Tom Venuto: “Mainly, it’s not a diet book at all. It’s not a bunch of recipes and menus. My new book was designed more to help you stick with whatever nutrition and training programs you choose and make them an effortless part of your daily lifestyle.

Most of your readers already know they should eat more fruits and vegetables, eat lean protein, get enough fiber and eat healthy fats. Simple stuff. The question is, do you easily stay motivated to follow healthy eating habits with enough compliance to get the results you want, or do you find yourself blowing it on weekends, giving in to cravings, falling off the schedule when traveling, eating when stressed, or doing anything else that sabotages an already good nutrition plan?

That is what separates The Body Fat Solution from other books on the shelves. You learn about the emotional, psychological and even social (how people influence you) aspects of “staying on the wagon.”

To make this a total lifestyle program, I did include one concise chapter on nutrition and extensive food lists in the appendix so you know what to eat and how to categorize the foods. I also included a strength training and cardio program. But in this book, I teach “Principles” not fancy or advanced diet tactics or strict calorie-counting and number crunching. It’s very different from the by-the-numbers approach of my first book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle and for a much broader audience.

But that doesn’t mean it’s a “fluffy” book. It’s scientific and was meticulously researched, even the behavioral, psychological and sociological aspects.”

Editor: “You are a respected natural bodybuilder – known for having incredible motivation and discipline. Do you think you can truly identify with the average man or woman who struggles in this area?”

Tom Venuto: “I already do. And they identify with me as soon as they get to know me and my personal background. One of the responses I’ve heard over and over again from my readers, customers and members is that when they heard I was actually a lot like them, not only could they identify with me, but that’s what motivated them to read my book, start my program and change their lives.

Today I’m a successful fitness professional, author of two books and natural bodybuilder with 28 competitions under my belt. I keep my bodyfat under 10% all year round and drop as low as 3.5-5% for competitions. But it wasn’t always that way. When I was a freshman in high school, I was on the chubby side and was embarrassed to take my shirt off for swimming class. So I took up weight training and put on about 25 pounds of muscle and lost most of the fat during high school.

Then I went to college and discovered beer… and pizza, and cheese fries and subs… and I got fat again. Only it was worse than before because by then I was a self-proclaimed weight lifter and amateur bodybuilder, so my college buddies made fun of me. They called me “fat boy” or “beer belly” or “Bob’s Big Boy” (home of the famous big boy sandwich). I just laughed at myself right along with them, but the truth is, I was silently humiliated.

It all changed when my other group of friends – my buddies from the gym – encouraged me to compete in a bodybuilding competition. That’s when I learned the type of nutrition and training it took to reach low single digit body fat for the first time. It was not easy because I felt that I had the “endomorph” body type where anything I did wrong, I paid the price for it and gained fat overnight. But I did it. I competed at age 20 while I was still in college and things were never the same after I became a competitive bodybuilder.

So, I’ve never been seriously overweight, but I can relate to what it’s like to hate your body, what it’s like to have trouble losing fat and even what it’s like to be in shape and then get fat again.”

Editor: “You have an expanded section on emotional eating. Could you briefly outline some of the key points for us?”

Tom Venuto: “Emotional eating is eating for the wrong reasons, and the danger is you usually don’t even know its happening. It’s unconscious behavior.

The right reason to eat most of the time is for physiological needs such as providing nutrients, delivering cellular and muscular building material and for fuel. But most people eat for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with physical hunger or physical needs. They eat because they’re bored, tired, depressed, lonely, and especially when they’re stressed.

People also eat for social reasons, to celebrate, as a reward, and sometimes for no reason at all – you eat mindlessly like in front of the TV or wander to the refrigerator late at night just because it became a habit .

The solution to emotional eating is to understand the right reasons for eating and ingrain them into your belief systems and into your mind subconsciously. The big reason to eat is for FUEL. Food is fuel. Food is for energy. Another reason for eating is building material. You are what you eat. No matter how cliched’ that statement has become, you can’t say it enough times. You are what you eat, literally. Food is also for nourishment – it gives you every nutrient you need. Food is the best medicine. Food is a cure. Imagine if you thought about food this way and you ate for those reasons instead of the reasons most people eat. You would have an amazing body and spectacular health wouldn’t you? You’d also never have to worry about disordered eating because you’d realize that food is not something to fear; food is not the problem; high quality food is actually the solution.

