Customer Reviews

The Ultimate Fit or Fat

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I am a high school health/nutrition teacher and included "The Ultimate Fit or Fat" on my optional reading list. (Each student has to read at least one book from the optional list.) Some of the students chose the fit or fat book, word got around about how much they liked it, and I would guess that at least 80% of the students ended up reading it. I'd see students with tape measures using the book's body fat test on all their friends. A couple of parents even called me to find out what kind of "magic" I had used on their kids because the kids were actually recommending that the parents read the book. This book is excellent. I'm going to make it REQUIRED reading from now on.

If you've read any of Covert Bailey's earlier books, this one will seem very familiar. Many sections are lifted word-for-word from previous versions of Fit or Fat. But if you're not yet a "Covert convert," this is the only one of his books you need to read. The information is straightforward, accurate, easy to understand and, most of all, helpful. There's also a healthy dose of humor. You'll be healthier and happier if you get with and stay with Covert's program.

Covert Bailey remains a strong proponent of the fitness-health connection, and is an entertaining writer. Overall this book is pretty good. There are several pieces of misinformation though:
1. He makes the common "low intensity exercise" mistake of depicting fat-burning vs sugar-burning as a black and white issue. At higher exercise intensity levels, you don't suddenly switch to burning sugar instead of fat, you just burn a higher percentage of calories from sugar. But since you are also burning more total calories, you'll burn more fat than when exercising at lower intensities, AND burn more sugar. Further, higher intensity exercise leaves the metabolism higher so continues to burn calories after exercise (he mentioned this effect for weight lifting but missed it for other types of anaerobic exercise).
2. In addition to his incorrect prejudice against swimming (mentioned by another reviewer), he also incorrectly states that bicycling burns little fat. At slow speeds bicycling is comparable to walking in rate of calorie (and fat) burning, at higher speeds it is comparable to running. Just check any of the calorie calculators on the web to confirm this.
3. I think he is still missing one of the main points of the value of weight lifting, which is to reverse the continual muscle loss that occurs with aging in sedentary people.

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. I bought this one recently, and discovered it is an entirely new book. The basic premise is still there, but everything else is new, like pulling into your driveway and finding a new, bigger house with more rooms on the old foundation. There is lots of additional information, and even the old jokes and illustrations have been replaced by new ones. Some reviewers are apparently annoyed that Covert does not endorse their pet ideas or theories on fitness, but the bottom line is that this book works. I lost fat with the first book before changes in my schedule caused me to neglect exercising for several years -- well, that's lame my excuse anyway. Then I decided to get serious again, and bought the new "ultimate" book and applied it (including wind sprints and weight lifting) and began losing fat again within weeks, and people are noticing! This book is my coach now, and I'm glad I discovered it. I do wish metric equivalents were included (we don't have pounds, inches, or miles where I live) but I can make the conversions easily enough myself.

Covert Bailey's approach is something anyone can handle. The key point is to just do it. He explains that staying in your target fat burning range is much more important and beneficial than going all out. I have always thought that the fat burn range on the tread mill was for sissies and consequently have over done it on more than one occasion. Exercise became something to dread because I thought it had to hurt to be good for me. Bailey's book explains in detail the reasons for working out in your target heart rate/fat burn range. It takes the pressure off trying to always go for the gold and leaves you feeling good for just getting out there.

In addition to being very helpful, the book really is an enjoyable read. I have decided to lose 40 pounds by my 40th birthday. (Using Covert Baileys formula for ideal weight, that is exactly the number that it turns out I should lose!) What I like most about his ideas are that they make sense. In fact, it struck me that as I read it, these were really common sense things that I needed to be reminded about. It is the exact opposite of what I thought when reading about the current fad of high protien diets.

Good approach, great motivation and an enjoyable read.

Very easy to understand, it sure makes a lot of sense and answered so many question I had for a long time; I think I'm going to read it again. Can hardly wait to read "Smart Excercise" Thank you Covert!