By Gary Scholar, MEd

Reviewed by Eileen P. Williamson

Fit Nurse opens nurses’ eyes to author Gary Scholar’s thesis that, regardless of the shifts they work—even nights—nurses can make personal shifts to wellness. Scholar is a nationally recognized health and wellness consultant on a mission—to help nurses create healthier lifestyles for themselves.

This book is a not-to-be-missed practical guide for nurses who want to live well and live better. Scholar points out the disconnect between how much nurses do to promote the health of others and how little they to do to promote their own wellness and well-being. To help them change that, he invites nurses to examine their frequent failures as well as their sporadic and short-lived successes. He challenges them to honestly assess what he terms their nurse personalities: their chronic inability to relax, their collective reluctance to exercise and their inconsistent—and worse—eating habits. He even helps them understand the “why” of their aching backs. And, he convinces them they can change all of it!

Fit Nurse demonstrates that the time for allowing one’s self to be overloaded, overextended and overwhelmed is over—that it’s time instead for self-belief, self-management and self-empowerment. From putting a kitchen pantry through “rehab” and planning new, different and healthy menus to developing “surgically precise” shopping skills (including Code Blue interventions and avoidance of “dangerous” aisles), Scholar makes it clear that food—whether craved or comforting—is not the enemy. The real enemy is how food is viewed, used and “experienced.”

Nurses love acronyms, and this guide for getting fit and living well includes some new and easy-to-remember ones, including FINE (Frequently Ignoring Needs and Emotions), GUILT (Guaranteeing You Infinite Lifetime Therapy) and, of course, the ever-popular ER (Exercising Regularly). With its fun and motivational interactive exercises done in “group wellness challenge” settings, its how-to’s for award ceremonies in which “Golden Nightingale Wellness Wings” are bestowed and its “Livewell” hints, quotes and “confessions” from nurses around the country, Fit Nurse is a book that readers will stay with from beginning to end. In fact, it’s one that’s likely to make them run to the kitchen to prepare and cook healthy food, work on their ergonomics or strength training, or sign up for Pilates or yoga classes.

Scholar believes that fitness comes from doing what we love, and that all we need to do is find that love. In this 200-plus-page book, he has given us one really great way to do just that! RNL

Eileen P. Williamson, RN, MSN, is vice president, Nursing Communications & Initiatives, Gannett Healthcare Group.