Hello, friends and fellow book lovers!

Today I’d like to talk really quickly about a book I just finished that you MUST check out if you’re a BIPOC woman who is at least between the ages of 20 and 60 years old. That’s a big gap, and this book fills it perfectly for ALL of us! It’s called “The Black Woman’s Guide To Healthy Living: The Best Advice For Body, Mind, and Spirit In Your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and BEYOND“. Penned by the editors of Essence magazine, a publication geared towards Black women and women of color, the information inside candidly addresses the health issues that Black women battle and the best practices to ensure optimum health.

I’m all in. For 2023 and beyond, I’m on this kick where I’m determined to read all of the books I’ve purchased years ago but never cracked open. I put myself on “book buying punishment” until I’ve gotten through the entire list, and you KNOW my wallet is itching for me to finish my “unread” pile before this summer.

Number one on the list? A book I purchased over fifteen years ago. I’ve had it for so long that it LOOKS like I’ve read it several times, even though I never even cracked it open. It’s survived two cross-country moves, juice and tea being accidentally spilled on it, and my son folding the front cover, so I know a Higher Power has been calling me to check out the gems in between the pages. Especially since I’ve been really passionate about taking better care of my health as I go through my 40s. A few months back I took on a really stressful job (temporarily) that messed me up a bit, and I unfortunately went back to my old coping mechanisms of smoking and snacking. However, I want to live and be around to see my kids grow up, so I’ve pledged to go back to eating naturally, to stop smoking, and to improve my mental and spiritual health.

“The Black Woman’s Guide…” was first published in 2009 and credits an impressive list of woman writers, researchers, and editors that contributed. It shows Angela Burt-Murray as the Editor-In-Chief of Essence at the time, and she provided a very thoughtful forward that reminds us of WHY we need to focus on the keys to healthy living, starting off by truthfully admitting on page 4, “…we work so hard at our jobs, looking after our families and giving back to our communities that we often ignore our own bodies”. PREACH!

The book is divided into different sections that are dedicated to a different aspect of healthy living, with Lynya Ford penning an introduction titled “Mission: Control”, which implores us as readers to take charge of our health NOW and not sometime in the future. Too often we put our own health on the backburner or make promises that we’ll “get started next week”, but we never do. And of course, the cycle of guilt, broken promises, and overworking ourselves continues. Whenever you’re dealing with trying to convince someone to change their lifestyle, it can become overwhelming for them, so the best course of action is to break it down into manageable steps, which is exactly what Ford does. She advises us to follow these three steps:

• Take a look back.
  
• See where you stand.
  
• Set your sights.
  

The next six parts are as follows:

PART ONE: BODY AND SOUL

In this section, they really break down the different types of healthy living steps we’d take depending on if we’re in our 20s, 30s, 40s, etc., which I can appreciate. 40-year-old Tamara’s body is NOT the same as 20-year-old Tamara’s body (my boobs are a living testimony to that! ) We also get to hear the best advice from actual doctors (not pseudo-experts) about the top health concerns plaguing Black women, like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and HIV. I also appreciated them telling us what medical tests we should be getting at every age, because I really didn’t know. I wound up missing a lot of the ones I was supposed to get in my 30s, so doctor’s visits in my 40s should be fun!

PART TWO: FIT AND FABULOUS

I don’t like to exercise. Period. I need the highest level of motivation and inspiration to even think about pulling out my yoga mat or workout DVD (yes, I still have those LOL). The theme of this section is: YOU CAN DO IT! I appreciate the pick-me-up, I really do. And in situations where people don’t want to work out, yet you want to motivate them to start, it’s best to just approach the elephant in the room, which they do with “Exercise Dillemas”. There’s also a “Total Body Fitness Challenge” in there that I want to check out and hopefully get others to join up and participate with me ‘cuz it sounds like lots of fun. And because I belong to team #NoAssAtAll, I was paying super close attention to the “Bring Up the Rear” section.

PART THREE: MIND AND SPIRIT

As Black women, I feel like we are embracing our spirituality more, but we just haven’t mastered how to really channel and control the flow of such a powerful energy we house. We need help with it, whether it be meditation, massages, experiencing the benefits of acupuncture, or participating in African dance classes. Reading this section definitely got me inspired to get out there and join some classes. Best part? They don’t shy away from the negative feelings we experience as the “superwomen of society” – the depression, the loneliness, the feeling that maybe we just aren’t doing enough or just can’t do it at all. And in that section, they talk about how it’s normal to feel that way and how we can best deal with those emotions.

PART FOUR: SEXUAL HEALTH

Yeah, we’re doing it well beyond our 20s and 30s, youngin’! Don’t get it twisted. And what I like about this section is that they take away the stigmas surrounding Black women, sex, and promiscuity while also reminding us that our body is our TEMPLE, and we must protect it at all costs. They talk condoms (including how to get these dudes to wear them, especially when they offer up excuses), STIs, intimacy, fibroids (which I really feel like should have been addressed in Part One: Body and Soul), and how we women can feel sexy at every age.

PART FIVE: HEALTHY FOOD FAST

This is my favorite section. They have some of the BEST recipes in this book! So much so that I had to run out to the grocery store this past Sunday with this book in my purse and stock up on every ingredient I saw pictured. They claim to give you 21 delicious meals, but that’s a lie. They give you MORE! I think I must have counted almost 30! From the seared scallops in lemon-butter sauce with asparagus (num-num nummy-nummy num-num!) to the broiled lamb chops with spring vegetables, I’m gonna be eatin’ GOOD this year, honey! Thank you, thank you, thank you, you wonderful book, you!

The final section is one they have dedicated for you to use as a healthy living journal, where you can write down the new habits you’re starting and keep track of your goals and progress. One of them that I’m paying attention to is where I have to track how many hours of sleep I got for the night, as well as what I did to unwind for that day.

This book already makes me feel like I’m living my best life. And it’s important for us to start the conversation on what we need to do to start normalizing these healthy tips so that they are no longer habits and are reprogrammed into our daily lives and thinking. This shouldn’t be something we have to work at, ya know? And it should be something we share with our children and indoctrinate them into at a young age. The goal is to break the unhealthy cycles and habits we learned as children and took into adulthood with us, and I am really thankful that a resource like this one – as well as many others – exist for us Black women to better our health.

Have you ever read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, is it one you think you’d want to check out?

Also, what other health books geared toward Black and BIPOC women would you recommend? Sound off in the comments!