Burn – by Dr. Herman Pontzer

10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

We all have reasons to want to focus on our metabolism. Speed it up to burn more fat; slow it down to live longer. Tweak it for more energy in the day. But what actually is it, and how does it work?

Dr. Herman Pontzer presents a very useful overview of not just what our metabolism is and how it works, but also why.

The style of the book is casual, but doesn’t skimp on the science. Whether we are getting campfire stories of Hadza hunter-gatherers, or an explanation of the use of hydrogen isotopes in metabolic research, Dr. Pontzer keeps things easy-reading.

One of the main premises of the book is that our caloric expenditure is not easy to change—if we exercise more, our bodies will cut back somewhere else. After all, the body uses energy for a lot more than just moving. With this in mind, Dr. Pontzer makes the science-based case for focusing more on diet than exercise if weight management is our goal.

In short, if you’d like your metabolism to be a lot less mysterious, this book can help render a lot of science a lot more comprehensible!

Click here to check out “Burn” on Amazon today, and learn to manage your own metabolism the way you want it!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • Yoga Nidra Made Easy – by Dr. Uma Dinsmore-Tuli and Nirlipta Tuli
  • Dealing with Thirst!
    Busting the myth of drinking 8 glasses of water a day. Does tea and coffee count? What about soda? Factors like diet and exercise affect how much water you need. Trust your body’s thirst signals and hydrate accordingly.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Debate over tongue tie procedures in babies continues. Here’s why it can be beneficial for some infants

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    There is increasing media interest about surgical procedures on new babies for tongue tie. Some hail it as a miracle cure, others view it as barbaric treatment, though adverse outcomes are rare.

    Tongue tie occurs when the tissue under the tongue is attached to the lower gum or floor of the mouth in a way that can restrict the movement or range of the tongue. This can impact early breastfeeding in babies. It affects an estimated 8% of children under one year of age.

    While there has been an increase in tongue tie releases (also called division or frenotomy), it’s important to keep this in perspective relative to the increase in breastfeeding rates.

    The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, with breastfeeding recommended into the second year of life and beyond for the health of mother and baby as well as optimal growth. Global rates of breastfeeding infants for the first six months have increased from 38% to 48% over the past decade. So, it is not surprising there is also an increase in the number of babies being referred globally with breastfeeding challenges and potential tongue tie.

    An Australian study published in 2023 showed that despite a 25% increase in referrals for tongue tie division between 2014 and 2018, there was no increase in the number of tongue tie divisions performed. Tongue tie surgery rates increased in Australia in the decade from 2006 to 2016 (from 1.22 per 1,000 population to 6.35) for 0 to 4 year olds. There is no data on surgery rates in Australia over the last eight years.

    Tongue tie division isn’t always appropriate but it can make a big difference to the babies who need it. More referrals doesn’t necessarily mean more procedures are performed.

    chomplearn/Shutterstock

    How tongue tie can affect babies

    When tongue tie (ankyloglossia) restricts the movement of the tongue, it can make it more difficult for a baby to latch onto the mother’s breast and painlessly breastfeed.

    Earlier this month, the International Consortium of oral Ankylofrenula Professionals released a tongue tie position statement and practice guideline. Written by a range of health professionals, the guidelines define tongue tie as a functional diagnosis that can impact breastfeeding, eating, drinking and speech. The guidelines provide health professionals and families with information on the assessment and management of tongue tie.

    Tongue tie release has been shown to improve latch during breastfeeding, reduce nipple pain and improve breast and bottle feeding. Early assessment and treatment are important to help mothers breastfeed for longer and address any potential functional problems.

    baby with open mouth shows tongue tie under tongue
    The frenulum is a band of tissue under the tongue that is attached to the gumline base of the mouth. Akkalak Aiempradit/Shutterstock

    Where to get advice

    If feeding isn’t going well, it may cause pain for the mother or there may be signs the baby isn’t attaching properly to the breast or not getting enough milk. Parents can seek skilled help and assessment from a certified lactation consultant or International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant who can be found via online registry.

    Alternatively, a health professional with training and skills in tongue tie assessment and division can assist families. This may include a doctor, midwife, speech pathologist or dentist with extended skills, training and experience in treating babies with tongue tie.

