Doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin... (Body for Life - Bill Phillips)

Member Name: stark99

Product:	Body for Life - Bill Phillips
Date:	14/08/02 (3185 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Relaqtively easy to follow, virtually guaranteed results

Disadvantages: Level of results vary, advice and information isn't consistent through the various BFL sources

Let me start by saying that I tried Bill Phillips' 'Body for Life' method for the 12 weeks leading up to Christmas last year. I'm also in my second week of trying it again...

I've been the classic "before" picture most of my life. I'm of slim build, find it very hard to build muscle and am one of those "lucky" people who can eat virtually anything they want with no fat related repercussions. I've been working out with weights on and off (mainly on) for as long as I can remember (I think I lifted my first barbell when I was 14/15) and have been a member of one gym or another since the age of about 22.

I've tried many ways of building muscle...I've lifted weights 3 times per week, I've lifted weights 5/6 times per week, I've used workouts that take 1hr and I've used workouts that take 2 hours, I've tried free weights only, I've tried using resistance machines only and I've tried a combination of both. You'll understand why I was pretty excited when I saw an advertisement for "Body for Life" in a bodybuilding magazine that I just happened to find on somebody's desk at work. If you know anything about the "Body for Life" 'phenomena', you'll know why I was so impressed. The PR shows various 'before' and 'after' photographs of people ("normal people, like you and me, without any previous knowledge of weight training or nutrition") who have tried Bill Phillips' 12 week mind and body changing plan. To say that the alleged transformations were remarkable is like saying that the Pope is just "something to do with the church".

The first 'Body for Life' product that you'll probably come into contact with is the book. This tome, entitled "Body for Life - 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength", outlines the mental strategies, workout regimes and nutritional planni
ng needed to, supposedly, get the results shown in the front and back covers (see above) and more importantly, change your mental and physical habits so that you retain them for life! I won't go into too much detail about what the book actually says (you can go into a book shop and flick through it if that's what you want), but I'll give you a brief outline. I'm no nutritional expert, nor have I any qualifications in 'Sports Science', but I've been working out for a number of years and have tried various fitness and body building programmes before. Basically, this book makes a hell of a lot of sense - most of the advice it contains is, when you come to think about it, common sense. Bill Phillips goes to great lengths to explain that his system uses the "inside out" approach...it starts with the mind and uses the changes you make mentally to kick-start the workout and nutritional regimes required to begin the physical changes. He talks about making the conscious decision to change (mentally and physically), breaking bad habits and thinking in terms of "Will what I'm doing right now, this second/minute, move me towards my physical goals?" and he bands about terms like the "power mind set". A significant amount of it is very 'American', getting you to write down 5 goals you want to have achieved after the 12 weeks, your reasons for wanting to change, etc) but what this setting down goals and reading them back to yourself every morning is trying to do is basically keep you focused. When all is said and done, it does a good job of exactly that.

The physical aspect of the 'Body for Life' is 12 weeks of working out 6 times per week and following a fairly rigid eating plan also 6 days per week). The gym workouts break down as 3resistance routines, split between lower and upper body, that supposedly take around 45 minutes each - in practice, you can schedule for closer to an hour b
ut it's never more than that. Each resistance workout details parts of the body that must be worked and in what order. You can choose from a (pictorial) list in the back of the book which exercises you use for each body part. The remaining 3 workouts focus on cardio vascular work, all take no more than 20 minutes each. Now I know what you're thinking...."How can 20 minutes of aerobic work be enough to make any difference to my fitness level/burn fat?". Each cardio workout is based on an ascending scale of difficulty, spending 1 minute on each level. Level 5 represents 50% of your maximum aerobic effort, and level 10 represents and all out sprint, giving it everything you've got - you begin on level 5 and increase your personal effort level each minute up to level 9, with slight variations to the beginning and end of the 20 minutes. It doesn't sound like much, but believe me, following it as it's supposed to be followed results in a REALLY hard workout. The clever thing about both the resistance and cardio workouts is they're both based around personal levels of effort, which as the 12 weeks go by, gradually increase - meaning that you should be lifting heavier weights and running/cycling/rowing faster to achieve the same level of effort.

The nutritional side of this system is probably 80% of the whole. As Bill points out, "the exercise is the spark and the food is the fuel, without both you'll see no flames - no results"....he's exactly right. The 'Eating for Life' plan involves scoffing 6 small meals per day at regular intervals - basically eating every couple of hours whilst you're awake, or "grazing", as Bill puts it. I personally don't have time to prepare or eat 6 meals per day so, as the book suggests, I replace 3 of them with a protein/nutrition shake. The kinds of foods that are 'authorised' are chicken, beef, tuna, salmon, potatoes, pasta, wholegrain r
ice, vegetables, low-fat cottage cheese....you get the picture. The book details the proteins, carbohydrates and vegetables you can eat and you simply put together 1 from each column to make a meal. It takes some getting used to and I've found that you HAVE to experiment with meals otherwise you end up eating the same things every day.

I finished my first 12 week plan just before last Christmas and I followed it virtually to the letter. I didn't receive anywhere near the results that the book indicates are possible/probable, but I undoubtedly felt in great shape, physically AND mentally. To sum up, I think it's a great system....unlike other workout regimes I've followed, it tells you exactly when to workout, when/what to eat and cuts out a great deal of the guess work usually involved in these things. If you're looking to get in shape and want something easy to follow (still requires a lot of hard work though....although nothing good ever came easy, right?) that will give results, then I can thoroughly recommend Bill Phillips' "Body for Life" system.

Hold on, I bet you thought that this was the end of the op., didn't you? Well, as with most things in life, there's always a 'but...' and this is no exception - in fact, in this case, it's a 36pt, bold, Times New Roman "but".

The first impression when seeing the supposed 'before' and 'after' photos shown in the book and on the BFL website, is that of disbelief. In my opinion, and let's face it, that's what DooYoo and these ops. are all about, there's NO WAY that the pictures represent people who have ONLY used this system for 12 weeks. Some of the photos even look like the head has been pasted on to a different body. Please don't look at this book and assume that you'll get even similar results by following the BFL 12 week plan ALONE, because I really don't think it's possible.
I think that the 'before' and 'after' photos represent people who have used this plan as a baseline and nothing more. I've dug a little deeper and found things that the people who gained "extraordinary" results from BFL not only don't appear in the book, but are actively discouraged by it. For example, looking at the archived webchats of former and current BFL "champions" (the original basis for BFL is a competition with cash prizes for the people who make the biggest mental and physical changes from using the plan) from the BFL website, it's clear that they didn't JUST follow this plan. Virtually all of them seriously added to their diet using various supplements such as creatine, protein powders and fat-burning compounds (all available from EAS - the nutrition company that Bill Phillips owns - but I have to give him credit, as he doesn't really push these in the book). I believe that this is the only way to see anywhere near the kind of results that the book hints at being possible by just following the eating plan laid out in its pages. The downside with this is that all the supplements are pretty expensive but then again, if they work, surely it's worth it?

The current '2001 Grand Champion" (Gregory Kemp) even mentions in his archived webchat that he ignored the 'free day' principle that the book demands (1 day out of every 6 you do no exercise and eat what you like). How can he be 'crowned' "BFL Grand Champion" if he doesn't even follow the plan set out in the book? Another thing which surprised me is how much (in my view important) information is in the audio book that doesn't appear in the written version. To get the most out of the BFL system, you really need to look at both versions of the book, study the testimonials/tips from the website and seriously supplement your diet.

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