Everyone does it, why not Dr. Connelly. My second thought was, "I'm going to get a ton of questions from clients who read it, so I better see what he wrote." I bought the book, read it, took notes, and I'm writing the review to give you some insight.

I would much rather give a review on the last movie I saw. If I can give my opinion, there's less risk attached, but to review a peer's work, analyze it, and critique it innately adds a lot of responsibility. The task that I perceive is to give you the highlights, commentary on unique points, and a recommendation on whether or not I feel the book will be valuable to you. This book actually makes all of that easy. It does have some unique points, some controversy, and I thought it was well written.

I'll tell you up front that I like the book overall and recommend it. However, I'm tiring very rapidly of every new weight loss book offering the same marketing differential of being an "anti-diet" book. According to all of the latest "diet gurus," they individually have the magic plan that allows you to eat all you want, not diet, and look like a cover model. Dr. Connelly, in my opinion, immediately stoops to this level with headline comments like, "Throw out your scale," and "Don't count calories," and "Get off that treadmill!"

Before getting into the meat of the actual program he describes, I have to wade through the introductory material because that's where he sets up his philosophies that dictate his methods. He makes the comment that the scale is a poor measurement of progress and he advises his clients never to use one. For all of the people who have been frustrated by not seeing the scale move day after day, this is a glorious moment as they toss the scale in the dumpster. But guess why it's frustrating? Because they weren't losing weight! Body weight is an objective measurement. I understand Dr. Connelly's intent of making people realize that overall body weight doesn't tell the whole story of body fat, lean body mass, and overall health, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water. If I've been working out and my lean body mass is relatively stable, then body weight is a very accurate measurement of your progress. If I lose ten pounds while dieting correctly and working out, it's probably over 95% body fat that I've lost and the reverse would be true.

Another attempt at the same hysteria is his "don't count calories" comment. Again, in an attempt to educate readers that calories are only part of the story, the baby goes down the drain. Yes, protein, carbs, fat, and other sub-factors are incredibly important, but if you eat one calorie more than your body needs, you'll be on your way to gaining body fat. Some people can just "eat large amounts of high quality food," exercise, and never track what they eat and lose weight. But if this were true for everyone, then we wouldn't exactly need his book, would we? Since 1980, obesity has risen in America in catastrophic proportion, but so has our knowledge of the "right way to eat." It has always been my contention that people need to be educated in some detail about nutrition and understand quantity as well as quality in relation to themselves as individuals. I disagree with the entire philosophy of not tracking nutrition if it's a goal of yours to lose weight. I set clients up on very specific programs and they achieve very specific and predictable results. These are the people that have read all the books that say, "don't count calories." Again, don't misinterpret my point with the broader issue of understanding that there is more to health and weight loss than counting calories. The real difference is delivery. In a mass-market book you can't coach people individually so you have to plug in comments like this to substitute for your individual guidance. Ironically, in his support material, Dr. Connelly contradicts himself by providing a chart of exactly how many grams of protein and carbohydrates he thinks you should eat according to your body weight. So much for not counting calories.

Though I disagree with the semantics of Connelly's gunning down of the calorie controversy, he does make a statement that actually makes me think he really has gone a little too far. I emphasize that my disagreement is semantics because I think Dr. Connelly is just trying to get people to realize that the nutrients that make up the total amount of calories are more important than overall calories. But, he makes the statement that no one has ever actually proven that total calories actually determine weight gain or loss. He supports this with his experience with wasting in chronically ill patients. For example, when someone is terminally ill with cancer, they can eat twice the calories necessary, but still lose weight and literally waste away. The nutrient partitioning mechanism in their body goes awry and the body doesn't use the food properly, but catabolizes their own body. To use this extremely narrow pathological malfunction to explain calorie usage in a normal, healthy body is quite a stretch. Of course some people can burn more calories per day than others, this is the individuality of metabolism and body types. However, let's compare apples to apples.

I won't discuss much of Body Rx in terms of the exercise portion. There are so many good ways to train that to try to conclude the "best" way cannot be covered in a book this size. All diet books include some form of exercise prescription and Dr. Connelly provides the average weight lifting program for the average person who wants the average results that resistance training can offer. What he describes is very solid and good exercise prescription. My only point of contention here is that, in my opinion, he goes a little overboard in promoting weight training over cardiovascular exercise. As a professional bodybuilder, I'm obviously the biggest fan when it comes to the value of weight training, but cardiovascular conditioning is also extremely important. This is just another place where marketing differential and tag lines take over common sense in trying to make a point. Connelly makes the statement, "Get off the treadmill!" And, he also comments that cardio isn't necessary. Weight training is important, but he's very wrong in undervaluing cardio.

Back to the details of Dr. Connelly's thoughts on nutrition. He spends a lot of time explaining nutrient partitioning, both negative and positive. In a nutshell, nutrient partitioning is the explanation of how nutrients get used for various metabolic processes. It's a little oversimplified in Body Rx as a description of just whether the food we eat gets stored as body fat or as lean body mass. The type of food we eat does dictate a large part of this physiological process, but not at all like a switch being turned on or off as his analogy goes. I'll let you read this chapter on your own to get the full explanation.

Dr. Connelly is very against the ketogenic diets that have you eat no or very little carbohydrates. He also discusses the dangers of most saturated fats and the reasons that high carbohydrate diets make you fat. Most of the supportive details discussed regarding general nutrition and health are right on target and extremely well backed by research studies mentioned. As a matter of fact, he inserts more relative research studies than any book that I have read in recent memory. He makes the case for a higher protein diet sensible and research-based. He's big on fiber and gives a good explanation on why.

The delivery of the program is in four six-week blocks which he cleverly divides into different phases with a different emphasis. I say clever, because the reasons why aren't as necessary for his target audience except that it gives the reader a look at periodization and makes it less boring. Like most new books on the market, he includes very organized "filler" information and tracking sheets that the reader can make copies of.

I do get a little sarcastic when I have to decipher marketing material and fluff from relevant, useful information, but Body Rx does contain a lot of great information. The amount of supportive research and the specific points of superior nutrition are excellent. It's very readable and I think you'll enjoy it. If you haven't read a good book on nutrition in awhile, this would be a good one to start the new year with.