February 2025 Reads – The Fitnessista

A roundup of the books I read in February and if I’d recommend adding them to your collection.

Hi friends! How are you? I hope that you’re enjoying the week so far! I’m teaching a barre class today and looking forward to a juice date with a friend.

For today’s post, I’m sharing a roundup of the books I read in February and if I’d recommend adding them to your TBR list. After being in a slump with books for a while, and with launching Healing Code + working on IHP3, I read three books last month, which I’m calling a win.

Here’s the full roundup:

February 2025 Reads

The Lotus Shoes

I’ve been interested in Chinese historical fiction (LOVED Lady Tan’s Circle of Women) and this one caught my eye. This book is about the story of Little Flower, who is sold as a muiazi (maidservant) to a prominent family. She has bound feet and is talented in emboirdery, which are two characteristics typically reserved for the higher classes. This book was action-packed – it started off quickly and kept the same pace, which made it easy to read quickly – but shattered my heart so many times. It was a testament to the power of resilience, even when it seems like everything is stacked against your favor. 10/10- highly recommend it if you enjoy historical fiction.

From Amazon:

1800s China. Tightly bound feet, or “golden lilies,” are the mark of an honorable woman, eclipsing beauty, a rich dowry and even bloodline in the marriage stakes. When Little Flower is sold as a maidservant—a muizai—to Linjing, a daughter of the prominent Fong family, she clings to the hope that one day her golden lilies will lead her out of slavery.

Not only does Little Flower have bound feet, uncommon for a muizai, but she is extraordinarily gifted at embroidery, a skill associated with the highest class of a lady. Resentful of her talents, Linjing does everything in her power to thwart Little Flower’s escape.

But when scandal strikes the Fongs, both women are cast out to the Celibate Sisterhood, where Little Flower’s artistic prowess catches the eye of a nobleman. His attention threatens not only her improved status, but her life—the Sisterhood punishes disobedience with death. And if Linjing finds out, will she sabotage Little Flower to reclaim her power, or will she protect her?

You Can Heal Your Life

This was highly recommended on a Skinny Confidential podcast, so I downloaded it immediately. It’s brought me peace during some recent challenging days and helped me shift my mindset. (I haven’t shared much on the blog, but there’s a lot going on right now on the personal front. Everyone is healthy, but it’s been kind of a rough time.) This book includes mantras and exercises for shaping your thoughts to influence your reality, and is packed with positive affilmations. If you’re looking for something uplifting and peaceful to listen to, definitely give it a download. 9/10

From Amazon:

You Can Heal Your Life has transformed the lives of millions of people. This is a book that people credit with profoundly altering their awareness of the impact that the mind has on health and wellbeing.

In this inspirational book by the late world-renowned bestselling author and self-help pioneer Louise Hay, you’ll find profound insight into the relationship between the mind and the body.

Exploring the way that limiting thoughts and ideas control and constrict us, she offers us a powerful key to understanding the roots of our physical dis-eases and discomforts. Full of positive affirmations, this practical guidebook will change the way you think forever!

Louise Hay, bestselling author, is an internationally known leader in the self-help field. Her key message is: “If we are willing to do the mental work, almost anything can be healed.” Louise Hay had a great deal of experience and firsthand information to share about healing, including how she cured herself after being diagnosed with cancer.

“My message is simple and not confined by borders: You Can Heal Your Life has been translated into over 40 languages throughout the world and continues to heal, transform and empower the lives of so many people.

To this day, I am moved by the stories of profound changes that positive affirmations have made in so many lives. I am also pleased that my work has been embraced not only by my generation, but those who have followed.

To those of you who may be new to using affirmations, I’d like to share with you the following: Every thought we think and every word we speak creates our future. Life is really very simple. What we give out, we get back.

What we think about ourselves becomes the truth for us. I believe that everyone, myself included, is responsible for everything in our lives, the best and the worst.

Affirmations are like seeds that you plant and expect to grow. I urge you to discover the power of affirmations as there are no limits to what they can bring.

Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies: The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders

This book caught my eye because these 4-A disorders are incredibly common in children, and I’m always looking for new insights and information for how to help kids feel their absolute best. (About half of my clients are children! I’ve had positive results with their parents, who have gone on to run functional labs for their kiddos, and also have kindly spread the word about my services as an IHP2. I’m so grateful, and have found that I absolutely adore working with kids.)

The author of this book, an MD, has some controversial opinions about vaccines, so if that’s triggering to you, I would absolutely skip this book. It’s also worth mentioning here that just because I read this book doesn’t mean that I agree with everything he says, or that I believe the same things. I like to keep an open mind and listen to as many viewpoints and experiences as possible.

The healing program that he includes is divided into nutritional therapy, supplementation, detoxification, and medication. It wasn’t the most engaging/enjoable, and some parts could absolutely use an update with current therapies, but I absolutely learned a lot from reading this book. 7/10

From Amazon:

Doctors have generally overlooked the connections among the 4-A disorders. For years the medical establishment has considered autism medically untreatable and utterly incurable, and has limited ADHD treatment mainly to symptom suppression. Dr. Kenneth Bock, a leading medical innovator, along with his colleagues, have discovered a solution that goes to the root of the problem. They have found that modern toxins, nutritional deficiencies, metabolic imbalances, genetic vulnerabilities, and assaults on the immune and gastrointestinal systems trigger most of the symptoms of the 4-A disorders, resulting in frequent misdiagnosis and untold mysteries.

Dr. Bock’s remarkable Healing Program is an innovative biomedical approach that has changed the lives of more than a thousand children. Drawn from medical research and based on years of clinical success, this program offers a safe, sensible solution that is individualized to each child to help remedy the root causes. Dr. Bock also shares the dramatic true stories of parents and children that will inspire you to change the life of your own child. Hope is at last within reach.

So, tell me, friends: what have you read lately and loved?

Any new historical fiction that you’ve enjoyed?

xo

Gina