With more than three million copies of previous editions in print, this classic exercise manual has shown Americans from all walks of life the route from fatness to fitness. Now Covert Bailey has totally rewritten and revised FIT OR FAT for the first time since the book's original publication in the mid-1970s. His dramatically new approach to fitness incorporates the most recent scientific findings. Weightlifting, whose fat-burning potential is only now becoming fully understood, plays a large role in Bailey's new program, which stresses what he calls "the four food groups" of exercise: aerobics, cross-training, wind sprints, and weightlifting. He also stresses the importance of intense exercise, showing readers how to build intensity into their daily programs safely and effectively. Covert Bailey's ULTIMATE FIT OR FAT will not only be of interest to a new health-conscious generation but will be eagerly sought out by the millions of readers who have come to rely on the Bailey approach to keep their bodies in peak condition.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
"In my little way I'm going to rattle the world," proclaims Covert Bailey, who already rattled the world when he changed the way America looked at weight loss and exercise with his original Fit or Fat in the mid-1970s. Now he's back with a new spin on the Fit or Fat principles. This small book (180 pages, about 5 by 8 inches) teaches you how to get fit faster and raise your metabolism. To improve your fitness level most quickly, Bailey recommends his "Four Food Groups of Good Exercise": aerobic exercise, cross training (varying your exercise choices), wind sprints (short bursts of high-intensity activity), and weight lifting. "I'm not burning a lot of calories while I'm exercising, but my body is changing into a better butter-burning machine," he says. "The purpose of my exercise is to change my chemistry." As we expect from Covert, his style is clever and feisty--the book is fun to read, and the information goes down easily. He offers some witty, memorable principles, such as "The more muscle an exercise uses, the less long you gotta do it!", "If you're fit, exercise long; if you're fat, go short but often," and this motto for the older exerciser: "When you are over the hill--you pick up speed!" He includes a body-fat test and a find-your-pace fitness test. --Joan Price
From Publishers Weekly
Sixty-seven-year-old fitness instructor Bailey takes a systematic, straightforward approach to lifetime physical fitness in his final contribution to the successful two-decade Fit or Fat series. Here he begins with the basic premise that the tendency to get fat has little to do with the amount or quality of food eaten and as proof points to the ineffectual long-term results of dieting. Asserting that exercise is the ultimate control of metabolism (something diet is unable to change), Bailey claims it is the amount of fat-burning muscle that determines one's ability to lose fat (though he sympathetically notes women's lesser ability to control fat due to hormones, lower muscle mass and childbirth). Instructions for simple at-home tests allow the reader to accurately measure their own body fat percentage, lean body mass, ideal weight, ideal exercise heart rate and exercise pace, giving a starting point for any future progress. Likening his weekly exercise program to the four food groups, with three to four recommended servings of aerobics, two to three servings each of cross-training and weight lifting and one to two servings of wind sprints, Bailey offers a varied menu of exercises in each category (including a special no-barbells home weight lifting chapter for the gym-phobic), stressing the pros and cons of each and warning that exercise is not effective when the body has no time to recuperate. Bailey, in no-nonsense prose, will motivate the reader with his contagiously positive outlook and personal anecdotes. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
92 of 94 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Thanks again Covert!
I was wary of purchasing this book as I've read Covert Bailey's original "Fit or Fat" and doubted that there was anything new to say on the subject. However, a friend convinced me to give it a try and I'm glad that I did. Valuable new information on wind sprints (not as strenuous as it sounds!) is included in this new book. I've incorporated sprints into my work out and have seen a dramatic jump in my fitness level. That alone was worth the price of the volume. Covert includes an easy formula to determine an accurate body fat measurement using a tape measure - just in case you don't appreciate spending $80 to be dunked in a tank of water or pinched with calipers. There's also an easy introduction to weight lifting that you can do at home without purchasing any expensive equipment. Even though I try to get to the gym a couple times a week to do weights, there are days when it "just doesn't happen". I use this beginning program as my fall back plan. I just up the reps and I can get in some weightlifting exercise in my hotel room when I'm on business travel.
This book is intended for average folks that know they should be getting some exercise but have difficulty getting physical fitness into their daily routine. It's motivating, complete unto itself, and will explain in very clear and easy terms how to get the most physical benefit from your precious exercise time. (This applies to 90% of us.) This book is NOT intended for gym dogs or athletes in training that have already established an intense exercise program. That 10% of the populaton is training at a much higher level and already knows this stuff.
58 of 58 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Covert Bailey has finished off his Fit Or Fat series with The Ultimate Fit or Fat. This small book, only $11, quite adequately summarizes what you need know to achieve fitness and escape fatness, Bailey's quest for over 20 years now.
Covert has always been keen on the physiology of fat burning, especially in the role of fat-burning enzymes. He covers these in more detail in some of his earlier works but summarizes by advising that aerobic exercise should be "gentle enough so that the muscle burns fat rather than sugar," but "hard enough to stimulate the growth of new fat-burning enzymes.
The basic enhancement of fat burning enzymes takes place during and after exercise, as they replenish muscle tissue's stores of glycogen, sugar ready to be used. He reminds us that when we exercise aerobically, such as in fast walking, we best stimulate fat burning enzymes and with them, fat loss. But he also again makes the point that even better conditioning and fat burning may be accomplished with wind sprints, simple sub-minute bursts of greater exertion. Wind sprints are defined as short bursts of more intense activity, such as jogging for a walker or actually sprinting for a runner. He notes that it is in the recovery phase of these sprints where the most fat burning actually takes place.