    When access to advice or treatment is delayed, it can lead to unnecessary supplementation with bottle feeds, early weaning from breastfeeding and increased parental anxiety.

    Getting a tongue tie assessment

    During assessment, a qualified health professional will collect a thorough case history, including pregnancy and birth details, do a structural and functional assessment, and conduct a comprehensive breastfeeding or feeding assessment.

    They will view and thoroughly examine the mouth, including the tongue’s movement and lift. The appearance of where the tissue attaches to the underside of the tongue, the ability of the tongue to move and how the baby can suck also needs to be properly assessed.

    Treatment decisions should focus on the concerns of the mother and baby and the impact of current feeding issues. Tongue tie division as a baby is not recommended for the sole purpose of avoiding speech problems in later life if there are no feeding concerns for the baby.

    baby breastfeeding and holding mother's finger
    A properly qualified lactation consultant can help with positioning and attachment. HarryKiiM Stock/Shutterstock

    Treatment options

    The Australian Dental Association’s 2020 guidelines provide a management pathway for babies diagnosed with tongue tie.

    Once feeding issues are identified and if a tongue tie is diagnosed, non-surgical management to optimise positioning, latch and education for parents should be the first-line approach.

    If feeding issues persist during follow-up assessment after non-surgical management, a tongue tie division may be considered. Tongue tie release may be one option to address functional challenges associated with breastfeeding problems in babies.

    There are risks associated with any procedure, including tongue tie release, such as bleeding. These risks should be discussed with the treating practitioner before conducting any laser, scissor or scalpel tongue tie procedure.

    Post-release support by a certified lactation consultant or feeding specialist is necessary after a tongue tie division. A post-release treatment plan should be developed by a team of health professionals including advice and support for breastfeeding to address both the mother and baby’s individual needs.

    We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Raymond J. Tseng, DDS, PhD, (Paediatric Dentist) to the writing of this article.

    Sharon Smart, Lecturer and Researcher (Speech Pathology) – School of Allied Health, Curtin University; David Todd, Associate Professor, Neonatology, ANU Medical School, Australian National University, and Monica J. Hogan, PhD student, ANU School of Medicine and Psychology, Australian National University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Share This Post

  • In Defense of Food – by Michael Pollan

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Eat more like the French. Or the Italians. Or the Japanese. Or…

    Somehow, whatever we eat is not good enough, and we should always be doing it differently!

    Michael Pollan takes a more down-to-Earth approach.

    He kicks off by questioning the wisdom of thinking of our food only in terms of nutritional profiles, and overthinking healthy-eating. He concludes, as many do, that a “common-sense, moderate” approach is needed.

    And yet, most people who believe they are taking a “common-sense, moderate” approach to health are in fact over-fed yet under-nourished.

    So, how to fix this?

    He offers us a reframe: to think of food as a relationship, and health being a product of it:

    • If we are constantly stressing about a relationship, it’s probably not good.
    • On the other hand, if we are completely thoughtless about it, it’s probably not good either.
    • But if we can outline some good, basic principles and celebrate it with a whole heart? It’s probably at the very least decent.

    The style is very casual and readable throughout. His conclusions, by the way, can be summed up as “Eat real food, make it mostly plants, and make it not too much”.

    However, to summarize it thusly undercuts a lot of the actual value of the book, which is the principles for discerning what is “real food” and what is “not too much”.

    Bottom line: if you’re tired of complicated eating plans, this book can help produce something very simple, attainable, and really quite good.

    Click here to check out In Defense of Food, for some good, hearty eating.

    Share This Post

  • What Flexible Dieting Really Means

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    When Flexibility Is The Dish Of The Day

    This is Alan Aragon. Notwithstanding not being a “Dr. Alan Aragon”, he’s a research scientist with dozens of peer-reviewed nutrition science papers to his name, as well as being a personal trainer and fitness educator. Most importantly, he’s an ardent champion of making people’s pursuit of health and fitness more evidence-based.

    We’ll be sharing some insights from a book of his that we haven’t reviewed yet, but we will link it at the bottom of today’s article in any case.

    What does he want us to know?

    First, get out of the 80s and into the 90s

    In the world of popular dieting, the 80s were all about calorie-counting and low-fat diets. They did not particularly help.

    In the 90s, it was discovered that not only was low-fat not the way to go, but also, regardless of the diet in question, rigid dieting leads to “disinhibition”, that is to say, there comes a point (usually not far into a diet) whereby one breaks the diet, at which point, the floodgates open and the dieter binges unhealthily.

    Aragon would like to bring our attention to a number of studies that found this in various ways over the course of the 90s measuring various different metrics including rigid vs flexible dieting’s impacts on BMI, weight gain, weight loss, lean muscle mass changes, binge-eating, anxiety, depression, and so forth), but we only have so much room here, so here’s a 1999 study that’s pretty much the culmination of those:

    Flexible vs. Rigid Dieting Strategies: Relationship with Adverse Behavioral Outcomes

    So in short: trying to be very puritan about any aspect of dieting will not only not work, it will backfire.

    Next, get out of the 90s into the 00s

    …which is not only fun if you read “00s” out loud as “naughties”, but also actually appropriate in this case, because it is indeed important to be comfortable being a little bit naughty:

    In 2000, Dr. Marika Tiggemann found that dichotomous perceptions of food (e.g. good/bad, clean/dirty, etc) were implicated as a dysfunctional cognitive style, and predicted not only eating disorders and mood disorders, but also adverse physical health outcomes:

    Dieting and Cognitive Style: The Role of Current and Past Dieting Behaviour and Cognitions

    This was rendered clearer, in terms of physical health outcomes, by Dr. Susan Byrne & Dr. Emma Dove, in 2009:

    ❝Weight loss was negatively associated with pre-treatment depression and frequency of treatment attendance, but not with dichotomous thinking. Females who regard their weight as unacceptably high and who think dichotomously may experience high levels of depression irrespective of their actual weight, while depression may be proportionate to the degree of obesity among those who do not think dichotomously❞

    Read more: Effect of dichotomous thinking on the association of depression with BMI and weight change among obese females

    Aragon’s advice based on all this: while yes, some foods are better than others, it’s more useful to see foods as being part of a spectrum, rather than being absolutist or “black and white” about it.

    Next: hit those perfect 10s… Imperfectly

    The next decade expanded on this research, as science is wont to do, and for this one, Aragon shines a spotlight on Dr. Alice Berg’s 2018 study with obese women averaging 69 years of age, in which…

    Flexible Eating Behavior Predicts Greater Weight Loss Following a Diet and Exercise Intervention in Older Women

    In other words (and in fact, to borrow Dr. Berg’s words from that paper),

    ❝encouraging a flexible approach to eating behavior and discouraging rigid adherence to a diet may lead to better intentional weight loss for overweight and obese older women❞

    You may be wondering: what did this add to the studies from the 90s?

    And the key here is: rather than being observational, this was interventional. In other words, rather than simply observing what happened to people who thought one way or another, this study took people who had a rigid, dichotomous approach to food, and gave them a 6-month behavioral intervention (in other words, support encouraging them to be more flexible and open in their approach to food), and found that this indeed improved matters for them.

    Which means, it’s not a matter of fate or predisposition, as it could have been back in the 90s, per “some people are just like that; who’s to say which factor causes which”. Instead, now we know that this is an approach that can be adopted, and it can be expected to work.

    Beyond weight loss

    Now, so far we’ve talked mostly about weight loss, and only touched on other health outcomes. This is because:

    • weight loss a very common goal for many
    • it’s easy to measure so there’s a lot of science for it

    Incidentally, if it’s a goal of yours, here’s what 10almonds had to say about that, along with two follow-up articles for other related goals:

    Spoiler: we agree with Aragon, and recommend a relaxed and flexible approach to all three of these things

    Aragon’s evidence-based approach to nutrition has found that this holds true for other aspects of healthy eating, too. For example…

    To count or not to count?

