Body for Life: 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength

The three-times-a-week weightlifting program in Body for Life is deceptively simple. If you've spent any time in the gym, you've already done all the exercises. But Phillips includes a couple of high-intensity sets at the end of each exercise that should compound the training effect on each muscle group. Same goes for the cardiovascular exercise he recommends: just 20 minutes, three times a week. But those 20 minutes are spent jacking the intensity up and down, accomplishing more in less time.

Phillips arranges all this into a 12-week program, along with nutritional and motivational tips. Be warned that the nutritional advice gets a little spacey. For example, he puts "carbohydrates" and "vegetables" into separate categories, and recommends three daily doses of a nutritional supplement called Myoplex, which his company manufactures. (Fortunately, he gives tips on how to make each dose taste different, such as by adding drops of peppermint extract.) Despite this strangeness, Body for Life still motivates because so many others have achieved astounding results in similar 12-week windows, and the pictures and testimonials are here as evidence. --Lou Schuler

Spotlight Reviews
Good Ideas--Relatively Easy to Implement (2008-12-01)
Customer Review : 4
The author manages to simplify exercise and nutrition into a formula that can be incorporated into a busy life. His message to the reader is inspiring, and challenges him/her to improve themselves in basic, yet essential ways. I highly recommend it.

Down to earth (2008-11-16)
Customer Review : 5
I love his book. He is very down to earth and explains things clearly and simply (with a sense of humor). The plan is very simple and easy to follow, that's why it works. He tells you things like eat 6 meals a day. Each meal should have a protein and a good carb portion. That's it! We choose how we want to use those portions. With eating 6 times a day, I really am not hungry. Also, since we get a day off a week to eat whatever we want, it helps curve the cravings during the week. The other day at work, someone brought a beautiful birthday cake. It was actually easy for me to say no, because I knew that my day off was coming up in three days. So, I don't feel like I am saying "no", it is more like a "not right now". I've been on his plan for a month and I am starting to see changes. I now have definition lines on my arms, which I have NEVER had in my whole entire life! Also, the pride I am getting from sticking to the plan is hard to describe.

Buy this book. It is the first step toward a positive, healthy future.



This has been my life changer! (2008-11-13)
Customer Review : 5
My daughter's physician wrote an article on weight loss and recommended this book and program. Having tried every diet known to man, why not try one more!? Well, FOR ME this has truly been life changing. The food plan is easy to follow and you DON'T have to use the supplements. Since I eat six times a day, hunger is never an issue. The exercise is actually fun. I've never done actual weight training before and even for a 51 year old grandmother, it works and is enjoyable. As already mentioned, the program is based on 12 week challenges. I was going to wait until the end of my first challenge to write a review, but my results are already so great, I wanted to give my two cents worth NOW. I am in my 8th week of the challenge and I have already lost 23 pounds. My only problem is having to buy more clothes when I know that they, too, will be too large within a few weeks.

I had almost given up on finding something that would "work" for me. Body For Life came to me at the perfect time and I plan on continuing this way of life from now on. And this is the first time I've ever felt like I could do that.

The companion book, Eating for Life, has been another huge help with the program. It has great recipes and meal plans to make this much easier to implement into your lifestyle. I HIGHLY recommend both books.

I'll be forever grateful to my daughter's physician for recommending this to me. Without hesitation, I recommend it to anyone who wants to find a healthy way to live.

Need to Change your Life, read this book!!! (2008-10-28)
Customer Review : 4
This book breaks down how to get fit, not just lose weight but really get your mind and body working together. It is simple and once you read it you will wonder why there is so much fuss around losing weight and getting fit. It is written in easy to read language and gives you points of reference all the way through. A great resource in your fitness journey.

Good,basic,introductory, beginner's workout plan...motivating read (2008-09-29)
Customer Review : 4
The best things about this book are that it is written in a highly motivating way, and it gives a good, basic, introductory overview of standard,conventional, strength-training exercises. And that can certainly be of great value to people who are absolute beginners in weight-lifting and know nothing about the subject.
What this workout plan will not enable you to achieve is "maximum results in minimum time". And since your body, your health and your time are probably your three greatest assets in life, isn't that what most people want in an ideal workout plan? And the reason that this program does not deliver in this regard is simply because the book never defines "intensity" adequately to begin with. Having the "right" definition for intensity (i.e. one that works both in theory and can be readily applied) is vital for obtaining "maximum results in minimum time" for two reasons:
1) The secret to building muscle lies in subjecting your muscles to a higher level of intensity than what they are currently accustomed to; then your muscles grow bigger and stronger to adapt to that higher level of intensity.
2) Intensity is inversely proportional to duration. The higher the intensity of an exercise, the shorter the exercise has to be in terms of time duration, simply becuse you'll tire faster.
Thus it turns out that the "most effective" way to build muscle is actually the "least time-consuming" way, IF you know the secrets to maximizing the intensity of any given exercises that you do. And for that, you need that right definition for intensity (which this book doesn't have), because without that definition for intensity, you won't know which strategies work best to achieve maximum intensity for any exercise that you do. But then no conventional, workout plan has ever defined intensity adequately, which explains why they all fail to deliver when it comes to enabling one to obtain maximum results in minimum time. Thus, it's no surprise that Sylvester Stallone (in his book "Sly Moves")disappointedy states that it took him at least six years before he finally got his "after body", when using a plan like the one in Body For Life.
The best published book that I currently know of for obtaining maximum intensity (and thus "maximum results in minimum time") is John Little's book "Max Contraction Training".
In sum, I gave this book 4 stars, simply because I think it gives a good, basic, introductory, overview of conventional weight-lifting exercises for beginners, and it is highly motivating to read. The dietary advice might be revelatory to junk food addicts who don't even know what healthy food is, but for others, it's nothing enlightening, and even outdated at this point.
I should also mention that you can get good results from this workout plan if you've never lifted a weight in your life, since in that case, almost ANYTHING that you do will be more intense than what you were previously doing, which was nothing. But even if you're a beginner to weight-lifting, you still won't get maximum results in minimum time from this plan, for the reasons explained above. Additionally, this book leaves out a lot of important motions that need to be done to develop the muscle fibers that come into play only for those particular motions. So as a result, you will never fully develop your biceps, or your triceps, or your glutes, or your pectoral muscles, or your hamstrings, or your qudriceps, etc., with a plan like this.