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Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (Lose Body Fat) - Product ReviewAt first glance, this product manual's title (Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle) was a bit distracting. While the 300+ page manual does a good job of explaining how increased muscle strength helps lose body fat and why its more important to lose body fat versus lose weight; I wasn't sure about the content of the product manual until I read it in its entirety. The overall premise is to burn the body fat with exercise and feed the muscle with good nutrition plans. The author, Tom Venuto, is a body builder and that helps explain some of the direction of the manual. On the plus side, Tom's instructional product manual has a tremendous amount of information including goal setting, discussions on meal frequency and exercise plans, just to name a few. On the negative side (depending on your perspective), it contains a few references about the basics of weight loss (or body fat loss) such as drinking plenty of water and burn more calories than you consume. Basics are covered in 2 of the 17 chapters, so it didn't waste too much of the reader's time. Overall, I would rate this instructional manual, (Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle) an 8.5 out of 10. If you have the ability to motivate yourself and take action by reading a manual, then the price for this product of $39 is a great value. However, if reading an instructional manual isn't enough to motivate you to take action to lose body fat, then you may benefit from a more multimedia rich program such as Denise Austin's Fit Forever , Billy Blanks' Tae-Bo, or Winsor Pilates . These other programs include CDs, videos and/or charts. However, if you do consider these other programs, they may cost a bit more. What I liked 1. 1. Tom's full chapter on setting 'compelling' goals helps the reader understand the importance of defining a compelling reason for unstoppable motivation to succeed. In my opinion, a true compassionate reason is key to success in any area - without it, you're setting yourself up for mediocre results He uses excellent quotes from Denis Waitley & others to drive his point home. 2. His discussions on how to lose body fat versus losing weight is covered well in his product manual and he discusses various methods to test body fat including the inexpensive use of calipers for skin fold testing. I personally use the $20 Accu-measure calipers and they work very well. 3. He mentions that dieting isn't as important as good meal planning and increasing muscle strength to help lose body fat. The combination of these two strategies are key to your long-term success. For more details about Tom's manual, (Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle), check out his site which as additional details, plus any special offers that might be available. 4. His discussion on the 'adaption syndrome' is valuable and an important lesson in getting to the next level of success in your goal to lose body fat. You can also adapt this lesson to help you succeed in many other areas of your life. What I didn't like 1. Tom provides tons of valuable information on the subject of weight loss or how to lose body fat, but in the beginning of the product manual, it lacks a detailed plan to help the reader start a program quickly. Given today's fast paced world, a quick start guide would have been useful. 2. For novice readers, the sections on drinking plenty of water and calorie balance are extremely important, but for readers with this basic knowledge on how to lose body fat, these sections are a bit too elementary. 3. In this product manual, Tom discusses the benefit of timing meals. While this might improve your personal situation, I personally believe the extra effort dedicated to timing is not worth the time & effort put into the timing process. (Or maybe I'm just a bit lazy to go through that much detail to lose the last percentage of body fat.) Overall For beginners, this manual (Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle), provides 300+ pages of details that are extensive, easy-to-read and easy-to-implement. If you have some basic knowledge of weight loss or losing body fat, you can still benefit from about 90% of this product manual. There are a great few sections that I've never seen before and are very interesting perspectives on how to lose body fat. If you have the discipline (& can get motivated to take action), then the small price you'll pay ($39) is worth it. If however, you can't get motivated to take action by reading an instructional book, then you should consider other multimedia products such as Denise Austin's Fit Forever , Billy Blanks Tae-Bo, or Winsor Pilates . As mentioned before, be prepared to pay a bit more for these other programs. I've followed many of the steps outlined in his instructional product manual and have been pleased with the results. For $39, and with a 3-month money back guarantee - it's worth the price. Similar to other lengthy instructional manuals, plan to read in small periods of time and keep your pen out to take good notes. Last time I was on his site, he was giving some free bonuses away also, you'll want to check out his site today before you consider purchasing. End of Product Review. Other articles by this author »
About Mike Miyaki
Mike Miyaki If you would like to use all or part of this review for content on your web site, you must include this byline. Related
