Book Review: Body for Life

On the recommendation of a friend, I borrowed and read Body for Life, and fitness book by Bill Philips.

I have mixed feelings about it. Short version is that the book is awful, but the workout program is pretty good.

From the first crack of the cover, when you are attacked with an array of Photoshop disaster before-and-after fakes, the book's 'facts' are pretty questionable. Worse still is that the author's writing is mostly a snake-oil pitch of pseudo-science (i.e. 'studies have shown that...' with no pointers to what studies, or what the science was behind the conclusion. In other words, 'take my word for it').

Here's the thing though. I thought I'd give it the benefit of the doubt (mostly based on my friend's praise for it) and try the workout program. I'm two weeks in, and it is *kicking* *my* *butt*. Definite results. Whether this is just a matter of changing routines up and pushing myself harder, or whether there's something special to the routine itself, I don't know.

The majority of the book is intolerable, and completely unnecessary filler. If you want to try it out, this one page gives you basically the entire workout portion of the book, consumable in 5 minutes.

There's a nutritional component to the book as well, but I skipped it (I have my own routine there already).

Body for Life: 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength