Healthy Tips

The author is a civil engineer and bodybuilder yet claims to be an expert on nutrition, health, and fitness based on his personal accomplishment as a bodybuilder. He does not consult any scientific reference, let alone educating himself about common social, psychological, or physiological issues that interplay in health and fitness.

His secrets for success in bodybuilding were mainly due to eating less and exercising more. That he explains rightfully as inducing “calorie-deficit” in order to rid off excess fat. Yet, he believes that with such individual personal circumstances he could master the whole knowledge of nutrition and health applicable to diverse and wide human population. For example, he argues that there are two main reasons that cause people to fail in maintaining healthy and fit living and describes them as (1) map or knowledge of what to do and (2) fuel or motivation to keep doing it. That is very simplistic approach to understating why people end up the way they are. Socioeconomic factors play greater role in the final outcome of engaging in fitness. Moreover, when people start exercising late in life, change is exceedingly difficult with or without motivation or knowledge.

By relying solely on his shallow understanding of nutrition, the author erred on describing the macronutrients and their caloric meaning. For example, he classifies carbohydrates as a separate category from fruits, vegetables, and deserts, which sound like carbohydrates aren’t chemical ingredients of food but rather their generic names. He also makes the common mistake that a single gram of alcohol contains about seven calories, on Page 92. Moreover, he claims that alcohol hardens your arteries without citing any authoritative reference.

His poor knowledge in anatomy is demonstrated on Page 124, where he advocates that the Sit-ups and the Good Mornings should be outlawed because the former trains the iliopsoas while the latter stresses the low back. As if the iliopsoas muscle is not vital to healthy spine or stressing the low back differs from stressing other joints for the sake of strengthening them. From his workout chapter, you could easily see his sole emphasis on the upper body, using machines, and isolation exercises. He does not recognize the existence of “power clean” or coordinated lifting. All his workout routines are imitation of many books on weight lifting that are mainly geared for profit with minimal effort on the author’s part. His statement that bending the legs in the sit-ups converts them into crunches shows his inaptitude in understanding muscular function. His understanding of fitness as massive musculature has caused him a hunched upper back that many bodybuilder experience due to building excessive and isolated muscles without checking their functional balance in the interim of building up.

The flawed data in the inspiration chapter are apparent in the very low body fat index in chubby males. Some falls in the range of 6% to 12% for apparently not so skinny folks while a skeleton-like man in his photos has an 18% body fat index. It sounds like the author believes that body fat index is the ultimate index for assessing fitness. These inaccuracies in presenting data add to the general impression of a sloppy author. Also, starting each chapter with his own photo is another paranoid fix. Had the author strived to educate himself on the physiology and anatomy of exercise, he might have succeeded on transforming his personal success in bodybuilding into a wider scope of educating others with more humble attitude other than claiming to transform the whole state of Texas into a less-fat state.

Mohamed F. El-Hewie

Author of

Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training

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I was very pleased with the book. Great reading and information. I would definitely recommend this book.
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