Body for Life: 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength (Paperback)

So, in short, from someone who has tried to follow the plan all the way through - i.e. me, I can honestly say that the book is highly inspirational and motivational, but I found the strict diet regime very hard to follow.

The book's focus revolves around the belief that you can 'Change your mind - Change your body - Change your life'. I.e. empowering yourself to change your body will have a knock-on effect and could change your life. It is easy to understand and very clearly written, and I felt motivated and inspired after reading it.

Having applied Bill's 'intensity' method to my workouts, my workout times became more effective and shorter, and after just a couple of weeks my personal levels increased significantly. I actually felt like I'd done a harder workout after just twenty minutes than when I'd previously spent over an hour in the gym.

However, I failed because I found it impossible to stick to the diet. For example, I do not class a mixture of non-fat yogurt and cottage cheese as an evening meal. Nor can I eat pasta with no sauce, no butter and no cheese - but just a squeeze of lemon over it. I realise diets mean some sort of sacrifice, but this was beyond my personal limit.

My other complaint is Bill's habit of extolling the virtues of his company's own nutrition drink, Myoplex, which is extremely expensive. Also, I did not want to start taking supplements.

In summary, the book is worth buying for motivating you and guiding you towards a more effective fitness routine. But unless you have huge amounts of self discipline and will power, you are unlikely to resemble the 'before' and 'after' photos adorning the inside covers after twelve weeks.

The main weakness is that you could (if you could be bothered to work it out for yourself) get the same results without the quirky diet regimen. If you have been a couch potato for a while like me and piled on a few pounds then of course suddenly doing 3 sets of aerobic and 3 intense sets of weight-training a week is going to make a big difference over 3 months. It is doubtful whether you really need to be eating 6 meals of carbohydrate and protein to achieve excellent results and I suspect, given that most of the world operates on 3 meals a day, that being the odd one out will be difficult for a lot of people. Each meal is one "portion" of protein, one or carbohydrate & as much low-carb veg as you like. This could typically be a skinless chicken breast & a baked potato which amounts to c.300 calories, add to this a tablespoon of flavoring, be that salad dressing or sauce etc and some vegetables that adds up to c.2000 cals a day which for a flabby guy doing a load of exercise is sensible. I've found that eating these 6 meals a day is a fair bit MORE calories than I'd normally eat but given the huge increase in exercise I'm sure it won't do any harm. Also, I've always eaten a balanced diet and I'm sure that the advice on nutrition will be much more useful to others who eat crisps and Coke all day.

Most of the diet advice is fairly sound. It's not dangerous zero carbs nonsense like the Atkins diet but the pushing touse his own-brand meal-replacement shakes is neither necessary nor particularly healthy - I think we are all coming to understand that natural foods are greater than the sum of their tehcnical nutrient breakdowns and are, in the long run, the only really heathy option. Having said that, this doesn't render the course irrelevant.

There is plenty of support information, groups and sites on the web for this plan which is an added bonus and can only help keep one motivated.

Like all these books, you are partially sold on a silver bullet effect - that somehow a certain combination of foods and exercises and maybe supplements will have a synergistic effect and have amazing results. I don't believe this to be true but that souldn't put you off. If you are currently not already fit and lean then in following the program you will lose fat, gain muscle, be fitter and feel better - this is a certainty as you will be exercising a lot & eating pretty well. It's no miracle but you don't need one anyway.

I'm following this course with some changes to the eating plan to fit in with my life and it has had the effect of motivating me to get up, exercise and plan my eating. I've been getting more and more unhappy about my weight increase and general laziness and this book has tipped my into action.