“Dr. Prologo targets sustainability. He elevates our science-based weight-loss programs by keeping people engaged.” —Arthur Agatston, MD, author of The South Beach Diet Ninety-nine percent of diets fail because our bodies resist the change in the name of survival. “Stop with the rice cakes and boot camp already—we are starving to death!” It’s like holding your breath underwater. We can endure it for a short time against the body’s will to survive, but the longer you stay there, the louder and more crushing the signals get, until you finally burst to the surface for air (or into a fast food restaurant, the pantry, or a refrigerator, in the case of dieting). The Catching Point Transformation was created to ease this transition and quiet the body’s resistance so that everyone can have fun, feel confident, and be successful when engaged with healthy living. It levels the playing ground for those who are trying to make a change with those who are already lean. Dr. Prologo understands and believes you when you say “no diet works for me,” and so has finally created a different approach.

The Catching Point Transformation is a brand new approach to weight loss. Dr. Prologo’s plan is focused on overcoming the body’s resistance to change so that those who are overweight can enjoy a healthy lifestyle, instead of trying to endure another miserable, undoable calorie restriction/exercise plan. The Catching Point Transformation is designed to guide you for twelve short weeks—three days at a time—to a brand new place. “Dr. Prologo targets sustainability. He elevates our science-based weight-loss programs by keeping people engaged.” —Arthur Agatston, MD, author of The South Beach Diet “In this book, Dr. Prologo illuminates the struggles of obese and overweight patients through the absolutely fresh lens of a proceduralist, physician, and friend.” —Mark Hyman, MD, Director and Chair, Cleveland Clinic Institute for Functional Medicine, Author of numerous New York Times bestselling books, including Eat Fat, Get Thin “By leading us past the false promises of weight control by force of will alone, Dr. Prologo provides both empowerment and relief. With experience, expertise, and careful attention to evidence, he converts the frustrating limitations of reliance on will into an actual way paved with genuine understanding.” —David Katz, MD, MPH, Director, Yale University Prevention Research Center, founder of The True Health Initiative, and author of How to Eat People do not fail diets because they are weak-willed or “don’t really want it.” People fail diets (and practically every diet does fail) because the body rebels in the name of survival. Our bodies send overwhelming signals to the brain to stop with the rice cakes and boot camp—“we are starving to death!” No one can overcome those signals. No. One. It’s like holding your breath underwater—you can do it for a short time against the body’s wishes, but the longer you stay there, the louder and more crushing the signals get, until you finally burst to the surface for air (or into a fast food restaurant or bakery, in this case). The smiley fit people, on the other hand, do not feel the same suffocating signals. They feel great and do not understand why you don’t feel great. They say you don’t really want to lose weight, because who wouldn’t exercise and diet for long periods of time? Isn’t it so so fun and great? They judge you and say you are a weak-willed, lazy, second-class citizen—because they have never felt what you feel trying to make a change. Then they publish their own maintenance diet and exercise schedule and gasp in disbelief when you cannot use it for weight loss. And around we go. The Catching Point Transformation was created to break this cycle, to allow everyone to have fun, feel confident, and be successful when engaged with diet and exercise. It levels the playing ground for those who are trying to make a change with those who are already lean. Shed all of the things that have blocked you before now, so you can love it like they do. Dr. Prologo asks for twelve short weeks, and when you get to the end, you will not only be a believer—you will be transformed.

The book discusses different possibilities for, and obstacles to, economic development in lower income countries in Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. It asks what lessons can be learned from previous success cases and assesses whether the growth of developing countries over the last decades can be sustained. It pays attention to actual processes of development over the long-term to shed light on prospects for global development today.

Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, How to Change Your Mind, and This is Your Mind on Plants explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen in Cooked. "Having described what's wrong with American food in his best-selling The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), New York Times contributor Pollan delivers a more optimistic but equally fascinating account of how to do it right. . . . A delightful chronicle of the education of a cook who steps back frequently to extol the scientific and philosophical basis of this deeply satisfying human activity." —Kirkus (starred review) Cooked is now a Netflix docuseries based on the book that focuses on the four kinds of "transformations" that occur in cooking. Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney and starring Michael Pollan, Cooked teases out the links between science, culture and the flavors we love. In Cooked, Pollan discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan’s effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse–trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius “fermentos” (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The reader learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships. Cooking, above all, connects us. The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.

Political parties regularly change and adapt in response to ever-changing circumstances. Until now these changes have frequently prompted both scholars and the media to suggest a whole new type of political party, and over time the number of models and types has proliferated to the point of confusion, contradiction, and a loss of explanatory power. In this sophisticated yet accessible study, André Krouwel rejects this mélange of models as inadequate. He utilizes a wide range of data sources to analyze the ideological, organizational, and electoral change undergone by more than one hundred European parties in fifteen different countries, from Scandinavia to the Iberian Peninsula, between 1945 and 2010. The result is one of the most comprehensive empirically grounded studies to date of the genesis, development, and transformation of political parties in advanced democratic states.

This book offers a fundamentally new interpretation of the philosophy of the Chuang-Tzu. It is the first full-length work of its kind which argues that a deep level cognitive structure exists beneath an otherwise random collection of literary anecdotes, cryptic sayings, and dark allusions. The author carefully analyzes myths, legends, monstrous characters, paradoxes, parables and linguistic puzzles as strategically placed techniques for systematically tapping and channeling the spiritual dimensions of the mind. Allinson takes issue with commentators who have treated the Chuang-Tzu as a minor foray into relativism. Chapter titles are re-translated, textual fragments are relocated, and inauthentic, outer miscellaneous chapters are carefully separated from the transformatory message of the authentic, inner chapters. Each of the inner chapters is shown to be a building block to the next so that they can only be understood as forming a developmental sequence. In the end, the reader is presented with a clear, consistent and coherent view of the Chuang-Tzu that is more in accord with its stature as a major philosophical work.

The books that we read, whether travel-focused or not, may influence the way in which we understand the process or experience of travel. This multidisciplinary work provides a critical analysis of the inspirational and transformational role that books play in travel imaginings. Does reading a book encourage us to think of travel as exotic, adventurous, transformative, dangerous or educative? Do different genres of books influence a reader's view of travel in multifarious ways? These questions are explored through a literary analysis of an eclectic selection of books spanning the period from the eighteenth century to the present day. Genres covered include historical fiction, children's books, westerns, science-fiction and crime fiction.