    It’s hard to do evidence-based anything without counting, and so Aragon talks a lot about this. Indeed, he does a lot of counting in scientific papers of his own, such as:

    How much protein can the body use in a single meal for muscle-building? Implications for daily protein distribution

    and

    The effect of protein timing on muscle strength and hypertrophy: a meta-analysis

    …as well as non-protein-related but diet-related topics such as:

    Does Timing Matter? A Narrative Review of Intermittent Fasting Variants and Their Effects on Bodyweight and Body Composition

    But! For the at-home health enthusiast, Aragon recommends that the answer to the question “to count or not to count?” is “both”:

    • Start off by indeed counting and tracking everything that is important to you (per whatever your current personal health intervention is, so it might be about calories, or grams of protein, or grams of carbs, or a certain fat balance, or something else entirely)
    • Switch to a more relaxed counting approach once you get used to the above. By now you probably know the macros for a lot of your common meals, snacks, etc, and can tally them in your head without worrying about weighing portions and knowing the exact figures.
    • Alternatively, count moderately standardized portions of relevant foods, such as “three servings of beans or legumes per day” or “no more than one portion of refined carbohydrates per day”
    • Eventually, let habit take the wheel. Assuming you have established good dietary habits, this will now do you just fine.

    This latter is the point whereby the advice (that Aragon also champions) of “allow yourself an unhealthy indulgence of 10–20% of your daily food”, as a budget of “discretionary calories”, eventually becomes redundant—because chances are, you’re no longer craving that donut, and at a certain point, eating foods far outside the range of healthiness you usually eat is not even something that you would feel inclined to do if offered.

    But until that kicks in, allow yourself that budget of whatever unhealthy thing you enjoy, and (this next part is important…) do enjoy it.

    Because it is no good whatsoever eating that cream-filled chocolate croissant and then feeling guilty about it; that’s the dichotomous thinking we had back in the 80s. Decide in advance you’re going to eat and enjoy it, then eat and enjoy it, then look back on it with a sense of “that was enjoyable” and move on.

    The flipside of this is that the importance of allowing oneself a “little treat” is that doing so actively helps ensure that the “little treat” remains “little”. Without giving oneself permission, then suddenly, “well, since I broke my diet, I might as well throw the whole thing out the window and try again on Monday”.

    On enjoying food fully, by the way:

    Mindful Eating: How To Get More Nutrition Out Of The Same Food

    Want to know more from Alan Aragon?

    Today we’ve been working heavily from this book of his; we haven’t reviewed it yet, but we do recommend checking it out:

    Flexible Dieting: A Science-Based, Reality-Tested Method for Achieving and Maintaining Your Optimal Physique, Performance & Health – by Alan Aragon

    Enjoy!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Yoga Nidra Made Easy – by Dr. Uma Dinsmore-Tuli and Nirlipta Tuli
  • Building & Maintaining Mobility

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Building & Maintaining Mobility!

    This is Juliet Starrett. She’s a CrossFit co-founder, and two-time white-water rafting world champion. Oh, and she won those after battling thyroid cancer. She’s now 50 years old, and still going strong, having put aside her career as a lawyer to focus on fitness. Specifically, mobility training.

    The Ready State

    Together with her husband Kelly, Starrett co-founded The Ready State, of which she’s CEO.

    It used to be called “Mobility WOD” (the “WOD” stands for “workout of the day”) but they changed their name as other companies took up the use of the word “mobility”, something the fitness world hadn’t previously focussed on much, and “WOD”, which was also hardly copyrightable.

    True to its origins, The Ready State continues to offer many resources for building and maintaining mobility.

    Why the focus on mobility?

    When was the last time you had to bench-press anything larger than a small child? Or squat more than your partner’s bodyweight? Or do a “farmer’s walk” with anything heavier than your groceries?

    For most of us, unless our lifestyles are quite extreme, we don’t need ridiculous strength (fun as that may be).

    You know what makes a huge difference to our quality of life though? Mobility.

    Have you ever felt that moment of panic when you reach for something on a high shelf and your shoulder or back twinges (been there!)? Or worse, you actually hurt yourself and the next thing you know, you need help putting your socks on (been there, too!)?

    And we say to ourselves “I’m not going to let that happen to me again”

    But how? How do we keep our mobility strong?

    First, know your weaknesses

    Starrett is a big fan of mobility tests to pinpoint areas that need more work.

