Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Unlike the glossy pages of The Biggest Loser, Jillian Michaels’ book, Winning By Losing, is simple and down to earth. There are no color before and after photos or an unhealthy obsession with the contestants of The Biggest Loser. Instead, Jillian has focused on what she did to help her team lose as much weight as they did while they were on the show.

What’s Good About The Book:

She has designed her eating and exercise plan around the calories in – calories out philosophy, but she takes it a few levels further by adding information about zig-zagging your diet and addressing carbohydrate sensitivity.

She has great advice for people who might have a hard time following the program:

“One setback is one setback – it is not the end of the world, nor is it the end of your journey toward a better you.”

Instead of dedicating half her book to recipes, she dedicates about 10 pages to healthy recipes. I have found that books that don’t have anything important to say tend to fill their pages with recipes, but Jillian just gives you a few and moves right on to exercise.

She does dedicate much of her book to portraying proper form for the weight training that is required to lose the amount of weight that the contestants on the Biggest Loser lost. I’m all for that. I found a few variations of exercises that were new to me and I think this book is an excellent introduction to the concepts of weight training.

What’s Not So Good About The Book:

Jillian was VERY thorough about the diet and exercise needs of people who want to see the same dramatic results as the contestants on The Biggest Loser. That is great to me, but it might be a little daunting to a beginner. If you follow this program to the letter, you WILL lose weight. I’m just wondering if everyone could follow this program to the letter without someone to help them through the process.

Some of the concepts she introduces are pretty detailed. These concepts will keep you from falling into a weight loss plateau and keep you feeling satisfied while you are losing, but they might overload you at first.

Should I Buy This Book?

YES. There’s no question in my mind about this one. I got this book from the library, read it from cover to cover and decided that I needed to own it. It’s an excellent reference for weight training exercises and a intricate look into weight loss science at its best.