Slow Burn: Burn Fat Faster By Exercising Slower [Paperback]

Stu Mittleman (Author), Katherine Callan (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 3, 2001

Change your workout, change your life

In Slow Burn, endurance master Stu Mittleman delivers a program for creating energy and increasing endurance so you can go the distance and feel great doing it every day, week, and year.

Think Stu shares his proven formula for breaking down seemingly insurmountable goals into a series of manageable tasks.

Train Learn to understand your body's signals and refocus your training so that the movement -- not the outcome -- is the reward.

Eat Stu taeches you how to make nutritional choices that leave you energized -- not exhausted -- all day long.

You really can accomplish more -- with less effort -- than you ever imagined. All you have to do is change your focus and you'll change your life. Let Slow Burn show you how to enjoy the journey and achieve the results.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Exercise trends come and go, and one of the ones that went in the late 1990s was the idea of exercising slowly to burn more fat. The theory was well rooted in exercise science--you burn a higher percentage of fat while exercising slowly and a higher percentage of carbohydrate as you speed up--but not very practical for most people. If you're only going to exercise for a half-hour a day, you burn a lot more calories by going fast than slow, regardless of how many of those calories come from fat.

Now Stu Mittleman, probably the foremost advocate of slow exercise, wants to reopen the argument. Slow Burn presents an entire lifestyle plan built around running slowly. He doesn't disagree with the idea that you can lose weight faster by training faster; he just thinks it's too stressful for the body to exercise that way.

Mittleman is one of the most famous long-distance runners in the world, and by long, we're talking really long: he once ran 571 miles in six days. So the program he outlines in Slow Burn shows you how to slow down and achieve more--an exercise plan that's less stressful to your body; a diet plan with less sugar and more healthy, unsaturated fats from fish and olive oil; and some tips about rethinking your everyday life to make it less stressful. (For example, he advocates the 85 percent rule: try to do everything the right way 85 percent of the time, and don't knock yourself out over the last 15 percent.) He also peppers the book with theories he's picked up from various branches of alternative medicine and nutrition--applied kinesiology, reflexology, and eating according to blood type. Mittleman's plan isn't for everyone. Certainly, if you like weight lifting or fast-paced sports like hockey and basketball, you won't find much to like here. But if you hate the pressure to always go faster, faster, faster, in life and in exercise, you'll find that Mittleman is on your side. --Lou Schuler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Stu Mittleman is a much-sought-after fitness educator whose clients include celebrities and business and community leaders as well as thousands of dedicated husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, who aspire to excellence in their health and vitality. Mittleman holds two master's degrees in movement and social science and set a world record by running 1,000 miles in eleven days. Since 1991, he has been a featured guest speaker at Anthony Robbins's Mastery University and runs his own company, WorldUltrafit, based in La Jolla, California. A native New Yorker, he currently lives in Solana Beach, California, with his wife, Mary Beth, and two children, Beau and Mackenzie.

Katherine Callan studied journalism at Boston University and has worked at national consumer magazines, including Success magazine, where she reported on the leading thinkers in self-improvement and human performance. Callan writes and edits for traditional and new-media companies and is launching a specialty publication, For Marathoners Only. She lives and works in New York City and has run thirteen marathons.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (July 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062736744
• ISBN-13: 978-0062736741
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 76 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible Must-Buy for anyone interested in Health! May 29, 2000

By Phil Graham

Format:Hardcover

This book was simply amazing! Stu Mittleman covers in detail all of the areas that allowed him to run over 1,000 miles in 11 days. He covers your mindset/philosophy (if you are in a marathon you are not running 26 miles you are running 1 miles 26 times). He covers training and shows you how to slow down so you burn fat, not sugar, as well as proper heart rate zones etc and lastly he covers food. He'll teach you how to eat so that you put your body into a constant fat burning mode not sugar burning. His suggestions will help you to eliminate the ups and downs throughout your day and make it so you will feel high energy all day without getting tired! This really opened my eyes and Stu knows exactly what he is talking about because he walks his talk and has done so for over 15 years. This is a must read for anyone even remotely interested in health and/or fitness!