    Most of her resources for this aren’t free, and we’re drawing heavily from her book here, so for your convenience, we’ll link to some third party sources for this:

    Next, eliminate those weaknesses

    Do mobility exercises in any weak areas, until they’re not weak:

    Want to train the full body in one session?

    Try out The Ready State’s 10-Minute Morning Mobility Routine

    Want to learn more?

    You might enjoy her book that we reviewed previously:

    Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

    You might also enjoy The Ready State App, available for iOS and for Android:

    The Ready State Virtual Mobility Coach

    Enjoy!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • I’ve been given opioids after surgery to take at home. What do I need to know?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Opioids are commonly prescribed when you’re discharged from hospital after surgery to help manage pain at home.

    These strong painkillers may have unwanted side effects or harms, such as constipation, drowsiness or the risk of dependence.

    However, there are steps you can take to minimise those harms and use opioids more safely as you recover from surgery.

    Flystock/Shutterstock

    Which types of opioids are most common?

    The most commonly prescribed opioids after surgery in Australia are oxycodone (brand names include Endone, OxyNorm) and tapentadol (Palexia).

    In fact, about half of new oxycodone prescriptions in Australia occur after a recent hospital visit.

    Most commonly, people will be given immediate-release opioids for their pain. These are quick-acting and are used to manage short-term pain.

    Because they work quickly, their dose can be easily adjusted to manage current pain levels. Your doctor will provide instructions on how to adjust the dosage based on your pain levels.

    Then there are slow-release opioids, which are specially formulated to slowly release the dose over about half to a full day. These may have “sustained-release”, “controlled-release” or “extended-release” on the box.

    Slow-release formulations are primarily used for chronic or long-term pain. The slow-release form means the medicine does not have to be taken as often. However, it takes longer to have an effect compared with immediate-release, so it is not commonly used after surgery.

    Controlling your pain after surgery is important. This allows you get up and start moving sooner, and recover faster. Moving around sooner after surgery prevents muscle wasting and harms associated with immobility, such as bed sores and blood clots.

    Everyone’s pain levels and needs for pain medicines are different. Pain levels also decrease as your surgical wound heals, so you may need to take less of your medicine as you recover.

    But there are also risks

    As mentioned above, side effects of opioids include constipation and feeling drowsy or nauseous. The drowsiness can also make you more likely to fall over.

    Opioids prescribed to manage pain at home after surgery are usually prescribed for short-term use.

    But up to one in ten Australians still take them up to four months after surgery. One study found people didn’t know how to safely stop taking opioids.

    Such long-term opioid use may lead to dependence and overdose. It can also reduce the medicine’s effectiveness. That’s because your body becomes used to the opioid and needs more of it to have the same effect.

    Dependency and side effects are also more common with slow-release opioids than immediate-release opioids. This is because people are usually on slow-release opioids for longer.

    Then there are concerns about “leftover” opioids. One study found 40% of participants were prescribed more than twice the amount they needed.

    This results in unused opioids at home, which can be dangerous to the person and their family. Storing leftover opioids at home increases the risk of taking too much, sharing with others inappropriately, and using without doctor supervision.

    Kitchen cupboard full of stockpiled medicine
    Don’t stockpile your leftover opioids in your medicine cupboard. Take them to your pharmacy for safe disposal. Archer Photo/Shutterstock

    How to mimimise the risks

    Before using opioids, speak to your doctor or pharmacist about using over-the-counter pain medicines such as paracetamol or anti-inflammatories such as ibuprofen (for example, Nurofen, Brufen) or diclofenac (for example, Voltaren, Fenac).

    These can be quite effective at controlling pain and will lessen your need for opioids. They can often be used instead of opioids, but in some cases a combination of both is needed.

    Other techniques to manage pain include physiotherapy, exercise, heat packs or ice packs. Speak to your doctor or pharmacist to discuss which techniques would benefit you the most.

