HIIT your limit. Hight Intensity Interval Training for fat loss, cardio, and full body health, by Dr. Len Kravitz

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Len Kravitz

I received a copy of the book to review

Maybe you don’t know this about me, but I worked in a gym as a fitness instructor for almost nine years. Back then, in my classes, I never thought about working smarter, but harder: I was basically focused on getting my clients the sweatiest they could be within an hour of aerobics, steps, cycling, etc. That’s what they demanded, too, feeling their time was worthy by achieving that sweaty goal. Only some guys at the weight-lifting room would try different techniques to improve their muscle gain by controlling their sessions at the gym and their food intake to crazy-to-me levels.

But it turns out if you want certain results, you have to educate yourself and work smarter, right?

Back then I was working out for 20 hours per week. The time I was not exercising, I would eat insane amounts of every food available, including ice-cream, pastries and junk food. I was thin, lean, as hard as a rock. And perpetually exhausted.

That should have told me something, but there are things you can only acknowledge in retrospect. When I left that job, I couldn’t dedicate all that time to exercise anymore, so I did (and still do) what’s recommended -three to five sessions a week- while trying to eat less even though I was −and I am– hungry all the time (spoiler alert: when you stop exercising you are as hungry as before; your stomach is an independent entity altogether).

And, while all the blood and cardiovascular tests show I am an extremely healthy person, I am overweight. And it’s not that I say so; the doctor has told me I should lose some weight. But I can’t. And it’s kind of frustrating when you swim three times per week, run two times per week, go everywhere by foot, eat less than your stomach would like to… and still you don’t look good. The only thing that comes to mind is “maybe I should eat even less or run for 15 minutes more”, coming back to what I said about focusing on quantity instead of quality.

A few months ago, YouTube “recommended” me a HIIT (High Intensity Intervals Training) video. I tried it out and was amazed: I could only do half of it and I felt that my body couldn’t have been worked more intensely in those 20 minutes. That was when the book I am reviewing today (yes, all this was only the prelude of a book review) came into the picture to help me understand this kind of training better and schedule my own routines.

In my opinion, this -and a park- is all the equipment you’ll ever need to get fit

The first half of the books is dedicated to biology and physiology and includes data and research to better understand how the body works during and after exercise, focusing on HIIT in particular and what the benefits of this training are. For those of you who have already tried it, you would have noticed that you can do much more in less time, but it also helps improve cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and cardiorespiratory fitness faster than other kinds of training.

There is a section dedicated to help you stick with your exercise program, for which I really recommend you read James Clear’s Atomic habits in order to better approach a change in your daily routines either to include exercise or any other new habit. There are also frequently asked questions that I found very informative –“Can I reduce the number of fat cells in my body? No.” I’m still crying over this–. And, at the end of the book, there is advice on how to cut calories with small changes – I can’t apply the majority of them, since I hardly ever eat out, I don’t drink sodas or alcohol, nor do I have sugar with my coffee, etc.

Finally, we have the HIIT workouts. I like that the author recommends reducing your normal workouts and add HIIT ones instead of increasing the total amount of weekly exercise, which was what I had in mind when I started reading the book, and had an exponential increase in anxiety because you don’t really know if you will ever find the time to do it all.

Regarding the workouts themselves, I found them very beginner-like, thought to be done only with a certain exercise mode instead of creating different exercises for every interval, which is what I have been trying lately and found more enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong – I truly believe they are good workouts, but doing running work and recovery intervals is what I have always called “Interval Training”, but not “High Intensity Interval Training”. I know you can increase the intensity, of course, but I guess I was expecting something more like this.

I think the book is primarily targeted towards people who hasn’t developed a steady habit of exercising, so they can start by including these short but effective workouts in their weekly routines and get fast results. For the rest, the book will make you aware of those intervals you only did from time to time and how it is better to focus more often on them without increasing the total amount of time devoted to exercise, in order to achieve your aimed weight and fitness level.

In any case, it is a matter of adapting your routines. I will sure change more of my steady-state running, swimming and walking workouts to intervals, and I will also keep an eye on including different high intensity exercises a couple of days per week.

And now it’s time to start exercising!

HIIT your limit. High Intensity Interval Training for fat loss, cardio, and full body health
Dr. Len Kravitz
Apollo Publishers
216 pages

Book on Goodreads
Book on Amazon

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Food: A love story, by Jim Gaffigan

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Jim Gaffigan

I saw this title and thought to myself, ‘oh, I also have a love story with food, so I’m sure this is my book’. Besides, I must confess that, to me, one of the most difficult parts of studying English is the vocabulary around food – I get so overwhelmed with names of fruits, vegetables, spices, etc., that I can’t remember a single word. I don’t even know what they are in Spanish, so you get the idea.