Please check the actual book for guidelines, as these can be important depending on your age and condition before pushing up your intensity.
Nutrition, a topic vital to weight control, is little covered in this book and addressed better in earlier works, such as Fit or Fat Target Diet. He does admonish readers to stop "putting grease on top of your food." He focuses here instead on upping your metabolism with aerobic activity, wind sprints, weight training and cross conditioning. The book presents a complete set of weight lifting routines using your own body weight to provide resistance. He offers ways to calculate approximate body fat and determine heart rate for safe and effective exercise.
Covert Bailey converts your pace for covering a mile with moderate exertion into an interesting metric of your general health. He quite correctly shows how your ability to cover a mile in say, 12 minutes or nine minutes does give a strong indicator of your general health and well-being, physical condition, and body fat. As a side benefit, his focus on pace and the benefits of wind sprints can quickly lead one to move a bit faster during daily exercise.
All in all, this is an excellent volume for anyone plagued by overweight. Especially at a time when book stores are overflowing with questionable best sellers on food types and overweight, Covert Bailey's basic and well-stated grounding on our daily activities and fitness being the real cures of fatness have a renewed importance.
32 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
While there are more advantages than disadvantages to living in an age where we can get so much information about anything, it's a relief to read something simple and sensible about exercise and fitness. Bailey never makes you scratch your head trying to figure out what he means or undermines his own credibility with impossible promises.
I also love that the program he outlines is so simple and straight-forward. In case you can't translate into the latest fitness lingo, he's advocating interval training as the keystone of losing fat (with cross-training and weight-lifting playing a supporting role). I've been doing all of the above for a while and seeing results, but now I finally understand that it's not a good idea to push myself so far I hurt.
Although Bailey is emphatic that this is not a book about dieting or nutrition, again, his good sense comes through even there. This book is anti-diet in the way the American public has come to understand it. Bailey doesn't advocate that we eat like pigs and cautions against over-indulgence, but basically advocates a straight-forward eating plan where we stay away from fats and sweets. He cautions that while exercise is ultimately how we'll stay fit and healthy, we can eventually undermine that if we eat badly. Again, pretty reasonable.
A word of warning: this is not for people who want to look like size 0 supermodels or brawny weightlifters. This is for people who want to get or stay in good shape and sustain it for the rest of their lives. He has some very good (and simple) tools for figuring out just how fat you really are and what you should weigh. A lot of people will be surprised to find they only need to lose 5 pounds, not 15, and that losing that extra 10 will make them less fit, not more.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Thanks
Thanks Amazon this item is in the school book store it was not that exspensive, but it was alot cheaper through Amazon. Read more
Published 5 months ago by mimi jones
Good stuff
Amazing that this 10 year old book purports to "put an end to the diet mania." At least the author concludes the introductory interview with this statement. Read more
Published on October 21, 2009 by Slow Runner
either or!?
Sensible, logical, motivational. Packs a good punch and gets one going. Should be prescribed reading for anyone over 10.
Published on September 16, 2009 by Suzie M
Simply the Best!
I'm a "normal" 68 year old woman, and I've been doing various kinds of exercise in fits and starts for years. Read more
Published on February 4, 2009 by Yennta
The Ultimate Fit or Fat
Covert Bailey is the smartest man in America. How easy it all is when someone finally tells the truth. Read more
Published on February 26, 2007 by L. Choquette
not what I expected
It's nothing but an exercise book. I don't need a book to know that exercise is good for me. I'm not sure what I expected but this book wasn't it.
Published on May 9, 2006 by SAW
A totally new book, and it really works!
I had bought the original Fit or Fat book many years ago, and may have been the only person on the planet who didn't know that Covert Bailey continued to write new books. Read more
Published on September 16, 2005 by Russell L. Stutler
very practical and understandable
Ultimate Fit and Fat is an easy and quick read. Just as he did in his earlier book Smart Exercise, Bailey discusses the importance of exercising over dieting in improving and... Read more
Published on March 16, 2004 by Living in Budapest
Very readable, helpful guide to burning fat through exercise
This is a highly readable guidebook to burning fat through exercise. Bailey uses just enough science to back up his suggestions, but not so much that an unscientific minded reader... Read more
Published on October 1, 2003 by Marchez Vite
His heart's in the right place but some wrong information
Covert Bailey remains a strong proponent of the fitness-health connection, and is an entertaining writer. Overall this book is pretty good. Read more
Published on March 6, 2003 by Richard King
Inside This Book
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
(learn more)
body fat percentage, subaerobic exercise, home weightlifting, aerobic rider, aerobic pace, weightlifting program, wind sprints Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
The Ultimate Fit, Covert Bailey, Get Started, Choosing Your Aerobic Exercise, Home Weightlifting Program, Saturday Aerobic, Friday Covert's Home Weightlifting, The Fastest Way, Fat Versus Lean, Body Fat Test, Immersion Test Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
body fat percentage, subaerobic exercise, home weightlifting, aerobic rider, aerobic pace, weightlifting program, wind sprints Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
The Ultimate Fit, Covert Bailey, Get Started, Choosing Your Aerobic Exercise, Home Weightlifting Program, Saturday Aerobic, Friday Covert's Home Weightlifting, The Fastest Way, Fat Versus Lean, Body Fat Test, Immersion Test Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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