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST HAVE!!!! November 28, 2002

By Douglas A. Carmack

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am a fan of Tony Robbins and I decided to follow Tony's advice on how to exercise. His advice is based on the work of Stu Mittleman and I decided to buy this book and get a better understanding for myself.

I am very pleased. I was unaware that you can get such great results with such little effort!!!!!

I am a former football player (lineman) and competitive Powerlifter [web page]. I worked so hard to build a huge benchpress (560lbs bench--life time drug free) that I let my bodyweight swell to 360lbs @ 6'5 tall. As long as my benchpress went up I did not care if my waist line did as well.

It became clear that I needed to lose weight, but I was tackling weight loss as I did with weight lifting. High intensity for short training sessions. It was not working in the aerobic arena. I learned to run at football practice. Push it!!! You have to make 2 miles in 16 minutes no matter how your heart is acting or how winded you are. Make the time.

With Stud's book, I learned a far better strategy. Longer workouts, training in your target heart rate--with a heart monitor.

I HAVE LOST 25LBS OF PURE FAT AND ZERO MUSCLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My benchpress has increased and my waist line has decrease. I train on an elliptical trainer 4-6 times a week for over an hour in my target heart rate. Something I never thought I would do. And it looks and is so easy, that when I am finished, I could do the workout all over again. Results are what I am concerned with.

I was so successful with Stu principles, that other powerlifters and even comptetive runners in the gym have come to me and asked for running and weight loss advice. Needless to say, I recommend Stu's book, Slow Burn.

BUY THIS BOOK, USE IT, AND CHANGE YOUR WEIGHT/HEALTH/QUALITY OF LIFE. If you were to pay $300....00 for this book, it would still be a good deal... Read more ›

125 of 136 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Utterly fascinating read! June 24, 2000

By Kate McMurry TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Mittleman's book makes an outstanding contribution to health and fitness for beginners and old-timers alike by presenting a profound insight--the way to health is not paved with suffering, but ongoing, daily joy. I have for years now subscribed to an "easy does it" philosophy like Mittleman's, an approach to movement which emphasizes exercise as pleasure, not pain. Like Mittleman, over the past 25-30 years, I have been exposed to countless, "no pain, no gain" thinkers in the world of fitness. And, like him, I've seen far too many people hurt themselves, sometimes permanently, by enforcing on themselves this attitude.

Mittleman does an outstanding job of describing what it looks like to have a "process-oriented" approach to the body, both in achieving basic health and establishing a productive, exercise routine. This is defined as being "in the moment," fully experiencing where you are right now with each and every workout. Not living for some future moment when you are done working out and have reached some (often mythical) goal. I agree heartily with that and also with Mittleman's suggestion that we treat our bodies as our "partners." I have taken this approach for about 20 years. It is an amazing (and ongoing) journey working through the socialization we receive in the West to distrust our bodies as our enemies. We are trained to either be terrified of our bodies (when they do something "mysterious," such as getting ill or injured), or to treat our bodies like our personal slave, to be subjected to our whim (either harsh workout regimes or used to gain fleeting pleasure through various compulsions and addictions)....

Mittleman is from California, and, having lived there myself over 20 years (not presently, alas), a Mecca of alternative medicine, I was very familiar with various alternative healing modalities Mittleman proposes in his book. I was particularly happy that he reminded me of kinesiology ("muscle testing"), a concrete way of asking your body what it wants which, like him, I learned about first from a chiropractor. I hadn't used the technique in a while, but I tested it out on some running shoes and some supplements I had just bought the day I read the book and was happy to find my body approved of them!

