The Ultimate Fit or Fat (Paperback)

by Covert Bailey (Author)
Key Phrases: body fat percentage, subaerobic exercise, home weightlifting, The Ultimate Fit, Covert Bailey, Get Started (more...)

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.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (January 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618002049
• ISBN-13: 978-0618002047
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #102,683 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars New Info!, May 2, 2000

By A Customer

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.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So sensible, it's a relief!, July 27, 2001

By	dnk "dnkboston" (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be REQUIRED READING, February 14, 2000

By	John Davis (San Diego) - See all my reviews

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.