Get with the Program: Getting Real About Your Weight, Health, and Emotional Well-Being

Rating:
Summary: Motivating
Review: Bob Greene's book should not be labeled a diet book, so much as a book about changing one's lifestyle. Using his four-step process, I was able to rejuvenate my exercise and diet regimen and managed to lose about 20 pounds. Much of this was fat, as the fourth phase of Greene's plan emphasizes muscle building.

This book is probably best suited for beginners. Greene's message addresses losing weight, improving cardiovascular health, understanding why you eat (emotional eating, ala Dr. Phil), and improving self-esteem. Greene also advises people not to eat after 7pm, which I believe may be based on the false premise that a person's metabolism shuts off during sleep. According to Greene's plan, you should change your lifestyle in fours phases: 1) find out where you are at, what got you there, and what you want to achieve; 2) implement an aerobic exercise routine; 3) get to know what emotions are working to cause you to eat in excess of your body's needs; and, 4) build muscle with anerobic exercise.

If you already exercise regularly and are knowledgeable of sound nutrition concepts, you may not need this book. However, if you're like me, you may find Greene's book motivational and thus worth the money and time.

Rating:
Summary: Broader Benefits than Other Diet-Exercise Programs
Review: Excellent book. Practical advice that moves beyond just eating recommendations and exercise recommendations. Covers emotional eating, dealing with needs. Very well rounded and more practical and reasonable than a lot of ther programs. There are nice journal pages also. To improve wellness even more, and to help make good authentic changes--like weight loss, one of the best book I have seen in a long long time is "Effortless Wellbeing: The Missing Ingredients for Authentic Wellness" by Evan Finer. Get with the Program and Effortless Wellbeing combined can really help as a combination. HIGHLY recommended!!

Rating:
Summary: Easy, practical advice for better health
Review: Greene's concept of physical fitness and health is simple: eat less, move more, and you'll lose weight and feel healthier. It's time to throw away stupid fad diets which cannot be maintained for life. Greene is candid and honest about what it takes to lose weight and increase fitness. This is not a diet, nor a strict exercise plan. Rather, the phased approach to gradually increasing health and fitness makes it easy for even a sedentary individual to make a positive lifestyle change.

Although my level of cardiovascular fitness is decent (I already do the amount that Greene suggests for the final phase), I have always struggled with emotional eating. So much of this book is devoted to simple, easy-to-understand discussion of why people are emotional eaters, and what can be done to change. It has been so helpful; I have completely curbed my emotional binge eating. It hasn't been easy, but Greene's recommendations on a healthy diet have really made a difference.

This book is intended primarily for those who are looking to begin a lifestyle change, but I believe it is appropriate even for those who are already working towards their fitness goals.

Rating:
Summary: Good but still lacking spiritual inspiration
Review: I found Bob's book sound and safe but many of the principles such as 'don't eat after 7 pm', still re-inforce the diet mentality that gets so many stuck in this rut in the first place.
I agree with most of what Greene offers, but where he lacks, Deborah Low's book, "The Quest for Peace, Love & a 24-Inch Waist" goes one step further to nurture the spiritual aspect of getting healthy and losing weight.
I used to be overweight and I now manage a womens gym. I know how many people, women in particular, struggle with body image and diets. Different than Bob, Deborah challenges the reader to re-evaluate their diet mentality while inspiring a whole new perspective on staying motivated and getting fit.
I used to recommend Bob's book, but now I use "Quest" with all of my clients who struggle with their weight and I am having great success. Her website is also content rich at deborahlow.com
In my opinion, use anything that helps you make peace with your body. Bob's book is a good start on the physical and emotional side but what about the spiritual? ...

Rating:
Summary: Realistic advice on how to get fit
Review: Let's be clear up front: there are no major breakthroughs or miracles in this book. Most every American alive knows what it would take to get fit (exercise) and lose weight (eat less fat and junk). To a certain extent, therefore, "Get with the Program" is just a re-formulation of the hard facts we all know. What Bob Greene has devised is a realistic and relatively painless way of adopting those healthy practices into your life on a long-term basis. There are 4 incremental stages to the program which are simple and designed for each person to follow at their own pace. This means that you don't have to wake up tomorrow morning, starve yourself and run out the door for 2 hours at the gym. Step 1 is simple: start a minimum of aerobic exercise, basic stretches and some abdominal exercises a couple of times a week. Easy enough. Once you've thoroughly incorporated that into your life, you move on to stage 2 where exercise picks up a little. Not until you reach stage 4 do you begin to actively change your eating habits; that can be months or years later. This is a fitness program that isn't intimidating and isn't going to require you to drastically change your whole lifestyle immediately in order to get results and start feeling better about yourself. This means that a lot of people who haven't been successful in weightloss or exercise programs before are finally going to succeed in making long-term changes to their lives. Again, this isn't a radical fad diet (in fact, the nutritional advice is rather skimpy - follow Greene's principals, but don't hesitate to supplement the nutritional info if you need to)- it's about making gradual changes at a pace you can live with.