An amazing program with great results!!
Written: Dec 21 '06 (Updated Dec 21 '06)
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Pros: A HEALTHY diet! You feel great and really lose weight!
Cons: Like any diet it's a little challenging to continually create variety in your meals.
The Bottom Line: I highly recommend it. When I'm on this diet I literally feel like running up to people and telling them how great it is.
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| sandalwood9's Full Review: Body For Life |
I was trying to lose some weight for our wedding, and a friend recommended this book. She said there were about a dozen people at her church doing it and that their bodies looked like they had gone through a total transformation. That was all the inspiration I needed to head out and purchase this book.
The writing is actually OK. I was not expecting the best writing talent from a fitness expert, but was pleasantly surprised with the conviction Phillips presented his plan, along with his genuine plea for you to get healthy.
I found the entire book inspirational and moving enough to get myself moving!
I appreciated that it was not just all statistics and double talk, to just 'fill' the pages.
The program:
Basically (and you can get this information right off the Body for Life website so I don't feel bad about posting it here) the plan is based on the concept that you exclude white processed starches, and then you balance your carb grams (whole grains etc.) with your protein grams at every meal, drink tons of water, eat lots of veggies, eat smaller portions but frequent meals, and get exercise.
And I almost forgot the best part of this program: You get a "free day" once a week, every week! That's right, totally free, eat whatever you want, pig out day! Believe it or not, looking forward to that one day will help you stick to your diet through the week!
Of course, with the free day I was a little skeptical. But *really* it works!!! I dieted for 6 days, and on the 7th I'd start off with weighing myself, and then heading to the bakery for eclairs for breakfast. I'd have whatever I wanted for lunch, and dinner. Then the next day it was back to work.
The pounds literally flew off my body. Each week I weighed myself only on my free day (doing it every day just makes you crazy) before eating and each week I was so happy with the results. I think the least I lost in a week was a half a pound. The most I lost (in the beginning) was 4 pounds in one week. In 6 months I'd lost 48 pounds and had never felt better. Not even just because of the weight loss. It was because of all the energy I had from all the healthy foods I was eating. You do kind of get addicted to the good feeling you get from eating these good foods, and then when you cheat and eat something bad, your body makes you pay for it!
I also felt like I was not losing the weight too quickly, as I had on other diets like Atkins. This for me was a healthy pace, and I did not have any bad effects of any kind.
One of the other great things about this plan that helped me stick to it was the fact that you don't have to eat "fat free". You are allowed to have low-fat items. This was huge for me because I always hated all that icky tasting fat-free stuff. It either tasted like cardboard or chemicals. This was something I could live with. You're allowed to have low-fat cottage cheese. You're allowed to have low-fat sour cream (and yes, you're allowed to have potatoes!) You're encouraged to have a little bit of olive oil here and there to cook with. This sure beats trying to saute chicken in Pam and water!!
Also, another characteristic I appreciated about this plan, was that there's not a major limit on the amount of food you can eat, even when you're in your 'dieting days'. I basically just ate whenever I was hungry, and ate as much as I wanted, as long as I made sure my carbs and proteins were equaled out. I constantly was snacking on veggies and dip, made from low-fat sour cream and ranch dip mix. Yum! I never felt starved on this plan, unless it was my own fault for not bringing enough food!
On every other diet I felt so deprived and depressed. This was the first one where I felt motivated, energetic, and then ecstatic about the results!
The hardest part for me was and still is finding a way to keep an interesting variety in my meals without making them too time consuming. And of course there's no diet that will work if you don't have the willpower. And sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. After losing the weight I did go off of it a few times, and each time the weight started creeping back so I'd have to go back to the plan again.
You do have to plan out your meals, so you're not caught off-guard, and you do have to make your meals out of the list of foods he gives you. But, there are a lot of foods on that list, and it's pretty much what you'd probably be eating anyway, except now you're matching your carbs and proteins, and eating whole grains (brown rice, whole wheat bread, etc.)
The other downside to this program is that it's supposed to be a 12-week program. Don't get me wrong, you get a lot accomplished in those 12 weeks, and I obviously continued it for long after that, but you kind of end up feeling like you're just left hanging ... to my knowledge there have been no 'real' update books, or anything about as far as what to do after those 12 weeks are over in order to stay on track. I wish there was! This would help me I think, in keeping it going.
Also, at first I was impressed that Phillips includes a 24/7 "helpline" for you to call whenever you feel like you can't keep going. However, I became disappointed when I called it one day only to find that it was a bunch of sales reps for his Myoplex line of shakes and supplements. I had called with a nutritional question about some bread I was eating, and they were helpful, but kind of like 'why are you calling?' ;)
I also purchased Phillips' Body for Life recipe book, that's alright and has great photos. I also purchased Body for Life for Women, by Pamela Peeke, but I found that to be a complete waste of money, and poorly constructed.
Oh, there is an entire section of this book dedicated to exercising. He does have a unique take on how to do your cardio workout, where you work as hard as you can and then slow down, and repeat this for gradually decreasing intervals. I hate exercise, but tried it. It was exhausting, not that that's a bad thing!
He also gives you descriptions about what weight-lifting exercises to do, but I found all this intimidating.
I wound up just not doing any of the exercise components, and still lost the weight! Not that I recommend this, because exercise is healthy!
Overall I highly recommend it. It is very doable!
Recommended:
Yes
Approximate Monthly Cost (US$) 12
Food Variety Restrictions A wide variety of allowed foods
Restrictiveness of Portions Gorge all you like
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Epinions.com ID:
sandalwood9
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Reviews written: 32
Trusted by: 6 members
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