77 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great guide, heavy on the sisterhood, December 20, 2009
This review is from: The Female Body Breakthrough: The Revolutionary Strength-Training Plan for Losing Fat and Getting the Body You Want (Paperback)
I have read and admired Rachel Cosgrove since reading New Rules of Lifting for Women and bought a subscription to Women's Health when I saw her name begin to appear regularly. Her new book is very solid: well-researched nutritional advice, common sense and rational approach to health and fitness, and full of useful photographs and descriptions. The reason I subtracted a star I think may be attributed to her editors rather than the author herself. I enjoy reading Ms. Cosgrove because she's smart, reasonable and walks the walk. I do not read her because she's a woman. I "trust" the advice of people who know what they are talking about because they're educated, well-researched and respectful of their audience. Their chromosomal make-up doesn't usually factor in for me. I don't know if this makes me an anomaly, but someone on Ms. Cosgrove's team felt it important that the reader understand that she gets women because we share body parts.
By the end of the second chapter, I was twitching every time I read the word "girl", "feminine" or a double-dose of exclamation points used to stress the fact that she's fun! friendly! and you don't have to sacrifice femininity to be strong! I found myself skimming sections and actually felt like I was betraying Ms. Cosgrove's hard work in creating what is, in fact, a solid health and workout plan. I lost 75 pounds following the guidance she and her husband set out in New Rules and was looking for her advice on getting to the next stage. I appreciated the fact that some issues that are unique to women (i.e. hormones) were in their own chapters and given the time they deserve. However, I wish they had dialed back the "sisterhood" factor to a 6-7 instead of a 10. Well, at least the cover isn't pink. . .
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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From a male Personal Trainer, February 13, 2010
This review is from: The Female Body Breakthrough: The Revolutionary Strength-Training Plan for Losing Fat and Getting the Body You Want (Paperback)
As a male Personal Trainer with the majority of my clients' females, I found Rachel's book to be the best complete training book for women I've read so far, and I've read all that I could find. I have purchased this book many times and have given it to my new clients before I start them on a fitness schedule.
What I found so great about her book is, first of all, she's a woman. She had many of the problems women have such as image disorders, eating disorders, that "time of the month" problems, and disorders of the mind when thinking that running is the fastest way to lose bodyfat. She doesn't write for the "Cover Girl" models, but for everyday women that you'll see at the mall, stores, gyms, or PTA meetings. She is a Sports Nutritionist, (CISSN) that addresses the very important nutritional aspect of being fit.
I'm not saying that I understand every problem that a woman brings to me during a training session, but her 16 secrets in her "Fit Female Credos" address a lot of the problems that hold back a woman from mediocrity to success. They should be read frequently, and my male clients could learn a few things from that Credo!
I have a minor disagreement regarding her statements that women don't need isolation exercises that hit the arms or shoulders, and define those muscles more. In my experience, most of the women that I train, that have been successful in losing body fat into the low 20% range, there is a request for an isolation "arm" or "shoulder" workout. This is especially true when summer is approaching and sleeveless clothing is being worn. We use these workouts when my clients have been up most of the night with kids, or not feeling up to a strenuous workout. This is such a minor point that I still think her book is the best, and she sets a very good example of a successful fit female.
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Eating clean feels good., March 26, 2010
This review is from: The Female Body Breakthrough: The Revolutionary Strength-Training Plan for Losing Fat and Getting the Body You Want (Paperback)
Bottom line: The book is worth reading and maybe even buying for the diet alone, but I like the New Rules of Lifting exercises better.
Diet: I've been following the diet for 6 weeks and had great results. I had tried low-carb diets before, but they never worked for me because the first meal of the day is breakfast, and I really need carbs then. I followed the second phase of the diet: keeping a very basic food diary, no processed foods, protein and a veggie/fruit at every meal, starchy carbs only at breakfast (I have 1/4 c oatmeal) and after workout, and only 2 fruits a day, and not measuring or counting anything otherwise. I wasn't exercising because I sprained my ankle, and in the course of the month, I lost 4-5 pounds, one pound a week, and noticed my tummy was smaller. I can really eat like this for life, especially since on maintenance you don't have limits on # of fruits and # of carbs, within reason. I also really appreciated how she told her own personal struggles with weight, and spoke about all the ways in which her good intentions had only limited effectiveness for her. That's something you don't get in New Rules or any books written by men.
