Amazon.com Review
Bob Greene is best known as Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer and coauthor of their bestselling
Make the Connection, which is about taking your first steps to fitness and weight loss. Now he's back with the next phase: elevating your fitness program, staying motivated, and creating permanent change. "You create yourself through choice," says Greene, and the way to overcome old habits or laziness is to make every choice conscious, whether you're opening the refrigerator door or deciding whether to skip your workout because it's raining.
Keep the Connection is, as you'd expect, full of exercises--but many of the exercises are mental. Greene holds that you can't change until you understand yourself, so he offers several mental exercises to help you become more self-aware. After you've had your mental workout, Greene describes the four components of fitness: flexibility (with photos of stretches), cardiovascular power and endurance, abdominal and back fitness (with photos of a variety of crunches), and muscular strength and endurance (illustrated using Cybex machines). Greene also outlines a sensible nutrition plan based on the food pyramid, and gives 18 recipes.
The book is filled with anecdotes about the people Greene has trained. (Judging from the number of his clients, this man must never sleep!) If you're ready to make changes that will improve your body and enhance your life, this book will help you do it. --Joan Price
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Exercise physiologist, certified personal trainer (to famous client Oprah Winfrey) and coauthor (along with Winfrey) of Ten Steps to a Better BodyAAnd a Better Life, Greene encourages readers to maintain a lifetime commitment to health and fitness. Eschewing fitness fads and guru didacticism, Greene advocates a common-sense approach to nutrition and fitness. As he candidly notes, "People, for the most part, know what to do to stay healthy. Let's face it, most of us know that we should eat sensibly and get some regular exercise. It's not a news flash anymore!" In the chapter entitled "Motivation," Greene takes a strong philosophical stance, addressing the psychology behind motivation and drawing a distinction between those who merely talk about change and those willing to effect change in their lives. He defines "the connection" as making choices based on love as opposed to fear. Emphasizing the association between self-awareness and positive self-esteem, Greene provides a series of exercises and questions to help readers get in touch with themselves. Subsequently, he offers general guidelines for a well-rounded fitness program that includes flexibility, cardiovascular endurance, abdominal and back fitness and muscular strength and endurance. While Greene prods readers to forget about dieting, he recommends seven practices (such as eating three meals and two snacks a day and limiting the amount of fat in your diet) for improved nutrition. In promoting self-choice and responsibility, Greene takes an encouraging, roll-up-your-sleeves approach to weight loss, healthy eating and exercise.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
