Mar
31
Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat The Secret Science Behind Physical Transformation
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Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat The Secret Science Behind Physical Transformation
Diet and fitness books appear at a dizzying rate – and with a wealth of dubious claims – in a culture facing increasing health problems based on a sedentary lifestyle. Ori Hofmekler’s Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat pulls out of the pack by focusing on the biological principles that dictate muscle gain and fat loss. Written for the widest readership–competitive athletes, bodybuilders, trainers, martial artists, sports nutritionists and coaches, dieters, and anyone concerned about their health–the book builds on the concepts popularized in The Warrior Diet. Author Hofmekler describes in simple, lay terms how under-eating and fasting can trigger an anabolic switch that stimulates growth and rejuvenation; how to reengineer the body at the cellular level to burn fat and build muscles; and how to naturally manipulate the body’s hormones for rapid muscle fusion and faster fat breakdown. Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat offers smart strategies for taking advantage of hunger to stimulate growth, burn fat, and boost brain power; techniques for turning insulin into a muscle builder instead of a fat gainer; and methods for shattering training and diet plateaus–in the process enhancing metabolic function, improving performance, and increasing the capacity to gain, and sustain, prime health.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars A must for anyone who wants to achieve their own, truly healthy form.
How exactly does one reach peak physical condition? “Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat: The Secret Science Behind Physical Transformation” is a guide to doing just that. Offering advice and tips in order to stimulate one’s metabolism, along with advice to pushing one’s mind with the body and increasing muscle gain through workout techniques and improved dieting, among other things, “Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat” is a must for anyone who wants to achieve their own, truly healthy form.
5 Stars DON’T KNOCK IT TILL YOU’VE TRIED IT !!!!
I’m no scientist or nutritionist nor have I consulted one so take this for what it is worth.
I’m a 26 year old active father who needed to lose between 10 and 15 lbs (210lbs. to 200 or so). 4 weeks into the diet I have lost 11 lbs. I feel much healthier and much more alive than before not to mention the energy increase. I don’t understand the science behind anything - could care less. I know from experience that so far this diet works for fat loss and more importntly feeling healthy and well. Which is something I had been missing for about 2 years. THIS FEELS GREAT.
Also, I have tried cutting calories, 6 meals a day, Abs Diet, Body for LIfe, and the like throughout my life. They all work I’m sure - but none of them like this one. This is more than just Fat Loss!
About the supplements -they are all reccomended not required. I take a multi-vitamin and a mineral and thats all. He’s not trying to break you although I’m sure he would appreciate it if you purchased his supplaments. I have not.
5 Stars outstanding technical/scientific reference
This is an excellent reference to the science behind and beyond THE WARRIOR DIET, not that you have to have that book to read this one, but it is more of a clear application guide to the concepts in this book. This book can be a great resource to the serious athlete but because it gives no specific plan to use the information in it, it is not for the weekend health recreationalist. Be warned it is a very complex book, the information is all there, but the average reader will likely have trouble understanding much of the information without some background or previous interest in the technical functions of chemicals and hormones in the body. A lot of scientific talk here. Excellent book, but be ready to do more research to get a full understanding of all the knowledge in here.
2 Stars Complicated
-This book is not written for the average caveman. While reading it, and I did read the whole thing, I found myself blah blah blahing in my head until I hit an interesting point or two.
-It is a really indepth look at the hypothesis that is featured and simplified in “The Warrior Diet” book. If I was able to skim through this in a book store I more than likely would not have bought it and read it. While I fully recomend the latter I do not recomend “Maximum Muscle: Minimum Fat”.
4 Stars A Must Buy
Turn off the home shopping channel and put down your new low carb diet book. In a sea of crash diets and fitness fads Ori Hofmekler offers an intelligent well researched and functional blueprint for healthy living. In his new book “Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat” Ori’s passion for the beauty and complexity of the human body comes through on every page.
Those of you familiar with “The Warrior Diet” will find new information and further depth in Ori’s latest offering. For readers new to Ori’s research you will find a detailed exploration into how we can fuel and train our bodies to reach our full potential. A far cry from the usual diet/fitness books that line bookstore shelves, Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat offers an unprecedented exploration into the science human performance and in doing so sets a new standard.
Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat is not an easy read. This book is for people who aren’t merely satisfied with diet and training tips but rather this is for people with the drive and capacity to ask why and how things work. Ori takes great care in laying out the science behind training the human body and it is his attention to detail that sets his work apart from the masses. This extremely well written book is packed with technical information along with carefully crafted summaries that help turn the science of training into the art of personal excellence.
Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat goes beyond training for the sake of vanity and explores the science behind functional strength. With this work Ori invites his readers to get off the sofa and go to the extreme in their training. By trumpeting the virtues of such training methods as; supersets, under and over eating the author artfully lays out a plan for healthy living that shows readers how to create “super muscles”, and a fat burning metabolism.
As a martial arts coach and personal training I have encountered countless athletes and weekend warriors who will suffer and sacrifice in the gym only to fail to reach their goals for lack of proper planning in the gym and at the dinner table. Such people go through their training and their life with a kind of handbrake on, never reaching their full potential. For a practical method of pushing the limits of human performance and to create a functionally strong and fit body I highly recommend Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat.
Mar
31
The Younger Thinner You Diet How Understanding Your Brain Chemistry Can Help You Lose Weight Reverse Aging and Fight Disease
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User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Pleasantly different
With the plethera of diet books around, I was skeptical about yet another. So instead of reading the text first, I tried some of the recipes. Great stuff!
5 Stars Very stimulating read
I do not really have a weight problem, but I have a brain imbalance and this book tells you how it is. The recipes are easy to follow and I am excited to feel and look better. A good buy, I have told everyone about this book! Its not your typical diet book, it is a diet for your body and brain.
5 Stars A REAL WAY TO LOOK AT DIETING
This book is amazing and shows how to eat for LIFE. I appreciate the presentation and the useful way the book is written, it shows who, where, what, why, and when of each aspect of dieting. Even proves that diets start in my brain. The brain is discussed at length and I know following these suggestions will elevate my mood, my brain health, and the resulting weight loss will follow. Thank you Dr. Braverman for a great book. My personal “best” so far has been switching from diet cola to beneficial green tea. I recommend this book to all as a guide to eating healthy and staying well.
5 Stars This book is a keeper—revolutionary in scope!
This book is a keeper, a must-have reference book for how food affects the brain. I have read hundreds of books on nutrition, even wrote one myself, but nonetheless found this book revolutionary in scope.
I love reading books that give me radically new information, and I found plenty of such nuggets here. For example, until reading Younger (Thinner) You Diet, I had no idea that my hepatitis C had affected my entire personality for years! I was further amazed at how much our personality is formed by neurotransmitters, which can be balanced with food.
Dr. Braverman discusses at length in layman’s simple terms the following brain chemicals: dopamine, acetylcholine, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) an serotonin. He shows how a lack of them can affect the personality, aging, and weight gain. Just looking at the various personality profiles Dr. Braverman provides, you can easily recognize which neurotransmitters you and your loved ones lack. But there is a quiz to make the diagnosis more accurate.
In this book you will also find tips for combating such things as osteoporosis, collagen loss, and other maladies. There is even a handy section called “Name the Pauses” in which you can which systems are your weakest (again, definitions and quizzes). There is a section that details the power of various spices and also such a section for teas. Parts like that make this a reference book. You will not want to sell your used copy on Amazon!
There are a few things that made me raise my eyebrows: advice to use aspartame, which has been proven to be very toxic, and canola oil, which is genetically modified. And he classifies someone as “excentric” who believes in telepathy and the sixth sense. (He obviously is not familiar with all the scientific studies referred to in such books as The Field.)
But I have never found a book that is 100% accurate and am able to overlook a few errors to see all the wonderful information in it.
This book is absolutely not just about weight loss, but about using nutrition and supplements to stay younger and even reverse aging. You can use this information no matter what your diet slant is: vegan, vegetarian, raw foodist, or omnivore.
4 Stars Good info
Very good info. Made me incorporate more spices and herbs in my diet. Explains about the chemistry of how food affects you. I personally will not be able to use any of the recipes (meals). I think they would be too difficult for most people to follow. Very informative book. Some new and different information. Very holistic. Easy to read.
Mar
30
The World is Fat The Fads Trends Policies and Products That Are Fattening the Human Race
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The World is Fat The Fads Trends Policies and Products That Are Fattening the Human Race
Fast Food Nation meets The World Is Flat in this eye-opening look at the obesity epidemic.
Today, the planet’s 1.3 billion overweight people by far outnumber the 700 million who are undernourished. This figure would have seemed ludicrous just fifty years ago, when hunger was the world’s most pressing nutritional problem.