I was interested to note that Mittleman eats and recommends a diet very similar to the Atkins diet, what Atkins himself eats, primarily protein and vegetables. This is a diet that takes a while for some of us to break into. Like Mittleman, I have been in the past a vegetarian (for 10 years from age 19-29), and most of my adult life bought into the belief first perpetuated among vegetarians in the early 70s and, later, Nathan Pritikin in the 80s, that protein is "satan." Years of too little protein left me seriously protein deficient, and going on a "protein-sufficient" diet, the Zone, in 1996 immediately ended 7 years of chronic fatigue in one fell swoop, never to return. For me, the Zone, however, was ultimately not enough, because it allowed a lot of fudging in the sugar-consumption department. Six months ago I switched to the Atkins diet, and have noted additional improvement in my general health and well-being eating only vegetables and some fruits for my carb consumption.

Mittleman is a real advocate of eating fish, a truly high-quality protein rich in important fats. Though he voices a concern I share about the inability to control what you are getting with fish (unlike beef, chicken, eggs and dairy, which you can get organic) because of the terrible pollution of streams, rivers and oceans today, Mittleman has decided for himself that the benefits of fish outweigh the risks of toxic pollution. He consumes it as his virtually exclusive protein source. As for myself, after spending well over $10,000 getting all the mercury fillings out of my mouth several years ago, I've strongly hesitated about eating fish as frequently as Mittleman does for fear of more heavy metal contamination. If that is not a concern of yours, you may well enjoy trying out Mittleman's suggestion of making fish your main protein source.

Mittleman has an interesting section on how he has experimented with his clients applying the theories of blood type and diet. I found it interesting that he is a Type O (as am I) and that Type O's naturally enjoy extensive, vigorous exercise, which is very true for me. I was also delighted to be lumped in as a marathoner type as one who exercises more than 3 hours a week. During the past few years I have stopped going to a gym and have worked out on my own, enjoying daily exercise sessions of walking alone alternated with walking plus lifting light weights, each session 1-3 hours, with an average of 2 hours. Being by myself in this process, I have occasionally slipped into a non-self-approving mindset that this is all "nothing" because it is so entirely effortless and simple--and feels so darn good. Mittleman reminds me in his book that this is the way it is meant to be.

One of my favorite statements from Mittleman is on what happened to him when he stopped eating high-carb, low-fat around 1986 (p. 214): "When I first started competing in multiday events, I viewed meal breaks as a welcome relief from an otherwise tedious and austere day. Food is instant gratification in a world devoid of pleasure; it exists only to provide me with immediate energy and pleasure and enough of an incentive to keep me going until my next meal break. Now, after changing my nutrition strategies to rely more on a balanced approach to eating, not just on carbohydrates for energy, I've come to recognize that moving itself is what I crave--not the eating. I feel as if I can move continuously, effortless, and forever. Food is now the means to an end, not an end in and of itself....In essence, my relationship to food has flipped-flopped. Eating is no longer the reward for continuously moving; being able to continuously move is the reward for eating right." I love this quote. I have it posted on the wall where I can see it when I exercise to remind me of what I have experienced personally, the utter joy of feeling when you exercise that you could go on forever. Sometimes it isn't enough to experience something--we need to be validated, too, that we are on the right track. I am very grateful to Mr. Mittleman for that validation. Read more ›

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Revolutionary work, but basic and simple May 14, 2002

By Marcus T. Brody

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Stu Mittleman has accomplished what seem to be several ridiculous feats. How could a man possibly run 1,000 miles in 12 days? How could a man run 100 miles per day for nearly 6 days? How could he do all of this and have a smile on his face, and minimal fatigue afterwards?

Slow Burn is revolutionary! Never would a runner imagine all of the little things that go into it. Mittleman teaches us how to visualize, how to use proper technique, how to breathe properly while running, how to alleviate the stress on the body, which foods we should be consuming, and much more.

This book is excellent, and anyone who needs to improve their physical fitness and well-being should set aside a day or two to absorb the information within. It's an excellent read.