And here is another random article you might be interested in... Troubled Waters Require Capable Leaders at the HelmCanada's lean leaders need to look beyond the horizon and chart the future In stormy times, true leadership skills emerge, says Larry Coté, the President of Lean Advisors Inc. (www.leanadvisors.com) By Larry Coté The rumbles on our economic outlook are troubling. The dollar is still up, foreign investment, profits and sales are down. Low cost Asian competition is eroding our market share. Financial scandals and corporate governance issues keep flaring into the headlines. Disasters such as terrorism, possible pandemics, and war continually reshape the world in which we work and live. There are so many "big" global issues, so much apparent chaos, that our minds are often distracted from the day-to-day jobs we do leading our businesses. The world as we know it has changed - both economically and socially. What hasn't changed however, is the customers' insatiable appetite for more value, faster delivery and better service. Most business leaders are eager to return to their pre-recession profits and growth. But even when the economy is robust again, we may find the bounce back to previous profit levels is not a "slam dunk" in spite of a revived and thriving economy. During the past couple of years, while business executives have been making short-term decisions to survive, customers and markets have continued to change at a rate never seen before. If we turn our worries and blame for new shortfalls to the currency fluctuations and Asian competition, it starts to sound like the same old "blame game" with different players. It's easy to fly high on adrenaline when you look at these global issues and threats. But, for a moment, let's step back and look at our business challenges from a lower altitude and a more local focus. In doing this, we need to disregard the factors affecting our businesses that we can't influence and begin to look at those we can. The ones we have little or no influence over are things like the recession, currency fluctuations and major disasters. The area we can influence and affect is our own long and short-term strategies for transforming our companies, making them more competitive and customer focused. The bottom line is let's stick to our "knitting," do our jobs and focus more on our roles as organizational leaders. In North America we've proven that we can provide products and services competitively through innovation, inspired product development and comprehensive efforts to eliminate waste. But it does require a prolonged and concentrated effort. Leaders aren't hired to cry wolf when chaos threatens. The terms of employment are to use our leadership talents and drive improvements that will be seen and sustained on the bottom line. We need to readjust how we use these talents and not be distracted by global factors, which are out of our control for the most part. We must accept the role we were hired for and focus on the business operations where we can have a real impact. We are leaders, so let's lead. Most activities, whatever the company, can be classified as waste of one kind or another once you start to see it. As leaders, it is our responsibility to set the direction and motivate our staff to understand how to remove this waste properly rather than making incremental or point improvements. This requires seeing and analyzing the process from end to end, not just at points or segments of the process. That becomes your road map to success. Beneficial change happens in a very structured, sequential and organized fashion. Your teams aren't caught running around chasing low hanging fruit while creating what we call "exciting chaos." When everyone rushes reactively to improve their individual areas they feel virtuous, after all they are helping the company, aren't they? In fact, they are only improving their areas or departments, often at the detriment of the entire process. It's your leadership and your measured future state plan that will bring order to chaos. Reactive flurry kills profits faster than any big external threat! Striving to improve our own competitiveness by providing customers faster and better products or services will accomplish more than worrying about the next global crisis looming just around the corner. The only futures game we need to be in is the one that cuts waste so the customer sees more value. Science tells us that nature likes order - it's human agents that generate the chaos. There are things that we can control - so let's get busy and do it! Larry Coté is president of Lean Advisors Inc. You can reach him by email at: lcote@leanadvisors.com. Larry is also a key organizer of the Lean Conference Canada event being held Sept, 15-16, 2004, at the Ottawa Congress Centre. For event details visit: (www.leanconferencecanada.ca) For information: www.leanadvisors.com or Other articles by this author »
About Larry D. Cote
Larry Coté is well known for his penetrating analysis and creative energy. He was employed by the Lean Enterprise Institute in Boston for almost two years as C.O.O./E.V.P. He was the Founder and President of the Lean Enterprise Institute Canada. Over the years, Larry has worked with 100's of companies at various stages of their Lean journey in many different business sectors. He is particularly skilled at working with senior executives in the boardroom to plan, problem solve and create Lean corporate strategies. His research and development work along with his past 'hands-on' experience has led to new ways to teach and communicate Lean across North America. These methods used in the past by Lean Advisors Inc. have proven to be very successful in promoting 'sustainability' within the organizations where they have been applied. Larry has specialized expertise in Toyota Production System concepts, diagnostics and assessment of Lean readiness. He works with the corporate leaders to develop effective plans for transforming entire organizations using Lean and adapting it to their particular culture. Related
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