The starting point of fixing this is to increase your awareness. You have to pay attention, be a conscious eater, or to borrow a concept from Zen, practice mindfulness. . This way you can catch yourself and that gives you time to pause and think before you act. I elaborate on this more with a 5-part formula for beating emotional eating in chapter four of The Body Fat Solution”

Editor: “In your previous downloadable book Burn the Fat – you espoused a program of frequent eating (5-6) meals a day, and high amounts of cardio training (along with a regular strength training program). Is this something you still advocate – or is there a different approach for the Body Fat Solution?”

Tom Venuto: “I absolutely advocate the 5-6 meal per day, carefully calculated macronutrients and calories, strength training and cardio training approach. Basically that philosophy is: eat more, burn more; Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. It’s the bodybuilding – fitness – figure method of improving body composition. It’s how I achieved the condition I reached in 28 competitions and it’s how thousand of my success story clients reached their goals. It works so well that I would never change a thing in my own personal approach.

But after many years of working with a wider range and larger number of clients, with different personalities, who were not bodybuilders, I realized that all they needed was a handful of daily behavior changes and a shift in mindset. I could create the most scientific, sophisticated and effective nutrition program in the world, but if someone can’t follow it, because it doesn’t suit their lifestyle or personal disposition, that’s not very helpful.

So instead of just recognizing the physiological type of individuality from person to person, I looked at the differences in lifestyle and created this new program to accommodate people with every day challenges like high stress, lack of time, emotional eating and sporadic motivation. I used the 80-20 principle which says that 20% of your actions will give you 80% of your results. The rest is minutia. So for the average person, let’s just get those fundamentals in place first and not worry about the small stuff. That’s enough to get you 80% of the way there. You want to be in the top 5%? Then you’ll have to join me with a more regimented program

But with the new approach I took in The Body Fat Solution, it’s one of the most flexible programs that you will ever find on bookstore shelves. No dogma. Or, as one reviewer said, “It’s not a program that looks like it came out of the third Reich!” Anyone can do it. It really is a lifestyle.”

The Body Fat Solution is available from Amazon for $16.47

The purpose of the book is to provide basic information and skills necessary for attaining a healthy weight range. It is centered on behavior change and does not go into specific eating or exercise guidelines. Goldman outlines a 10 step approach that covers everything from willpower and stress management to social networks and addictive behavior.

The book is filled with some very useful information and tools to help build the psychological armor people will need for long term success. Most weight loss books do not address this all-important issue and for this reason alone, this book is stands above most others that I’ve seen in the category of “weight management”.

Strengths of the Book

• Non-faddish, simple and succinct information that most anyone can follow.
• One of the book’s highlights was the section on willpower and self-change. Goldman introduces concepts such as “willpower fatigue” and relates our willpower to our muscles in that it gets stronger when we exercise it.
• An impacting section on emotional eating and binging. He gets into why we are prone to it and how to break away from the cycle.
• He provides some pretty sound basic information on portion control, exercise the reality of dieting and where to find decent information on the subjects.
• The information in the book is very current, with many references from within the year.

Weaknesses of the Book

• While I have high praise for the simplicity of the book, it comes across to me as being a little too clinical. With all the great information on changing behavior, I think there is more room for some inspiring dialogue
• Although Goldman only gets into the basics of exercise and diet, perhaps a little more information may be warranted to leave the reader with a little better stepping stone on how to proceed.

Final Thoughts

This is a very important book for anyone who is serious about making healthy living a lifelong pursuit. I would classify Weight Management for your Life as a book to read BEFORE you follow another program. This book will not be enough for those looking for dietary and/or exercise strategies.

All in all I think this book will serve as a great primer to help people develop positive habits towards attaining and maintaining healthy weight. But like anything else, you have to be willing to learn and apply the strategies.

