthy weight management, Power foods that provide high energy nutrition, and The top five barriers to achieving high performance health and how to overcome them, all packed full of intense learning information. These were very well written and definitely easy to incorporate in any life style. However, I absolutely love how he incorporates the spirit man into the overall importance of our health with such topics as, How to remove toxic people and avoid toxic situations so you can build a positive health performance team and environment around you, or How to improve your health by improving the quality of your relationships. I am very impressed that our spirit side was recognized in our overall health. Great job! It was wonderful to read some of the stories of those who took responsibility for areas of their lives that were hindering their healing and achieved better health through these steps. I found this book to be trustworthy, easy to read, interesting and definitely a great incentive to overcoming my own problems in taking control of my health and helping to improve it. I truly recommend this book and thank Dr.Rippe for sharing the valuable information that is contained inside.I feel this work will be life changing for many.

Dr. James Rippe is a Harvard trained cardiologist who practices in the Boston area. He has written a guide to upgrading your total health and fitness. In separate chapters, Dr. Rippe addresses various components of high-performance health. His tone is eminently practical, not preachy. Most chapters close with a short action item or "To-do" exercise for the reader to commit to in order to improve one aspect of their diet, health and lifestyle. I particularly liked the inclusion by Dr. Rippe of the spiritual component as part of one's overall health. I would have expected most physicians to be phobic about venturing into this area. Again, he is not preachy but he is also not afraid or ashamed to consider the role of spiritual life or one's relationship with God as a component to one's overall health and life view. Doubtlessly, he will risk offending the gods of political correctness through venturing into this territory Yes, Dr. Rippe does it never seemed to tire of reminding us that he is married to a beautiful TV newscaster, but despite this he seems genuinely humbled by entering into the role of father starting in his mid-40s. Likely we all are aware of the health nostrums offered by Dr. Rippe in this book. The real kicker is in implementing these as daily habits. Each one of the habits that Dr. Rippe discusses is a brick, and together they can help you build your own personal health plan.

This is one of the finest health books I have ever read. And, that is saying a lot for I am frequent reader (and reviewer) of the best of new books in the field. As a long time student and writer on the subject of personal peak performance, I am a strong believer that one of the keys to personal peak performance is giving oneself the gift of good health. Dr. James Rippe has done a fine job of presenting the holistic view that good health is largely a function of the totality of the choices we make, a view that I am pleased to see is increasingly being endorsed by mainstream health experts. Critics will undoubtedly question where the new content is. I believe the value of the book and the new content comes from the author's strong focus on how to make the changes that we all know we should make but often don't make until we face serious repercussions for our negligence. His chapter on building a high performance health team and environment is a prescription that is well designed to transform irrefutable logic into an action program. Powerful forces (advertising, the actions of others, etc.) can pull even the most strong willed away from the path of doing what is best for our mind and body. Dr. Rippe lays out a multi-level support structure to counterbalance such forces. As powerful as the content is, the style of writing made this book enjoyable reading. Dr. Rippe weaves into his guidance insights into his own personal health challenges so as to make clear that he is not some preacher on a pedestal. And, the genuine love he expresses for his family serves as great role modeling of just how important family is to high performance health. Because health is such a complex subject, no one book can be the end-all. Those dealing with a specific ailment or disease will undoubtedly want to supplement this book with a more targeted disease specific book. But, one would be hard pressed to find a better foundational book. Couple this book with the excellent The 100 Year Lifestyle: Dr. Plasker's Breakthrough Solution for Living Your Best Life - Every Day of Your Life! and one will have the knowledge to experience better health and more vitality...assuming, of course, one chooses to act on the knowledge.