Anyone Heard of Body for Life?

Training Bodybuilding
1

Anyone know anyone or heard of anyone doing this? My gf and her family are starting next week and im pretty sceptical after seeing the before and after pictures, they seem to be like all other cult ‘fit programs’ where the before picture you can see them as being with a little muscle and pale, then the next theyre just shredded and oiled and tanned up…

any takers?

(seems like a good program if it did work,one of the pics is in ‘Seven Keys to a Successful Body Transformation’ by Chris Shugart posted recently)

website is Performance Nutrition Products & Protein Supplements | EAS

2

I did it 5 years ago and it’ll work since it’s pretty straight-forward. I got down to 200lbs and I believe it was about 8% BF. It was pretty tough though.
It tells you to lift progressively, do your aerobic work in a HIIT style and to eat smaller meals through the day with a focus on quality protein.

I think if you are a bigger, stronger guy already, then be careful not to overtrain with the cardio part, maybe do only 2 of those High-Point sessions each week. On the other maybe do the old bodybuilder stand-by of walking at an incline on the treadmill for 45 minutes.

People may post saying its a program for beginners…but I think too many people think they are more advanced than they really are.

3

It’s how I got started training and eating right. It’s a great program, provided you look at it as 12 weeks to teach you how to not be a typical slovenly American. A lot of people look at it as a 12 week “quick fix” and go back to eating crap and not exercising, and end up back where they started.

They should also recognize they don’t have to buy EAS supplements to succeed on BFL.

4

pushmepullme - how were your results?
yeah its sort of lifestyle program if you will…

one of the things i didnt get was how they dont look at calorie in/out, because myself being someone who used to struggle to gain weight, not atm tho, i find it hard to think that u cant take it into consideration especially on a weight loss/bulk program

5

Calories in/calories out is a generally poor explanation of why people gain or lose weight (read Gary Taubes’s “Good Calories, Bad Calories” for a thorough debunking of the thermodynamic concept of weight loss), but is also probably excessive micromanagement for beginners, who stand to gain more simply by making more intelligent choices about what they eat than how much they eat.

6

I agree with Sneaky weasel that calories in/out can be a lot of a beginner to handle. A big part of the program is just teaching you how to treat your body right and get away from the idea that Snackwells and Slimfast are a good idea.

My results were great. I lost somewhere around 20 lbs. I could dig up my before and after pictures, but yeah.

No friggin’ way. :slight_smile:

7

Honestly, I think it’s not a half bad program for the general American looking to change their lifestyle and get into shape. I think it’s quite extraordinary what Bill Phillips was able to accomplish with this (despite all the negative perceptions of his business etiquette etc…). The program is basic, and straightforward. The training program won’t work forever, but it’s a solid program to use for a time being.

A few years in, I attempted to follow it. I literally made it a week, and gave up. The reason is that I was able to workout with so much intensity by this point in my training career, that doing 6 sets per bodypart, and having to do 30 or 36 sets for my upper body was an absurd amount of volume. If your gf/family is starting out, and puts in the proper effort, this will work for them.

One word of caution - if you don’t prescribe strictly to the 1 min break between sets, this workout will take an hour and a half. that’s excessive. He prescribes 46 min for a session of weights, but that is almost unrealistic, even if you try to stick to the rest reccomendations as close as possible.

The cardio is a great plan. HIIT is effective.

But the key is the eating. I know we’re all aware of this, but even an INCREDIBLE program becomes negligible with poor eating. Literally, if they stick to 6 meals/day, and eat a “portion” (so arbitrary) of carbs/protein with each meal, they will lose weight and gain muscle.

8

cheers guys

9

I’ve been told by a lot of people they find it has too much cardio in the program.

10

[quote]BBoor82 wrote:
Honestly, I think it’s not a half bad program for the general American looking to change their lifestyle and get into shape. I think it’s quite extraordinary what Bill Phillips was able to accomplish with this (despite all the negative perceptions of his business etiquette etc…). The program is basic, and straightforward. The training program won’t work forever, but it’s a solid program to use for a time being.

A few years in, I attempted to follow it. I literally made it a week, and gave up. The reason is that I was able to workout with so much intensity by this point in my training career, that doing 6 sets per bodypart, and having to do 30 or 36 sets for my upper body was an absurd amount of volume. If your gf/family is starting out, and puts in the proper effort, this will work for them.

One word of caution - if you don’t prescribe strictly to the 1 min break between sets, this workout will take an hour and a half. that’s excessive. He prescribes 46 min for a session of weights, but that is almost unrealistic, even if you try to stick to the rest reccomendations as close as possible.

The cardio is a great plan. HIIT is effective.

But the key is the eating. I know we’re all aware of this, but even an INCREDIBLE program becomes negligible with poor eating. Literally, if they stick to 6 meals/day, and eat a “portion” (so arbitrary) of carbs/protein with each meal, they will lose weight and gain muscle.

[/quote]

QFT. I started seriously lifting with the BFL program freshman year of college. My mom actually introduced the program to me, funny enough, after following the interval program for cardio. It’s much more difficult cardio-wise than a simple high/low interval program. The weights are ramped up so you need to experiment with what you’re comfortable with…sorta a learn as you go in the weight room. Definitely keep a log. I would never be able to raise the weight for every set each workout so I would only raise my heaviest set first, then work my way down the chain in successive workouts.

You’ll definitely get stronger on the program and burn fat. I agree nutrition makes up 80-90% of the results on BFL and the instructions are seriously lacking in the book…he’ll give an idea of a meal, but never go into the calorie amounts. He advocates clean, natural foods, though so it’s an intelligent way to clean up a bad diet (for the average Joe America).