Well, we’re nearing the end of another week, readers and writers. Today was my last day working for MeowShare (unless they decide to reinstate the English Special Force Team). Needless to say, I’m bummed. They said it was just a trial run but when you spend so many weeks with the same people, you grow attached, and I’m sad that I may never work with them again. The money didn’t hurt, either.
Life goes on, right? Change is inevitable; you just have to keep moving forward. That’s why I’m here, bringing you another book review. This book is a guide for purposeful change, i.e. weight loss and improving your health. Today I will be reviewing Flipping Your Fat Loss Switch: Trigger Your Paleolithic Genes to Burn Fat by John Griffin.
It’s a common story in the modern world: you decide to change your ways and lose that extra body fat, so you start to exercise and eat healthier. You’ve probably chosen moderate exercise like going for walks, jogging, yoga, and so on. After all, isn’t that what the doctors recommend? At first things seem to go well, you start to shed some pounds and maybe feel a little better. Then, after a few weeks of your new routine, you plateau. You try and raise your time exercising or cut back more calories, but you can’t seem to get that weight loss started again. You might have even gained a couple pounds. Eventually, you give up on the pursuit altogether and return to your old ways.
Image retrieved from Amazon
John Griffin knows this story from personal experience. It happened to him to a T, but then he took a turn many others do not: he ditched the moderate exercise for high-intensity interval training. He not only lost weight, but that weight loss was mostly body fat, he gained muscle, his memory improved, and more! But why? Why did the high-intensity interval training succeed where moderate exercise and dieting failed? Will it work for others trying to lose weight, too?
These are the very questions that Griffin addresses in Flipping Your Fat Loss Switch, and more. The answers may be more obvious than you’d think. All you have to do is go back in time to the days of our Paleolithic ancestors and how humans became hardwired to survive among predators.
I’m going to get this out of the way right now: I hate exercise. I hate it with a passion. The only forms of exercise I’ve found any joy in have been walking, riding the stationary bike, yoga, and playing with my dogs. This avoidance of exercise, along with a poor diet and unfortunate hormonal imbalances, has led to me gaining a lot of weight. That’s why I decided to give Griffin’s work a look, and he may have convinced me to try high-intensity interval training despite my hatred of exercise.
Griffin presents his arguments and advice in a very logical, well-organized, and well-written manner. He backs all of his assertions with reliable resources, namely a variety of articles in a variety of scientific journals. My only problem with this fact is that the explanation of why high-intensity interval training works and why moderate exercise fails dragged on. This issue was especially tedious because it was mostly in the beginning of the book. I appreciate Griffin’s depth of research, but a little more concision or spreading the information throughout the book would have been more palatable.
Like most authors of self-help books, Griffin is a professional in this field (certified personal trainer and health coach). Better yet, he knows his method works from personal experience. Frankly, if he hadn’t gained my trust through his personal anecdote of weight loss, which contained many moments that I recognize from my struggles, I may not have continued to read the facts behind his advice.
Griffin certainly knows how to pique a reader’s interest when it comes to weight loss, I’ll give him that. He emphasizes the benefits beyond the weight loss and the short amount of time high-intensity interval training takes, both of which are very important in the modern world. He also anticipated all of my questions and needs. He answered everything from why moderate exercise doesn’t cause weight loss to step-by-step instructions for starting a high-intensity interval training program when you’ve been sedentary for a long time. (I definitely need that tip!)
While his writing is excellent overall and his content compelling, I did notice proofreading errors off-and-on. Namely, I noticed commas where they shouldn’t be and commas missing from where they should be. However, the more annoying errors were the use of “highintensity” and “lowintensity” in place of “high-intensity” and “low-intensity”. Of course, I was reading the book on Kindle and it’s very possible that it was just a formatting error due to my screen size.
Overall, I really recommend this book for people who are looking to lose weight. I know that “high-intensity exercise” may sound like too much work compared to moderate exercise, but Griffin has convinced me that really isn’t. While it requires more work during the brief session, high-intensity interval training takes less time and produces more results.
As a book, Flipping Your Fat Loss Switch is engaging, fascinating, and convincing. I think that intellectuals will want to read it just to see another side of the weight loss debate. Still, we won’t know for sure if Griffin is right until we give his method a try for ourselves. As Griffin says, just remember to consult your doctor when making any health-related changes. And for the love of God, don’t forget to warm up first! (And if you pursue this training, please leave a comment below letting us know how it’s going!)
You can get Flipping Your Fat Loss Switch as an e-book or in paperback on Amazon. To learn more about John Griffin and get more tips on health and exercise, be sure to check out his website.
Do you know of any books I should read? Want your work reviewed on this blog? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com or message me on Fiverr and we can arrange something.
Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011