Well, this doesn’t have anything to do with cooking, but as part of an overall healthy lifestyle exercise is important, and thus appropriate for this blog.
I recently listened to Bill Phillips’ book Body for Life (the audio book version).
Body for Life seems to be a pretty popular book right now so I thought I would check it out. My basic assessment of Bill’s program will have to wait until I have tried it out for a longer period of time, but I wasn’t very impressed with his book. If you want a weight training oriented fitness program, Bill’s looks like a good one, but the essence of his program can be gotten from the Body for Life website.
If what you need is a lot of motivational psychobabble, then this book is great. Most of the text goes something like… “You can do it … You must be committed … Don’t try, do … etc.” Personally, I’m not a big fan of motivational writing and was anxious to get to the meat of the program. The audio book never really got there. I had to go to his website to find out the details.
Once I got to his site I decided that his program looks like a good one. He has some nice printable log sheets, animations of many of the exercises, and a lot of good information. I’m not really planning to implement his diet program, but it doesn’t look too bad. If one was really interested in trying it one could apply Nourishing Traditions principles to it without too much difficulty. But I’m not going to be eating 6 meals per day.
My wife and I tried our first session last night and let’s just say, WOW, am I really really sore…
Hi. Good post.
My wife and I just started the B4L program last week. I read the book back in 2000 I guess. And since then have done the 12 week cycle a few times.
It’s a good program. I think the hardest part for me was getting in 6 meals. That was pretty tough until I began to look at it as 3 meals and 3 snacks. With some of the snacks being a meal-replacement shake or bar…or fruit and a protein.
Anyways, we also purchased the Eating for Life book, which helped out a lot giving us many ideas and variety.
The workout program is decent as well. My wife and I are enjoying the weekly planning. We sit down on Saturday or Sunday night and plan the week’s schedule down to each meal/snack. Then we go grocery shopiing together. It’s a fun way to spend a little quality time together which these days is tough, she’s a grad school student and grad assistant so she’s very busy. I work in student ministry, so it’s good that we have something in common to give us a little time each week together (above and beyond what we already try and do).
Anyways, overall I would agree with you. The Book has a lot of fluff. Good for people who may not know where to start, or not have the motivation to learn where to start. But overall, once you get the plan down, the book is not necessary. For me it was more motivational then informational, seeing the before and after photos and reading some of the success stories.
Have a great day!
Russ