US Army Total Fitness Program

This is 'a second look' at a pretty good book, one year later.First a few words about the Diet... The LifeStyle Diet provides a safe and sane approach to dieting. They start with a daily calorie cap of 1560 cal/day for men, and 1270 cal/day for women. Within this daily cap, they design 3 very-well-balanced meals to give you about 30% calories at breakfast, 30% at lunch, and 40% at dinner. For the men, this breaks out to 455, 555, and 550, and for the ladies 380, 485, and 405. A little math further yields that this diet is about 43% Calories from Carbs, 48% calories from Protein, and 9-10% calories from Fat. So you could characterize this diet as a low-fat diet, but otherwise nicely balanced between Protein and Carb calories, with a bit more coming from the Protein food. This gives you enough protein to maintain your muscle tissue while working out, and enough carbs to keep you going through a busy day, and enough fat to maintain your skin and other organs.They say in the book that if you diet w/o exercise you will lose about 1LB per week. And if you also workout 3 times a week, you should lose about 1.5LB per week. So this plan provides a safe rate of reduction that is not harmful to your body.Last year, using this diet, I lost about 25 LBS in about 3 1/2 months using diet and exercise. This year, I have lost 10 LBS in about 8 weeks using mostly just the diet. I have felt fine while on this diet, and have experienced no unfavorable side effects. I credit this to the fact that the meals are all very well balanced, and well proportioned w/respect to each other. So your body is still getting a wide range of nutrients from all the food groups.The book also provides a 8 week shapeup plan that provides daily workout plans that include A) Stretches, B) Cardio workouts, C) Upper Body workouts, D) Ab workouts, E) Warmups and Cooldowns, and F) an extended Stetch workout called a Flexibility workout. By following the workout patterns they give you, but adapting it to your own level, you can get a good workout for the whole body.My experience with the 8 week workout plan is that if you are out of shape, you will find the workout plan to be a real challenge. The exercises call for significant amounts of body strength, and will lead you to recall those long-forgotten hours in high-school gymnasium. The exercises ? Pushups w/feet on chair Regular Pushups Pushups while sitting on floor between 2 chairs Dips Chinupsthings like that...There is one page that gives hints about working with weights, but the book really excludes weight-lifting, concentrating instead on workouts that use only your own body weight and require little else.I'm prone to believe that if one sticks with the diet, and also does the 8 week workout plan, and does both *without skipping* and *without cheating*.. then he will certainly improve his fitness.This book is available from book resellers around the country, and in my opinion and experience, is definitely worth the money if you can

The Lifestyle Diet Plan described in this book is worth the price of the book, even if you skip the exercises. The Lifestyle Diet plan lets you eat a wide variety of good nutritious foods using a practical, common sense approach. I've been following it for a while now, am losing weight, feel great, and have plenty of energy to work and workout. You dont have to count calories, just follow their basic meal plan and count helpings, and watch the size of the helpings. Its very flexible and adaptable. HATS OFF to the Hales for this. There is also a 8 week shape up plan that slowly but surely ramps you up from walking to walking-jogging and then to jogging, and it also incldues stretching, abs, and upper body. There are a number of *good* Stretching Exercises laid out with complete instructions and black and white pictures. They have a 10-stretch Flexibility workout shown as well, but all the stretches are good. They have a KILLER Abdominal workout for those who already have some abdominal strength & want more pain and punishment. They also have a KILLER Upper Body workout for the men for those who already have considerable Upper Body Strength. And they have a good chapter for Women's Exercises, which can also be used by men who are not yet strong enough to do the Men's exercises. There are also a number of good plain no-nonsense charts and graphs that display some good information. And there's a good table that shows you how to start Walking. The book does a good job of laying out the basics of fitness : flexibility, cardio/aerobics, muscular fitness, and it lays out some important basic guidelines that a beginner should know. Also included are the Army's 1985-era physical fitness standards for pushups, situps, the 2-Mile run, etc, in case you want to measure yourself against the standards of the Army in that day, and so get a more objective measurement of your own fitness level. On the minus side, there are 2 black and white photos that don't match the exercise being described. So you have to choose whether to follow t he exercise being shown in the photo, or the one that's described in the text. On the plus side, everything is explained is good enough detail to help just about anyone understand the material, and apply it if they are serious about getting back into shape. The exercises are great - that is, they do not require weights or machines, just a pullup bar, some chairs, and regular dumbells. Yet they WILL give you a workout. You can do them just about anywhere, on the road, or at home. The Men's exercises are tough, and if your weak in upper body or abs, you'll want to build up your strength with other exercises before really laying into them. There's a lot of practical information here including the Lifestyle Diet, a chapter on Stretching, a chapter on aerobics, a chapter on muscle-toning/building, 3 chapters on eating right, a couple weeks worth of sample diet menus, a chapter on recipes, the