Rating: 
Summary: Like a Chemistry set for your body
Review: This book is great for anyone interested in healthier living, or like me enjoys using their body as their own person chemistry experiment. Kathy reqires that you keep track of your food intake, and exercise, which gives a good look at eating habits. I especially like that she doesn't ask that you begin changing your diet right away. The first week you just eat like normal and then you have someting for comparison as the weeks progress. As you get deeper into the chapters, Kathy has you focus on different aspects of your diet. Each week you take a hard look at different factors in healthy eating and strength traing. From Saturated fat to carbohydrates, to the importance of calcium and fiber, each week is a different focus and to me a different experiment. By the end of the book the reader has some valuable insight on minerals and food as well as how each effects their individual body. I find that this approach of taking baby steps to a healthier lifestyle is a much more effective method than cramming the entire diet in, in one bite.
Rating: 
Summary: Pick and choose what you like
Review: While I wouldn't call this book an unqualified success for me, it's definitely one of my most valued resources for fitness for the strength training aspect alone.I have several books on strength training for women, but this one is definitely my favorite. Each week of the ten calls for a slightly different set of 12 toning exercises. Every week Kathy emphasizes a particular body part/muscle group - for example, abs, back, or shoulders - and there may be several exercises that week for that particular body part. Each week also includes exercises that work just about every major part of your body. By doing the full ten-week cycle, you'll have worked each muscle group pretty well, and there is plenty of room for improvement by adding weights, sets and/or repetitions. There are clear black-and-white photographs demonstrating how to perform the exercises. All you need are three sets of dumbbells to start with (e.g., 3 lb., 5 lb. and 8 lb.), a chair, and a firm pillow. The calf exercise calls for a step (like those used in aerobic step programs), but if you have stairs in your home that will work fine, too. The other aspects of the book - nutrition and diet advice, stretching, etc. - round out the information and give you a complete basis for fitness, although I don't focus on cutting out total fat grams as much as Kathy suggests. I've come to believe that keeping track of total calories, combined with striving to meet the USDA's food pyramid diet guidelines, is best, with fat being given secondary consideration. But that's just me. The logs are handy and would be great if you just want to treat it like a ten-week "course curriculum," but I have been logging my food and exercise independently of the book and just using the book as a reference. Still, even though I'm not using the logs or adhering strictly to the ten-week program, I find this book invaluable for my basic strength training routine.
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