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When it comes to eating healthy and maintaining a state of physical fitness, the latest fad is never the best route to take. The long-term effects of today’s wonder-diet won’t be realized for another twenty to thirty years from now. Mindful of this fact, only the “tried and true” method, the established paradigm for physical fitness, is the best route to take.
In “Body for Life,” Bill Philips has assembled a collection of such knowledge into a comprehensive, yet incredibly simple routine for a healthy lifestyle. This book is filled with the basics of physical fitness that everyone should know about. Proper eating, muscle building, and aerobic exercise are the three imperatives in a comprehensive workout routine, and Phillips has powerful, effective insights into all three.
The simplicity of this approach is very important. Phillips recognizes that regimens requiring calorie or carb-counting are more likely to fail because of their time-consuming nature and complexity. He introduces a rule of portion sizes that equal the size of the individual’s fist. Because most people do not have the time each day for lengthy workout times, Phillips stresses shorter, more intense workouts. A simple and effective diet, combined with workouts that squeeze as much intensity into them as possible make this program feasible for many more people.
The “free day” is another important concept Phillips stresses and is widely supported by other fitness professionals. This is a day of no exercise and no concern for diet, also known as a “Reward Day.” It’s a very important mental concept, because a strict diet and exercise program can be an oppressive idea, and the free day alleviates the burden. It’s easier to eat broccoli on Friday if you know you can spend all day Saturday sucking down chocolate milkshakes.
Phillips has another effective gimmick to jumpstart his readers on the program and motivate them into giving it a serious try. This is his “Body For Life Challenge,” a 12-week physique transformation competition. Participants take before and after photos of themselves as a means of tracking their progress, a much simpler method than measuring muscles and body-fat. Additionally, competitors must write an essay communicating how becoming physically fit has changed their lives. Top winner get $1 Million dollars.
Even without winning, simply going through this process is a wonderful motivator. It is important to track progress when working out, lest we forget why we’re doing it. Seeing before and after photographs of ourselves is the starkest reminder of the most important reason for working out: looking good. Health and well-being are secondary.
Looking at the books cover, our impression of Bill Phillips is that of someone classically cool, a jock. Then he opens his mouth and we realize this man is a geek through and through. He approaches physical fitness intellectually and his rationales for the aspects of his program are simple, concise, and based on established research. Phillips has a jock’s body, but it is his nerdy mind that makes him so effective at maintaining it.
The best part about this book is that anything learned from it will benefit the reader. Even if we only adopt the weightlifting advice, or the aerobic exercise advice, or the diet schedule, or the allowed foods list we have taken a step toward improving our heath. The book can then sit on the shelf until we are ready to take another shot at it, another chance at improving our health further. Each of Phillips’ suggestions that integrate into our personal lifestyles brings us that much closer to overall physical fitness and well-being.