In The World Is Fat, Barry Popkin argues that the fattening of the human race is not simply about that next cheeseburger; rather, it is a result of an unprecedented collision of human biology with trends in technology, globalization, government policy, and the food industry that are changing how we eat and how we live.
Popkin, whose expertise in both nutrition and economics makes him uniquely qualified to write this book, compares our lifestyles today with those of half a century ago through the stories of five families living in the United States, Mexico, and India. He shows how increasing access to media and exposure to advertising, a powerful food industry, the rise of Wal-Mart like shopping centers, and a dramatic decline in physical activity are clashing with millions of years of human evolution, creating a world of overweight people with debilitating health problems such as diabetes. Ultimately, Popkin contends that widespread obesity is less a result of poor individual dietary choices than about a hi-tech, interconnected world in which governments and multinational corporations have extraordinary power to shape our everyday lives.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars A well written essay on the obesity epidemic
The name Barry Popkin carries some real clout in the nutrition/obesity research world, so I was excited to read his opinions and thoughts, and I cruised through this book in one night. The author starts out with the story of his life growing up in the 50’s and the lives of a few other families in India and China, and he returns to them throughout the book. Although I don’t feel that the individual stories make a convincing argument for why the world is fat, they do make the book immensely enjoyable and extremely easy to relate to.
What does make a convincing argument is the well-researched data that peppers this book, pointing the finger firmly at a one-two-three punch of the sudden drop in activity in our lives, the over-abundance of nutritionally void foods and the governmental/corporate intervention into our eating habits. While not a new theory, it is a new take that is a pleasure to read.
Where this book falls short is that the author doesn’t really take the story to a conclusion. He touches on why we are fat but never really reaches an answer, touches on what obesity does to us but never really drives the point home, and touches on what we can do about it without ever really laying down any firm resolution. I would have liked to see less conjecture about liquid calories and more facts about the changes in our world. I found myself leaving the book with more questions than I started with.
The book clocks in at a light 170 pages of meat in a large font, and as such, it makes a great introduction, but not a great answer, to a very serious question.
Mar
30
The Step Diet Count Steps Not Calories to Lose Weight and Keep It off Forever
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The Step Diet Count Steps Not Calories to Lose Weight and Keep It off Forever
Developed by weight-loss experts Drs. James O. Hill and John C. Peters, co-founders of America on the Move™, The Step Diet Book is a motivational walking program that will help millions of overweight Americans lose weight and keep it off forever.
Combining a book and pedometer–in itself a $20 value–plus conversion charts and dozens of fat-burning Step Recipes, this is a complete package. At its core is a simple concept called energy balance. Calories come in, calories go out–and when intake is greater than output, you gain weight. The Step Diet Book attacks the problem from both ends. First, use the pedometer to figure out how many steps you take in an average day, then raise the number by 2,000–it’s as easy as pacing while talking on the phone, or parking at the far end of the lot. Second, eat one-quarter less of your food–which counteracts our tendency to supersize meals. Once balance is achieved, get fit and lose weight by adding more steps to your day. You can even enjoy a guilt-free lapse by knowing exactly how many steps to tack on at the end of your day.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars A kinder, gentler approach to exercise and weight loss
Note: I obtained this book used and so received the book only, not the included pedomter.
I was interested in The Step Diet because after purchasing a pedometer (not the one that came with this book), I was looking for some simple, easy strategies to increase my daily step totals. I should preface my comments by saying that I am not exactly the book’s intended target audience: I am not trying to lose weight, and I already exercise daily. However, when I am NOT exercising, I am fairly sedentary, which is why I acquired a pedometer, and I hoped that this book would help me take further steps (excuse the pun!) towards being more active.
As other reviewers have suggested, this book takes the same two-step approach to weight loss with which we are all familiar: exercise more and eat less. However, the difference here is that the authors strive to make this plan complete doable for ANYONE. The exercise part of the approach begins from wherever you are at currently–ie, using your pedometer to find your current average number of daily steps–and then striving to increase this number. For most people, this is surprisingly simple, and much easier than finding ways to add in formal exercise three times per week. However, the authors also allow credit for formal exercise by including a chart which converts other activities, such as weight lifting, into steps (oddly enough, the list includes “chopping wood” but not “aerobics”). Finally, the authors include plenty of helpful tips for increasing your daily step totals, from using the bathroom on a different floor at work to emptying the trashcans in your house daily at home.
For the diet section of the book. The authors do not recommend following a specific diet; rather, you are allowed to continue eating ALL of the same foods that you are already eating, so long as you only consume 75% of what you are eating now. The authors make this sound easy, and they do provide simple strategies for how to follow through with this plan, but I recognize that in actual practice, it is likely to be quite difficult for people to remove 1/4 of their food at each meal. Another part of this book that I thought was a little hard to follow was the concept of energy expenditure. In order to have readers set weight loss goals, the authors have them calculate their BodySteps (from a chart), LifeSteps (from the pedometer and other activities), and MegaSteps (the first two numbers added together, then divided by 1000). Sounds a bit confusing, doesn’t it? Some readers might feel that way too, but on the other hand, it appears to be a solid approach to healthy weight loss program.
Overall, the part I liked best about this book was the specific strategies offered for increasing daily steps–I would have loved to see even more here. The diet information may be useful to someone who has struggled with other approaches and is willing to accept making slow, gradual progress towards a healthier lifestyle. However, I mainly recommend this book for those looking for a kinder, gentler way to begin an exercise program.
4 Stars One Small Step for Man
I lost 8 pounds in 4 weeks following the concepts in this book. I have finally set goals for my weight. I’m walking myself to a better place. Thank you.
5 Stars Totally great and helpful
I really like this book. It’s helped to motivate me to walk more every day while wearing my pedometer. I’ve been sidelined by a knee injury for the last two years and cannot go to a gym in spite of physical therapy and doctor’s care. This book helped me to realize I can still do something to keep in shape and helped to inspire me to get moving on a regular basis again. Somehow counting steps makes you feel more accountable for your habits and just tweaking my routine has helped me to get in to better shape.
2 Stars Good walking advice, not very informed diet information
Although I got some really good statistics on walking and how calories are burned and tips on how to increase my steps, I totally disagreed with their discussions on diets. There was very little documentation to back up broad statements on the (in their view) positive use of sweetners and very little information on the choice of using natural foods as opposed to processed foods.
5 Stars Impressed
The book has been very useful. Good sound advice. Supports what my Dr. says—Move more and adjust what you eat. Addresses what needs to be done long term—not just another one of those fad diets.
Mar
29
The 1500 Calorie a Day Cookbook
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The 1500 Calorie a Day Cookbook
Eat up. Slim down. It�s just that easy–with just 1,500 delicious calories a day!
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From the author of The 1,200-Calorie-a-Day Menu. Cookbook, comes all new recipes for when you are counting calories but don�t want to sacrifice flavor, taste, or variety. While most low-calorie meal plans leave you hungry for more, this cookbook serves up a satisfying selection of energy-boosting breakfasts, fast-fix lunches, and delectable dinners–plus two healthy snacks and one guilt-free dessert–every single day! It�s. hard to believe it�s just 1,500 calories.
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User Ratings and Reviews
1 Star Incorrect Calorie Count for at Least One Recipe
This book gets an F because it failed to deliver what it promised.
As an example, the recipe for “On the Run Breakfast Cookies” has a calorie count that is wrong. In the book, the author states the recipe serves 4 with a serving size of 3 cookies each. You can easily tell this is wrong because the recipe calls for 4 cups specifically of Kashi Go Lean Crunch Cereal. The label on the Kashi box states 1 cup of cereal (the amount in one serving of cookies) is 190 calories. Now add oats, sugar, oil, eggs, and dried cherries and your total for one serving is a whopping 648 calories. Add the suggested apple and milk and this 350 calorie breakfast is actually over 800 calories!!!!!!!
I have made a total of 4 recipes and I will say each one has been delicious. But how are you supposed to trust the calorie count at all?
It’s pretty easy to make 1500 calories a day delicious when it’s likely 2000 or 2500.
4 Stars Great for ideas!!
I LOVE the premise behind this book!!!!!
–delicious meals in just 30 minutes or less
–nutritious and delicious 350-calorie meals
–150 calorie snacks
–150 calorie desserts
The author is DEFINITELY on to something here!
However, there are a few disappointments here and there that I hope the author will take to heart and revise in a future issue:
1. WAY WAY TOO MANY PORK RECIPES!
In the 6 recipe Poultry- and meat-based breakfasts section, 4 of them have some form of PORK, one is beef, and ONE is for poultry as a turkey sausage dish! The next 7 recipe egg-based breakfasts section have 3 recipes calling for PORK again. Another 3 barely miss this because she specifies using turkey ham in two recipes and turkey pepperoni in one. The 10 recipe Breads, Pancakes ad Grain-based breakfasts section has another FOUR recipes or menus with PORK. She even suggests canadian bacon as part of the menu for one of her fruit- and vegetable-based breakfasts section. My point is, if someone were to follow these breakfast menus for a month, they would be consuming a pork product 12 days out of 30. That’s a lot of pork consumption, and that’s JUST FOR BREAKFAST. Fortunately, only 3 or 4 of her lunch recipes and 8 of her dinner recipes call for pork or pork products (like pepperoni or sausage). Still, that totals almost 24 out of 90 recipes for breakfasts, lunches and dinner, a whopping 27%, that call for pork products. For the person who doesn’t eat pork, that’s more than a quarter of the book which is either useless or has to be refigured.
2. WHERE’S THE LENTIL???
I would like to see her include more egg recipes, more chicken recipes, and more meatless recipes. Lentils are a fantastic high protein high fiber and incredibly nutritious food that could have brought a lot more variety to her lunch and dinner offerings. A quick look through her book didn’t find one single recipe utilizing lentils. Lentils may very well be one of the cheapest, easiest, quickest-cooking, nutritious but so overlooked foods, and I can’t believe a recipe book such as this one, in 2009, made this error. Lentils do not cause the gas that other legumes do, and they cook very quickly. They are truly a dieter’s as well as non-dieter’s super food. And I am disappointed that I cannot find even one recipe for a dish that includes lentils in this book.
3. Most of her recipes serves 4. Leftovers from lunch or dinner aren’t difficult to use on another day, but having every breakfast recipe serve 4 requires reconfiguring for those of us who do not have 4 to serve for breakfast every morning. Breakfast leftovers just do not keep very well. I think it would’ve been fairly easy to make a note somewhere on each recipe what to do to make each recipe to serve 2. Sometimes cutting it in half doesn’t work. Overall, however, this isn’t a major complaint. You do have to be careful though. There is at least one recipe which serves 8, so 1/4th of the recipe would actually be TWO servings and not just one.
4. I would like to see just a tad bit more coordination between meals, or at least to have suggestions for a day-by-day meal guide. Otherwise, it’s a lot of cooking every day.
5. The lunch recipes, many of them anyway, aren’t very conducive to taking to school or work. I would love to see a future edition expand a lunch section specifically for those that have to take their lunch with them.
Otherwise, this book really is a GREAT idea!!! When I have the time, I may sit down and come up with my own 1500 calorie a day cookbook, pulling a few recipes from her book but including many other more nutritious offerings as well, for my own personal use. This book is a good first step, and has some really great ideas. I love that I could choose 3 meal recipes, 1 dessert recipe, and 2 snack or appetizer recipes from this book every day and stay within 1500 calories!!!!
I recommend this book just for the strength of its idea. It could go a long way in helping to plan out some great menus, all within a specific 1500 calorie range. While many of the recipes will be completely useless for me, there are a few good ones in here. Mostly, though, this book is great for the ideas it generates for me.
5 Stars Great Recipes; Simplified Meal Planning
Everything the first cookbook, The 1200-Calorie-a-Day Menu Cookbook : Quick and Easy Recipes for Delicious Low-fat Breakfasts, Lunches, Dinners, and Desserts wanted to be and wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong; it was fine for its time. This book is just plain better.
Updated recipes with 9 or fewer ingredients and less reliability on fat-free, chemical-laden frankenfoods. (Although there are some!)
The entire meal takes less than 30 minutes–the whole menu complete on one page. Calorie count and other nutritional information provided for each recipe/menu including identifying menus higher in fiber, vitamins A & C, and calcium.
I made the Creamy Pumpkin Pie dip for our dance troupe hafla and it was a big hit! Nothing to take home.
She doesn’t provide grocery lists. That will depend on what menus you choose. But, she does offer a brief nutritional introduction (just enough to keep your eyes from glazing over)and suggestions for what to do with leftovers. I’m all about freezing extra portions for later so I don’t mind a recipe that serves 4-6.
Those who’ve read some of my other review will note that I’m a BIG fan of mix and match diet cookbooks. If I was going to buy a companion volume, I’d choose The All-Natural Diabetes Cookbook
