The Metabolism Advantage: An 8-Week Program to Rev Up Your Body's Fat-Burning Machine---At Any Age [Hardcover]

John Berardi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 5, 2006

With this powerful body transformation program, men and women discover how to kick their metabolism into high gear--and replace flab with lean, fat-burning muscle . . . in just 8 weeks

Revving up the body so that it optimizes nutrition and turns flab into lean body mass can be accomplished easily and quickly--and at any age, even after the body's metabolism has supposedly slowed down. That's what sought-after fitness trainer and nutrition expert John Berardi demonstrates in this new book.

Drawing on the best scientific research, including his own ongoing studies, Berardi has developed a supremely effective plan that enables his clients--who include athletes, models, and ordinary men and women of different fitness levels--to stoke their metabolic fires, burn more calories, build lean muscle, and improve their health, too! This unique three-pronged program includes:

• the Nutrition Plan, which provides recipes and meal plans that offer readers the foods that will teach their bodies to burn fat for fuel

• the Exercise Plan, which combines interval exercise and strength training to enable readers to burn more calories not only while they are working out but also after exercise

• the Supplement Plan, which identifies the essential compounds that kick the metabolism into high gear and improve general well-being

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Age-related weight gain is whittled down to size in this guide to boosting metabolism. Berardi's (Scrawny to Brawny) formula is basic: diet, exercise and supplements to build muscle and burn calories. He relates a common scenario: with age come sedentary lifestyles, convenience foods and increased stress. While many people actually eat less as they age, Berardi says, at the end of their 20s they begin to lose five to 10 pounds of muscle each decade. The results: weight gain, free radical damage and greater risk for serious health conditions. He points out that eating fewer calories is self-defeating, while eating more of the right foods at the right time and targeted supplementation increase metabolism even for those genetically disposed to lower rates. Since muscle burns calories most efficiently, exercise is the core of the program. Berardi, who has trained professional athletes, is a congenial coach, but the five hours per week of strength training (weights) and cardio workouts may be an obstacle for those not already exercising regularly. Still, Berardi provides tools for keeping on point—meal plans, recipes, routines and options to customize—and his promise of never counting calories again just might motivate readers to invest in a gym membership. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

JOHN BERARDI, PhD, CSCS, is founder and president of Science Link, Inc., an organization specializing in human performance and nutrition. A sought-after trainer, consultant, and lecturer on the optimal use of nutrition for athletic performance and body transformation, Berardi is coauthor of the book Scrawny to Brawny. He divides his time between Toronto, Ontario, and Austin, Texas.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books (September 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594863237
• ISBN-13: 978-1594863233
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #107,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

102 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars If you have no clue where to begin, this is a good place to start; otherwise, steer clear, May 12, 2007

By 

Lemon Magic (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Metabolism Advantage: An 8-Week Program to Rev Up Your Body's Fat-Burning Machine---At Any Age (Hardcover)

Right up front, please do not take my mediocre rating of this book as a similar pan of John Berardi himself. Based on what I know of him from his articles on "testosterone.net" and elsewhere, I am sure that he knows and understands a hell of a lot more than he can pack into a book aimed at the diet-and-weight-loss demographic. This book is obviously his attempt to branch out from the hardcore muscle and fitness crowd and reach a broader audience.

Pros: The book has a lot of good basic info on the roles of nutrition, diet and exercise in achieving personal fat loss and figure shaping goals. If I had a friend who had no clue where to begin, this is one book I wouldn't hesitate to recommend. And Berardi's writing style is encouraging and entertaining - he knows how to write for his audience without being dull, pedantic or overly self-important (always a plus).

Also a "pro" is the book's emphasis on interval training for cardio health and fat loss. Berardi makes a very good case for this relatively new protocol which may help many people stuck on treadmills for the last 20 years understand why they are still pudgy, and what to do about it. I couldn't write a better, more convincing and usuable cardio/aerobic routine if I'd had a month to write it.