So I started this book with… hunger.

The first thing I want you to know is that my knowledge regarding food has widened enormously, and I want to share a glimpse of my recently acquired vocabulary:

• Frappuccino
• Dunkin’ Donuts

By now you should be bedazzled by my wisdom, but wait, because this doesn’t finish here.

I think Jim Gaffigan wanted to talk about food in North America, and hey, I love to learn about other cultures (as if Hollywood movies and TV series, which is all we watch here, weren’t enough). And I learned, people: this author really knows what he is talking about, because he has eaten it all and loves to explain all the details to whoever is listening.

Among the ton of new information about the North American food culture and traditions, I found remarkable the fact that you have invented a laxative that has to be microwaved before its oral intake! (I’m talking about “Hot Pockets”, of course). It’s amazing, really; here we only have pills for that (so boring).

The book also provides practical advice and recipes: for example, Gaffigan explains how to cook a precooked hot dog in the microwave! I wonder why no one thought of this before.

But the crucial moment of the book came when I realized I’m adopted: I agree with the author in most of the issues discussed – salads are good only when you add things that make it stop being a salad; shellfish are sea bugs and, therefore, they are not supposed to be human food; you can improve everything by adding bacon and/or cheese to the dish; and, most important, I find cooking stressful… I mean, I’m sure I was born in the States! I’m probably a distant cousin of the author; every word of the book was already written in my genes!

Summarizing, this book was the ultimate essay about food.

Talking seriously, it was really funny 😀 It’s full of food – I think he talks about every thing that you can eat, even vegetables!!! – and jokes, and I had a great time reading it. I didn’t know the author, who apparently is a popular comedian with his own TV show, so you can discard the book if you have watched him and don’t like his humour, but if you do, just grab the book and become a food expert, like I am now.

PS: In case you didn’t know, I live in a small Spanish town where there aren’t any Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, Taco Bell or Wendy’s. We have only two McDonald’s and one Burger King, and our first KFC opened like 3 months ago and it’s so far in the outskirts of town that I’ve been too lazy to go.

I guess that we can be considered lucky for not being experts in fast food in the place where I live, right?

What are you hungry for? by Deepak Chopra

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Deepak Chopra

To be honest, I had always wanted to read something by this author, but I wasn’t interested in his books about success, which was the only ones I knew, until I saw this one. I got it via Blogging for books, being this the first time I request a book from this web.

The thing is – I’m not alone in the world 😀 I wanted to know why I eat like a horse when I’m in the exams period, and why I can be comfortably reading for hours without thinking about food in the relaxing weekends after the exams.

Chopra says we are naturally programmed to seek comfort, so when we have a gap to fill we try with the most available and easy one: our stomachs. What he proposes is a way to act in a different way, being aware of our decisions regarding food in this case, without forgetting the rest of your unhealthy habits. This is not about dieting, on the contrary, the author explains throughout the book why dieters never get results on the long run.

As you may know, Chopra is fond of Ayurvedic medicine, so he explains his point of view through this discipline: in the book he talks about the six flavours you have to eat in every meal to satisfy your hunger; about the best foods, mainly vegetables (this is nothing new, though) to fit your needs, and the best habits when it comes to the table, which are simple things like making an effort to think about what you are doing – eating – and what the food you are about to nourish your body with is. Besides, I think this book is also an introduction to a new way of life, I mean, we read about nourishment, not eating, about being aware of our choices and feeling good about ourselves.

Regardless of this, let’s say, spiritual approach, Chopra also explains the scientific reasons why he is telling you all those things. He is an endocrinologist, after all, so I also liked to read about the hormones in control of our appetite and the rest of body functions, as well as our brain function when food is involved. That’s why I think that this book will satisfy the scientific-minded readers as well as the ones who want to know about other exotic ways of life like Ayurvedic medicine.

In my opinion, the book explains perfectly well all the emotions we experience with food in times when you don’t eat just for pleasure, but for stress, and I found that the solutions Chopra claims will work are the same ones I have read in other books about similar matters, like The willpower instinct, by Kelly McGonigal (my review): both, scientific and more spiritual explanations, say that you have to practice self-awareness and what I call self-kindness if you want to change any habit. McGonigal says you will change your bad habits and live healthily and Chopra says you will also experience joy and lightness of soul, but I think they are talking about the same thing.

I’m sure What are you hungry for? is a book I’ll read again and recommend often.

PS. This is not a recipe book, so there are only a few recipes based on Ayurveda at the end of the book. However, the internet is filled with recipes which follow this discipline. I still haven’t tried any of them, but I made a start getting used to drink a ginger beverage with 2-3 of slices of ginger in boiling water with also a slice of lemon. It doesn’t taste bad and it’s supposed to suppress hunger if you drink it before meal times.