Lifestyle by Nature: One Woman's Break from the Unhealthy Herd to Roam Forever Healthy in Nature's Lifestyle Change Herd (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781546216216)

Betty Holston Smith grew up in the 1940s and 1950s in Chevy Chase, Maryland, amidst nature-rich virgin woods, in a family whose parents imparted passion for learning to all six of their children. Betty's passion for learning manifested as wondering about everything in nature's virgin woods and beyond. As a child, Smith devised an investigatory routine that helped to satisfy her passion. First, she played up her passion for wondering by simply wondering-about most things. She then copiously scrutinized the situation her wondering focused on at the time. Next, she dissected the focused situation and extracted its essential parts. And finally, she satisfied her wondering of the focused situation by becoming a copycat, attempting to replicate or imitate it. For example, as a child Smith wondered if she could successfully transplant one of nature's colorful wildflower gardens from the woods into her own yard. She wondered what it might be like to shriek in fun like the white kids in the deep end of the county's segregated swimming pool. She wondered what it would take to continue her education through the terminal degree as a part-time student and a full-time wife, mother, and employee. She wondered what it would take to give up junk food, lose weight, become active, and stop smoking. In her thirties, Smith took five years of swimming lessons and did indeed shriek in fun in the deep end. As a part-time student, she completed three degrees, which took thirty-two years beyond high school. She trashed diets in favor of using the biomimicry process of copying nature's lifestyle change wisdom to maintain an eighty-pound weight loss over forty-four years and becoming a non-smoking, vegan-eating, ultra-marathon runner. She did all of this and much more by living nature's Lifestyle Change System's six-step formula.