Cons: The book's format and content has Rodale Press all over it. Rodale Press publishes "Men's Health" and "Prevention", 2 magazines that have been recycling a set of 30 articles each - supplemented with various "factoids","breaking news", and "helpful hints" boxouts - over and over for the last 25 years. And with the exception for the advice on interval training, "The Metabolism Advantage" is really just a repackaging of the diet and exercise advice from a prior book, "The Abs Diet", as well as every "Men's Health" diet and exercise article from the past 5 years. If you've read that book, you don't need this one. In fact, if you've read ANY other recent exercise and diet book (including the ones by Oprah's trainer Bob Greene), you don't need this one. I suspect that Berardi, left to his own devices and not forced to shoehorn his book into the Rodale Press "house style" could have written a much more helpful and innovative book than what we have here. But Rodale Press isn't about innovation - it's about the same mainstream fitness and health thinking that have dominated self=help and fitness magazines since the dawn of Pritikin and Ornish.

This last caveat especially applies to the actual weight training routines in the back of the book: they are a total rehash of the same articles that "Men's Health" (and "Men's Fitness" and "Exercise for Men Only" and all the other non hardcore fitness mags) have been churning out for at least 25 years. While the emphasis on free weights over machines is good, these routines are boring, linear, one-dimensional and self-limiting; any average trainee will plateau (or burn out) on these exercise and routines very quickly and will need to look else where for more sophisticated advice. Some of the exercises are worthless, but they are included because they are always included in material like this. Some (like the Overhead Squat) are difficult-to-impossible for the average beginning trainee to perform safely and properly without proper personal coaching, yet they are presented here as if they are no more complicated or productive as the worthless ones. As I said about, Berardi obviously knows a lot more about resistance training than he tries (or is allowed) to include here, and so the book in that sense is something of a disservice to the reader.

Still there is more good than bad about the book; I plan to purchase it when it comes out in trade paperbook to share with my friends who have been stuck on the treadmill for the past 20 years.

42 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John Berardi is the Advantage of The Metabolism Advantage, September 8, 2006

By 

Michael A. Howard "M. Howard" (Worcester, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Metabolism Advantage: An 8-Week Program to Rev Up Your Body's Fat-Burning Machine---At Any Age (Hardcover)

John Berardi's "The Metabolism Advantage" is a home run. I speak from first hand experience of John's teachings through his published articles, website, DVDS and now this brand new book.

I have struggled with my metabolism, buying into the so called normal "Slowing down with age" process over the past 10 years. The concepts in this book have opened my eyes to new beliefs that shatter the old school thought process of "Everything goes to hell after age 40."

Utilizing the concepts detailed in this book I have dropped 37 lbs in the past 14 weeks and decreased my body fat% by 13 percentage points. I am well on my way to achieving my new lifetime weight goal of 190 lbs with a 10% body fat. This success is due to many factors that John explains in the book.

John is a scientist. A scientist who has the ability to coach a layperson what they need to do to achieve their nutritional and physiological goals. This book is a goldmine for those people who are committed to making positive change in their long term health.

I endorse this book wholeheartedly and I wish John great success.

Michael A. Howard
Worcester, MA

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Personal Trainer's Review, October 29, 2006

By 

Stephen L. Cooper "Stephen Cooper" (CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Metabolism Advantage: An 8-Week Program to Rev Up Your Body's Fat-Burning Machine---At Any Age (Hardcover)

As a personal trainer with over a decade of certified experience, I have been following Berardi's work for many years. Over the years, Berardi has proven to us in the professional fitness community that he is committed to changing lives.

This is not a book written by a trainer who happens to train a Hollywood celebrity, and therefore decides to "cash in" by writing a book for his/her ego.

No, with his book The Metabolism Advantage, the general public can begin to benefit from just the right combination of science and real life application from someone who has proven his dedication through years of similar work.

So how will you benefit by reading this book? For those of you struggling to lose weight, Berardi helps you understand how to build a better fat-burning "engine". Not only will you lose fat while training but you will also learn critical habits to keep that fat-burning furnace going while you are not exercising. For many looking to lose fat, this may be the "aha" moment that will change you body forever.

You will find detailed, step by step eating and exercise plans, plus plenty of recipes. I won't go in to more details about this part only to say that you have everything you need to succeed.

My advice to you is that by purchasing this book you are receiving a distillation of years of experience from someone who not only knows the science behind what he preaches, but also someone who genuinely cares about your success.