    However, if you do need opioids, there are some ways to make sure you use them safely and effectively:

    • ask for immediate-release rather than slow-release opioids to lower your risk of side effects
    • do not drink alcohol or take sleeping tablets while on opioids. This can increase any drowsiness, and lead to reduced alertness and slower breathing
    • as you may be at higher risk of falls, remove trip hazards from your home and make sure you can safely get up off the sofa or bed and to the bathroom or kitchen
    • before starting opioids, have a plan in place with your doctor or pharmacist about how and when to stop taking them. Opioids after surgery are ideally taken at the lowest possible dose for the shortest length of time.
    Woman holding hot water bottle (pink cover) on belly
    A heat pack may help with pain relief, so you end up using fewer painkillers. New Africa/Shutterstock

    If you’re concerned about side effects

    If you are concerned about side effects while taking opioids, speak to your pharmacist or doctor. Side effects include:

    • constipation – your pharmacist will be able to give you lifestyle advice and recommend laxatives
    • drowsiness – do not drive or operate heavy machinery. If you’re trying to stay awake during the day, but keep falling asleep, your dose may be too high and you should contact your doctor
    • weakness and slowed breathing – this may be a sign of a more serious side effect such as respiratory depression which requires medical attention. Contact your doctor immediately.

    If you’re having trouble stopping opioids

    Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you’re having trouble stopping opioids. They can give you alternatives to manage the pain and provide advice on gradually lowering your dose.

    You may experience withdrawal effects, such as agitation, anxiety and insomnia, but your doctor and pharmacist can help you manage these.

    How about leftover opioids?

    After you have finished using opioids, take any leftovers to your local pharmacy to dispose of them safely, free of charge.

    Do not share opioids with others and keep them away from others in the house who do not need them, as opioids can cause unintended harms if not used under the supervision of a medical professional. This could include accidental ingestion by children.

    For more information, speak to your pharmacist or doctor. Choosing Wisely Australia also has free online information about managing pain and opioid medicines.

    Katelyn Jauregui, PhD Candidate and Clinical Pharmacist, School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney; Asad Patanwala, Professor, Sydney School of Pharmacy, University of Sydney; Jonathan Penm, Senior lecturer, School of Pharmacy, University of Sydney, and Shania Liu, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Thinner Leaner Stronger – by Michael Matthews

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    First, the elephant in the training room: this book does assume that you want to be thinner, leaner, and stronger. This is the companion book, written for women, to “Bigger, Stronger, Leaner”, which was written for men. Statistically, these assumptions are reasonable, even if the generalizations are imperfect. Also, this reviewer has a gripe with anything selling “thinner”. Leaner was already sufficient, and “stronger” is the key element here, so “thinner” is just marketing, and marketing something that’s often not unhealthy, to sell a book that’s actually full of good advice for building a healthy body.

    In other words: don’t judge a book by the cover, however eyeroll-worthy it may be.

    The book is broadly aimed at middle-aged readers, but boasts equal worth for young and old alike. If there’s something Matthews knows how to do well in his writing, it’s hedging his bets.

    As for what’s in the book: it’s diet and exercise advice, aimed at long-term implementation (i.e. not a crash course, but a lifestyle change), for maximum body composition change results while not doing anything silly (like many extreme short-term courses do) and not compromising other aspects of one’s health, while also not taking up an inordinate amount of time.

    The dietary advice is sensible, broadly consistent with what we’d advise here, and/but if you want to maximise your body composition change results, you’re going to need a pocket calculator (or be better than this writer is at mental arithmetic).

    The exercise advice is detailed, and a lot more specific than “lift things”; there are programs of specifically how many sets and reps and so forth, and when to increase the weights and when not to.

    A strength of this book is that it explains why all those numbers are what they are, instead of just expecting the reader to take on faith that the best for a given exercise is (for example) 3 sets of 8–10 reps of 70–75% of one’s single-rep max for that exercise. Because without the explanation, those numbers would seem very arbitrary indeed, and that wouldn’t help anyone stick with the program. And so on, for any advice he gives.

    The style is… A little flashy for this reader’s taste, a little salesy (and yes he does try to upsell to his personal coaching, but really, anything you need is in the book already), but when it comes down to it, all that gym-boy bravado doesn’t take away from the fact his advice is sound and helpful.

    Bottom line: if you would like your body to be the three things mentioned in the title, this book can certainly help you get there.

    Click here to check out Thinner Leaner Stronger, and become thinner, leaner, stronger!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: