Jun
30
8 Minutes in the Morning A Simple Way to Start Your Day That Burns Fat and Sheds the Pounds
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8 Minutes in the Morning A Simple Way to Start Your Day That Burns Fat and Sheds the Pounds
With his own take on the power of positive thinking, popular fitness instructor Jorge Cruise speaks to overweight, time-deprived people and motivates them to use their minutes wisely. Realizing that many of us can’t devote hours, or even minutes, to the gym, Cruise reduces weight-loss fitness training to just two basic strength moves each day. Those who follow his daily 8-minute routine and his innovative metabolism-boosting eating plan are guaranteed to lose significant weight in just 1 month.
As an online fitness coach, Cruise has successfully “trained” millions of converts. Based on his very popular website, 8 Minutes in the Morning contains inspiring before-and-after photos of people who have completed Cruise’s program. In fact, Cruise invites readers to take their own “before” photo, very confident they will like their “after” photo. More than a weight-loss book, 8 Minutes in the Morning is a program complete with a cyber-training option - readers can interact with Cruise himself. With motivational quotes, simple visualization techniques, easy and fulfilling meal plans, and wake-up talks to get each day started right, 8 Minutes in the Morning is sure to make people think twice about hitting the “snooze” button.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars AWESOME!
This is a practical GET IT DONE motivating tool. It is an easy step by step process in which it not only works your body but your thinking as well. I used the book as a workbook, journal in it everyday and followed the process. I lost over 10 pounds the first month and more importantly felt that I had changed my thinking in regard to exercise and food.
2 Stars A solid concept with a poor plan of execution.
Let me first state that the central idea of 8 Minutes In The Morning, raising metabolism through daily strength training, is a very solid concept, though certainly not original to this author. Basically, you start every day with two rapid pace strength training exercises (push ups, dips, lateral raises, squats, etc) with the intention of firing up your metabolism for extra calorie burning throughout the day. I personally think this is a great idea…but it is not the Holy Grail of weight loss quick fixes the author advertises.
There are two hidden catches with Jorge’s plan that are not suggested by the title and initial information, power-walking and diet. The author advises incorporating a walking plan into your regiment to burn extra calories, thus raising total time spent exercising to around…oh… thirty-eight minutes a day…which of course is more realistic. Throw in the very calorie restrictive diet essential to success, and you quickly find that it is a little more taxing of a plan than a breezy eight minutes lifting a dumbbell before work.
This book is not about “burning” fat, in the way cardio exercise does. Rather, this book is about raising metabolism, which is of course a good thing. Strength training exercises are picked because they raise metabolism for longer periods than cardio. However, the author is misleading, as many cardio exercises, particularly running, cycling and heavy bag boxing, have strength training aspects to them which will have the same effect on your metabolism.
The book includes a vaguely complicated eating system that has since been abandoned by the author in favor of his 3-Hour Diet book, and thus should be considered relatively worthless. In the 3-Hour Diet, the author suggests incorporating the 8 Minutes in the Morning plan in the diet…thus if you really want to follow Jorge, you should also read that book, which has a much better explained and comprehensive diet plan.
However, the diet in this book and the 3 Hour Diet are both seemingly for people around 150lbs or less and do not take into consideration the extra nutritional needs of larger people.
That being said, with power walking included, the exercise plan detailed in the book, while simplistic, probably is a good plan for a number of people with limited experience with exercise, or for whatever reason simply hate to exercise. If you have any experience with sports or exercise in the past, or are currently active, you will probably find nothing of value in the exercise plan.
Two other notes: I found the author’s personal history to be extremely annoying. The author portrays himself as having nearly eaten himself to death as a child, showing a vaguely chubby childhood picture and providing anecdotal evidence of having two grandmothers who frequently fed him while he avoided exercise and was never picked first for sports at school. It is a lame attempt to portray his in-shape self as “one of us” in the battle of the bulge.
Finally…I am not entirely sure the author’s claims that you can build muscle mass on this exercise and diet plan are feasible. First, some exercises are repeated only once a month in the plan, or 12 times a year. Nearly all strength training programs recommend doing exercises 2-3 times a week to build muscle. With the very low calorie (I’d estimate at around 1400 per day) diet plan, it simply isn’t possible to build muscle. Building muscle requires extra calories to rebuild tissue. If you are feeding your body less calories than its resting metabolic rate AND power walking and lifting weights…there simply isn’t the calories available to build muscle. It’s a shaky claim that most muscle building experts would refute.
So there you have it. If you are looking for a means to get your body doing at least some kind of exercise and looking for the minimum….well this is the minimum, but you’ll be better off doing much more if you can.
4 Stars Practical Advice
Practical advice, easy to follow thru strength training routine. I am a weight consultant & I recommend this book to all my client! I don’t agree 100% with Jorge when it comes to nutrition advice, nevertheless this is a great book.
5 Stars The Best Look at How to Loose Weight
I’m not going to rave completely about this book, but it is simply the best and most complete method of how to loose weight and keep it off. It is aimed at women more than men, but the things in the book are effective for men as well. He explains how the body works, which gives you better insight on why we eat what we eat in order to loose weight. It explains that carbs are just as important as protein, and that (certain) fats are just as important as vegetables. I was surprised to learn how fruit is healthy but does not help weight loss at all. Many books cover just excercise and others just food. This book gives you a solid routine for both. The food plan & excercise plans are very realistic even for the worst coach potato. I was dieting/excercising on my own and plateaued after a month - no weight loss for two weeks. I forgot I had this book, opened it up again, followed the plan, and BAM after two days I started loosing weight again. It works.
5 Stars Great!!
I do the at home exercises. Nice explanation. Very practical examples. Haven’t done the diet part.
Jun
30
The Warrior Diet Switch on Your Biological Powerhouse For High Energy Explosive Strength and a Leaner Harder Body
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Along with the many benefits of leisure-class living comes obesity and its attendant ailments. In The Warrior Diet, Ori Hofmekler looks not forward but backward for a solution–to the primal habits of early cultures such as nomads and hunter-gatherers, the Greeks, and the Romans. Based on survival science, this book proposes not ordinary dietary changes but rather a radical yet surprisingly simple lifestyle overhaul.
Drawing on both scientific studies and historical data, Hofmekler argues that robust health and a lean, strong body can best be achieved by mimicking the classical warrior mode of cycling—working and eating sparingly (undereating) during the day and filling up at night. Specific elements from the Warrior Diet Nutritional Program (finding ideal fuel foods and food combinations to reduce body fat) to the Controlled Fatigue Training Program (promoting strength, speed, and resilience to fatigue through special drills), literally reshape body and mind. Individual chapters cover warrior meals and recipes; sex drive, potency, and animal magnetism; as well as personalizing the diet for women. Featuring forewords by Fit for Life author Harvey Diamond and Fat That Kills author Dr. Udo Erasmus, The Warrior Diet shows readers weary of fad diets how to attain enduring vigor, explosive strength, a better appearance, and increased vitality and health.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Six weeks into it and loving it!
It feels good to be hungry…and I know that tonight I feast. This is a great way to eat! I feel very sharp mentally, and have good energy. I don’t agree with him regarding his philosophical explanations for things, but when he sticks to the science he seems to be right on, and it’s working. I’ve only lost a few pounds, but that’s in line with my goal, losing fat and gaining muscle and strength. (I lift weights 3 - 4 times a week and supplement with protein powder, glutamine and creatine.) I’m aiming at 10 percent body fat…I believe I will achieve this.
5 Stars An easy-to-follow practical diet with amazing benefits
The problem with most modern diets is that they are based on exclusion of certain types of food or food groups, restricting of calories, or both. It seems that every week author comes out with a new diet just to sell a book. Most of these diets usually end up getting people fatter and weaker than they were before. With the failed diet after failed, most people just completely give up on the personal health and go back to what they were doing before. Some stubburnly stick such a diet despite how it is deterriating their bodies.
Modern nutritionists and modern society have forgot the single most important part of your dietary health, which is allowing your body time to convert the fat in your body into energy or, as religious people know it, fasting. This was my natural instinct when I was skinny little boy, but after over a decade of forced constant feeding, by the time I was in my teens I became overweight with virtually no muscle mass and was constantly getting sick. I even got in trouble with the teacher in elementary school one time for trying to skip lunch. Ofcourse now I’m skinnier, faster, stronger, and healthier, but I’m still striving to reach my ideal fitness level. You can eat the most healthy food we want, but there is no way you can burn off all the excess body fat without allowing your body time to detoxify itself, unless you follow the fitness routine of Micheal Phelps. Don’t get it wrong, this is not a starve yourself during the day, binge on cheeseburgers at night diet. You have to follow the guidelines in the book if you want this diet to work for you. And ofcourse you need to have an exercise routine, preferably the CFT routine recommended in the book or swinging Kettlebells would do.
I’ve been on this diet for three months now, and not only did it get me into better shape, it also enhanced the quality of my life as a whole. I’m now 175 lbs @ 5′10, one time I was approaching 200 lbs. My current goal is too stay at the same weight while leaning up a little more and hopefully getting a six pack. I’ve been on other diets before, but I can never stick with them because I always enjoyed variety in the food I eat. You might be able to get a good physique on the traditional “clean” fitness diet, but you won’t have the same quality of life because you’re going to be constantly worried about making sure the “right” food gets into your system at the “right” time, making sure that the “wrong” food gets nowhere near your system at all, and constantly counting your calories. You won’t be able enjoy going out to a restaurant to eat with your family or friends. It may not seem like much, but being able to enjoy a good hardy meal without the fear of gaining weight or getting out of shape greatly enhances your life beyond just the physical side. You have a much higher self-esteem, you feel more secure, you loose attachment to things that were holding you back, and all the trivial things that used to bother you a lot won’t bother you anymore. You’re able to work and study harder during the day because your brain is not slowed down by McDonalds or Burger King. You get more spiritual as well, the messages at church that didn’t make sense to you before will start making sense to you. I can go on and about the benefits of the diet, but you have to try it for yourself to believe it.
4 Stars A diet that Works !!! What more do you want ??
This diet has worked wonders for me. I would not be so impressed if I had not already have been working out hard and “watching what I ate” for 6 months.
So basicaly the easy first 10 to 15 pounds were already long gone.
I lost 10 pounds the first week and 2 continue to loose 3 pounds a week.
Don’t let the “fasting” hype scare you away.
Basicaly it involves a few basic principles.
1 breakfast isn’t the most important meal of the day.
2 recognize the difference between being hungry and just wanting to eat something
3 you can and should chow down and go to sleep on a full stomach.
Overall I highly reccomend it !!!
5 Stars Hey, it works
I have not yet really studied this book in all the detail the author supplies. I’m just doing ‘the basics’ and find myself easily losing weight. The ‘overeating’ phase is my favorite
3 Stars Try The Fast 5 Diet book instead
Constant irrational hunger? Never full? Even when you restrict calories, does the fat cling to you for weeks? Have you failed over and over?
This book works. And you feel fully alive.
But it’s full of hype and quasi history and fluff. This book is more motivational than informational. A better book is The Fast-5 Diet. It’ll take you two hours to read. Then buy the Warrior Diet book for motivation and inspiration.
Jun
30
Fat Passing Survey - Seven Stairs To Fat Passing Fat Loss 4 Idiots Winner
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Jun
30
Obese Get Higher Doses of Radiation for X-Rays (HealthDay)
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