Exercise: I had been following New Rules of Lifting for Women on and off for a year (breaks for two ankle sprains, travel, and then just flakiness), and so I am familiar with the weight-lifting ideas, and I have gotten stronger that way, getting up to squatting 95 lbs. The NROLW workouts felt good every time, and I really felt like I was accomplishing something, and nothing ever hurt.
This book's workouts don't feel good. I found the warm-up doable and challenging. The workout proper is where I found trouble. On several moves, my knee hurt, which is a first. On others, I didn't feel like I was working muscles. Others seemed impossible to do as pictured: before picture shows a model in front of a Swiss ball with her forearms on it; after picture shows the Swiss ball rolled away about a foot with her forearms on the ball just a few inches away from where it started. When I did the exercise, the ball was practically in my armpits. Either this model's arms are each 4 feet long, or they posed the before picture and the after picture without going through the movement continuously, or one is supposed to slide the Swiss ball across the floor rather than roll it. It took me a long time to figure out that probably it was fine to have the ball roll to my upper arm regardless of what the picture showed.
Because of my ankle sprain, I just started the workout phase, so I have less experience with them. It's possible that my knee will stop hurting, but obviously that's a red flag for any workout.
Writing quality: She contradicts herself in a few places or makes suggestions without explaining why. For instance, she says to get rid of all breads, and then she lists bread when showing a possible day on the diet. It looks like this is supposed to be a special bread, but she doesn't explain why that's better. In another place, she says it's important to have a workout shake that is 15-20 g protein and 60-80 g carbs (300-400 calories), which she supports by a single study saying that a 4:1 ratio of carb:protein improves recovery, which contradicts NROLW that suggests many more grams of protein and just a bit of carbs in a recovery shake. [Incidentally, a recent study seems to find men and women are different on this, and women recover better with carbs-only.] Also, maybe this point is supposed to be obvious, but in spite of the centrality of the rule not to have processed foods, she doesn't explain exactly what's wrong with them, and I'm not even entirely sure what exactly a processed food is. But that's relatively minor. I'm pretty sure that when she's talking about processed foods, she means things like tater tots rather than soy sauce, no matter how many scary ingredients are in the soy sauce.
Tone: The BITCH="Be Inspiring Totally Confident and Hot" and all the girl talk is not just annoying, but it also activates that part of my brain that compares me with others and wonders why I don't look like a model. Which is just about the least healthy thought when you're trying to get stronger, have healthy body image thoughts, and feel good about yourself. [Her blog has that same obsession with others' opinions, such as an "inspiring" story about this marathon runner who was normal weight but felt blah about her body who did the program and then went to a nightclub in a mini-skirt and had lots of people tell her how hot she is.]
Bottom line: Worth reading for the diet. For exercise and writing, my preference is for the NROL books. The NROL workouts all feel good to me, the writing is funnier, and they don't activate potentially unhealthy body image thoughts.
Follow up (late October 2010): I have been following the "eating clean" plan for several months, so now it's an unconscious habit. Over the summer a few things changed for me, and the combination helped me lose 10 pounds in a few months without doing anything special, so I've gone from BMI of 25-26 to BMI of 23-24 and I think I may still be losing. The 3 things were: drinking whole milk (very filling), my boyfriend suddenly breaking up with me (lost my appetite for a few weeks), and starting a new job next door to the gym (not spending tons of time, maybe 2 hours total per week tops, mixture of swimming and lifting heavy weights.) Now I feel like this skinny girl has taken over my appetite. I actually leave food on my plate and food in my fridge goes bad before I have the chance to eat it. This book's diet helped, not that I follow all the rules or log my food. But the general framework of no processed foods, that beans count as a protein, not to limit saturated fat, to limit fruit to 2 a day (though sometimes I have 3), to eat grains only at breakfast if I want and after workouts were helpful.
Update 2, March 2011: Still eating more or less this way, and I've stabilized at BMI of 23, even with periods without exercise and a medical thing. Most of my exercise has been swimming, due to an injury and then unrelated doctor's orders that allowed only swimming and walking for a few months, but swimming is apparently how Natalie Portman lost weight for her ballerina body, so I wouldn't look down on that. I went down in bra band size (36 to 34). I would like to lose another few pounds of fat, and thanks to this book, I have a framework for how to do that. People still look at me weird when I say that I drink whole milk.
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