Body for Life – How It Works

Body for Life is a 12-week diet and exercise plan that focuses on intense weight training and cardio workouts plus a diet which has you eating 6 meals a day. The founder, Bill Phillips, promises that if you follow his program for 12 weeks, you’ll have the best body you’ve ever had with the website boasting that “your body will be different—it will be stronger, leaner, more energetic and healthier. But that’s not all. Mentally, you will be more focused and confident.” Here is a breakdown of the diet and exercise regimen:

Exercise Plan: You will do weight training 45 minutes a day, three times a week and alternate days with aerobic exercise for at least 20 minutes a day, three days a week. On the days you weight train, you will alternate training the major muscles of the upper and lower body. So for example on the first day you will focus on Chest/Shoulders/Triceps/Back/Biceps, day two will be a cardio workout, day three will focus on Quads/Hamstrings/Calves/Abdominals….and so on and so forth. The workout gives you a breakdown of exercises to choose from for each body part and the intervals in which to use. You are also supposed to keep track of your progress in a journal. As for the cardio, you are allowed to do any type of cardio (jogging, elliptical, swimming, biking, etc) but you are to follow an intensity level regimen during the exercise. So for the first 2 minutes you are warming up (labeled intensity level 5), the next 2 minutes you move from intensity level 5 to 6 and so on.

Diet Plan: The diet involves eating six small meals a day, six days a week. On the seventh day, you are free to eat anything you want as well as rest your body from the exercise routine. The foods you choose from include lean meats, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats and fish. According to the Body for Life website, the meals involve a combination of lean protein and healthy carbohydrates “to speed up fat loss and maintain stable energy levels.” Each meal consists of a fist-sized portion of protein — lean meat, poultry, fish, egg whites, or cottage cheese — and a fist-sized portion of healthy carbohydrates such as potatoes or brown rice. You also eat at least two portions of vegetables, a tablespoon or two of healthy oil and 10 glasses of water each day. Also included are nutritional supplements which can be purchased on the Body for Life website.

The Body for Life web site also provides you with an active community, meal plans, shopping lists, training tools, member recipes, success stories and workout videos to help keep you motivated.

Body for Life gets a lot of things correct – promoting diet and exercise as the most important ingredients to a healthy mind and body. All in all, any exercise program that gives you a great outline to follow but allows you to choose your daily workout routine and meals is easier to follow and less likely to cause burnout.