Body Confidence–Book Review

About The Book

I was contacted by TLC Book Tours to give Mark MacDonald of Venice Nutrition’s new book “Body Confidence” a review. I figured since I just about own every other book there is available, that I’d give this one a go. In the beginning of the book he talks about his own struggles and at first I thought “he has no idea”. But as I got going through the book, a lot of information he presents I have read before and I do believe in the theory. In some cases a bunch of these went off…

This book is not only for those that want to lose weight, it is for folks that want to gain muscle as well. It’s really about Body Confidence – feeling good about the skin you are in.

In the first chapter – “Why Diets Fail”, I thought I would read the same thing I read all the time. But I was pleasantly surprised – enough to want to keep reading the book. I kind of sat up and started to pay attention.  Mark says:

"We’ve all had that moment in life when we felt in control of our health. We got there somehow through diet, exercise, our genetics or whatever other means. For whatever reason, things just worked. Then for some other reason everything that was working seems to vanish suddenly. We spent endless hours focusing on the past, trying to figure out what had changed. That moment becomes our hope, out future possibility--our ace in the hole. We believe that at any time we can pull out that ace and get back to where we were during that moment. We have justifications for not doing anything like “life is too busy, or After the holidays”. We take on each day feeling just a bit worse, having less energy, getting more stressed, watching our weight and body fat slowly increase. We tell ourselves that is not a problem, that we know what to do, we are just not doing it. We keep tight hold on that ace in the hole ready to use it at any time”.

Sound familiar?

So what's the solution? According the Mark, blood sugar stabilization through meal intervals, nutrient ratios and calories per meal. He believes that nutrition should be used to create an internal balance. With Ron’s blood sugar being so high right now, I really started to pay attention to this part. If I could keep Ron’s blood stable through out the day, I figured he would be much healthier for it. Stabilize your blood sugar and your body won’t store the excess as fat. hmmm…..

He talks about set points – which is the scale weight your body is used to – comfortable at. And when you gain weight, and go on a diet, you can quickly lose those 10-15 lbs you gained right up until you hit that set-point. He talks about how to get beyond that, how to re-program your metabolism. Again another fitness guru that talks about not getting on the scale but rather focus on the body fat percentage. For me this is huge – I get depressed when I get on the scale on a daily basis and see it go up and down 2-3lbs every day depending on what I ate the day before. If I could get on the scale and only look at my Lean Body weight and see that go up (or down) then I’d be happier

Ever heard of the Kaizen method – we get the speech here at work all the time and it does apply to our bodies as well. Small attainable goals, that is the best way to lose weight. Mark has some great examples in his book that really get you thinking. Setting small attainable goals to reach your final destination. But he wants us to ask ourselves the “WHY?” of why we are wanting to achieve those goals.

1. Why do I want to achieve my goals?
2. What will I get from achieving my goals?
3. What happens once I reach my goals?
4. Is my why strong enough to keep me focused on my health during life’s challenges?
5. Is the why I’ve chosen only short term? if so what is my long term why?

Being clear on the above will help us with the reasons to stay the course and live fully.

He helps you develop a plan for your “Body Confidence” in the final chapters. You focus on :

1. Sleep
2. Nutrition
3. Exercise
4. Vitamins, minerals, Omega’s
5. Water
6. Stress.

I could go into more detail about all of the above but this post would be way too long. I guess you are going to have to just get the book and have a read

Overall I think it’s a pretty good book!

ttyl

Sandra