Book Review: Never Say Diet
Never Say Diet
The Never Say Diet Personal Fitness Trainer
Chantel Hobbs
Summary: After years of failed diet attempts, Chantel Hobbs discovered the missing ingredient to permanent weight loss: to change your life, you first have to change the way you think.
She developed a balanced plan for exercise and nutrition and lost two hundred pounds. Now, through writing, speaking, and her work as a personal trainer, she inspires others to achieve far more than they thought possible.
In Never Say Diet, now available in trade paperback, Chantel provides everything readers need to lose weight for good, including:
- Simple, step-by-step workout routines that fit into a normal weekday schedule
- A realistic approach to nutrition that helps people break their bondage to food
- Strategies for staying motivated when life takes unexpected turns
- Keys to dealing with discouragement by relying on God’s strength
- The secret to moving beyond past failures and getting over old excuses
Chantel helps readers make the five commitments that are necessary for changing their lives. Her high-energy, no-nonsense approach inspires readers to achieve results that last in body, mind, and spirit.
Personal Trainer: Her newest book, The Never Say Diet Personal Fitness Coach, now allows readers to have Chantel show up each week to inspire, encourage, and energize them on the journey to a healthy life that centers on body, mind, and spirit.
This fitness guide helps readers set new weight-loss goals and create an exercise schedule that works in the midst of life’s constant demands. Readers will be inspired with Scripture, and they will welcome Chantel’s healthy eating plan with simple, energy-and-nutrition-packed recipes. Weekly checklists and personal evaluations direct readers in reaching their goals. Plus, Chantel’s personal and entertaining stories provide the motivation needed to get through even the most frustrating days.
With Never Say Diet and The Never Say Diet Personal Fitness Coach readers will establish new fitness habits that burn off excess weight, increase strength, and establish a new, healthy way of living.
Okay, so I don’t usually read diet books. Yes, I need to lose weight–according to my BMI, I’m obese (by all of three pounds). However, I’m one of those “active but overweight” people. I do Zumba twice a week, and 40+ minutes on the treadmill at least two other days, preferably more. I can do a day-long hike without keeling over half-dead. I did Irish stepdancing up until last September (I’d still be doing it, but the class wasn’t on an available night for me). I don’t eat refined sugar or corn syrup. No matter what I eat or don’t eat, I’ve been the same weight (within 5 pounds) for well over a year now. Most people think I’m quite a bit lighter than I am. The bottom line is, I’ve never hit the rock bottom that Chantel describes, at least not as far as the way I look. But food does have a definite hold over me. I like to eat. I enjoy (far too much) the way things taste, to the point of overeating because it tastes so gooooood.
That’s why the key thing I brought away from this book is that food is fuel, not your main source of fun (or worse, comfort). At one point in the program, she has you make your meals nutritious, but boring (though not permanently), because changing the way you look at food is the only way to break its hold over you. And I can see that. In fact, that thought now goes through my head almost every time I wonder “What am I in the mood for?” That’s the wrong question, according to Chantel. The right question is “What does my body need?”
Her program seems to be a straight-forward deal, and fairly easy to remember, though it still takes plenty of willpower to follow. More willpower than most of us have. That’s why the all-important first step is surrendering our will to God’s. He wants us to be healthy, and it is only through His strength that we can turn from the idol of food (’you cannot serve both God and chocolate’).
There were a couple of areas that I did have problems with. One is food allergies/intolerances. I’ve a lot of them. Many of her meals call for lean poultry or fish–many times trying to eat chicken/turkey and/or fish (even tuna) makes me nauseous. Same thing for eggs. Nor can I do the Kashi thing. I like Kashi. Used to eat it all the time…until I discovered that oatmeal gave me headaches. Corn’s another thing I have to avoid, including popcorn. My husband has Crohn’s, so he has issues with things like celery or lettuce. You know, those good fibery vegetables. My daughter can’t eat so many things that we don’t even usually take her into consideration when making meal plans. I make all her bread at home, which means plain white bread (though with unbleached flour), because making whole wheat bread is a royal pain in the boohickey.
Some of the exercises I have issues with too. The cardio isn’t too much of a problem–I do that already. The ones that get me are the ones with the stability ball. I’ve had a lot of back problems (and legs, and knees, and feet, and neck), and the exercises she shows tend to exacerbate my bad spots. I think she chose the stability ball because it’s easy to use and keep at home, but there are other methods of working the core muscles (which is her main goal as near as I could tell) that are a lot kinder to the body. I know this because my physical therapist made me do a whole slew of them.
Overall, Never Say Diet was a hard-hitting, workable, sensible book. I think those of us who struggle with saying no to food can get a great deal out of it.