Reviewed by Mike Howard

• Leigh Peele tackles the issues of fat loss head on in a matter-of-fact, scientific and yet simplistic way. The Fat Loss Troubleshoot is as comprehensive a manual as you will find on the subject – tackling a myriad of issues that are stand in the way of you and the body and health that you want.
• Leigh is not going to tell you what you want to hear. Leigh is not going to put her hands on your shoulders and say “it’s not your fault”. Leigh doesn’t want to hear excuses and she probably has an answer for every perceived reason why you can’t lose weight.
• Peele is about precision. She goes into details about calories and macronutrients, pre and post workout nutrition, and gives some striking examples of how easy it is to miscalculate caloric intake. (Check out this fantastic video demonstration – click on the first video).
• Place Leigh Peele on the “calories do count” side of the ledger on this continuously debated issue. She advises knowing your caloric needs and keeping in a deficit to lose.
• The secret to fat loss, according to Peele? Cooking. Making meals that taste good and taking control of your eating is where the war on fat is won. Says Leigh “If you don’t take charge and become the boss of your food, it will boss you”. She gives some very savvy tips on how to become a master of your own food domain, including navigating the “sneaky” grocery stores, preparing and packing.

Some other tidbits from the book…

• She allows for cheat meals, as long as it fits within caloric intake needs.
• She advises on the different types of hunger and how to conquer it (she notes that you will feel hungry sometimes).
• In terms of exercise, Peele gives some sound general advice and helps readers choose the right types of programs to suit their needs. With resistance training, she gives a solid overview of the basics but doesn’t go too far beyond that in terms of specific programs.
• In terms of aerobic exercise, she isn’t on the bandwagon of anti-cardio zealots. Again, she gives basic guidelines and options, touching also on how to include HIIT training (if at all).
• She doesn’t recommend training aerobically for over an hour unless you are an athlete.
• Peele is very adamant about proper rest and recovery. She also gives tips on training for postural deficits – which many pre-designed programs tend to overlook.
• There is a good section on how to chart progress and the reality of weight loss trends – that is how much it fluctuates over the course of a loss.
• The book features a section on supplements that may be helpful, but she does not explicitly recommend anything.
• The book also features a “myths and tips” section which has some great insight as to how to apply most of the principles laid out in the book. There is also a pretty concise psychology section to round out the physiological side of fat loss. This section really hits home.

Who this book will benefit

I would class this book as a “teach you how to fish” book, rather than a “giving you the fish”. What I mean by that is that this book truly teaches you skills and gives you the right tools to succeed. Her methods will take a lot of diligence and practice from the individual, but make no mistake, the philosophies will be successful. Leigh will be the first to tell you that it isn’t going to be easy. She’ll give you the best resources not covered by her book but you have to really become adept and meticulous at things like weighing and learning portions.

For those who are motivated and have tried other methods of fat loss, I honestly can’t think of a more appropriate book.

Who this Book may NOT be suited to

The fat loss newbie with average motivation would likely benefit from something more simplified and generalized – at least in the early stages of their journey. This book may be a logical “next step”. The amount of precision required may not sit well with many, however it is a “troubleshoot”, which implies that whatever you are doing currently isn’t working.

Overall Impression

Leigh Peele gets it, plain and simple. She is really dialed in to the latest research and has clearly submerged herself in the trenches to put the research into practice. The Fat Loss Troubleshoot is an outstanding resource that really covers every conceivable factor when it comes to the science and common sense of fat loss.

My opinion differs from Leigh only when it comes to the cross-over benefit of different types of lifting. It may be a little too generalized for example to say that “powerlifting will make you look like a powerlifter”. I think you can incorporate many forms of lifting to achieve the same goal.

Also, I would love to see this in an actual paperback or hardcover (this is an e-book). That may just be the technologically stunted side of me talking, though.

In any case, this book is really a gem – head and shoulders above the vast majority of other books out there on the subject. I predict that we’ll see great things from Leigh Peele for years to come.