Smart Exercise: Burning Fat, Getting Fit

Product Details

• Prepare: NEW
• Notes: Tag New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• ISBN13: 9780395661147

Description

Best-selling author Covert Bailey has revolutionized thinking about health and fitness. Smart Exercise is a comprehensive guide to exercise and a lucid explanation of how our bodies stay fit or fat. Most important, Smart Exercise reveals the world's best-kept secret about fitness: keep your muscles in peak form and everything else will follow. Using his famous sense of humor to great effect, Bailey explains how muscles function, describes the multiple benefits of a good workout, and shows why muscle efficiency is the key to lowering body fat and improving general health. Take Covert's Home Fitness Test, make this book your exercise bible, and enjoy the benefits of being in the best shape of your life.

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The best-selling author of The New Fit or Fat offers a feast of useful information and practical advice in this comprehensive guide to exercise and training. Helpful to anyone designing a fitness program, whether it's to lose a "spare tire" or train for a marathon.

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Customer Reviews

Everything you need to know is in this book
Based on Science and Experimentation, Bailey explains to great effect how and why our bodies need exercise. Buy this book. It's only a penny!

2010-02-25 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Smart Exercise
Mr. Bailey provides a lot of useful information and advice to help one become less fat and more fit. So far, I've lost 25 pounds of fat and increased my strength and aerobic fitness. I would recommend this book to anyone who is serious about becoming more fit.

2009-11-05 | avid reader (Taylor, MI USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Excellent
I have read numerous books from Mr.Bailey and have not been disappointed. This book is no exception. I am currently reading it for the second time because there is so much useful information.

2009-05-09 | zabutae (Kansas) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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By the Author of Outstanding You
A great book with simple explanations about the body. While some will say the book has holes and is perhaps oversimplified, as an author, I found most people are looking for simple examples. Complicated explanations that dive deep into anatomy and physiology have their own challenges - and simple is, in my opinion, more effective in many cases. The obesity epidemic is outrageous in this country and one important key to helping people is getting quality information to as many people as possible. Covert does that and I was glad to have read this prior to writing Outstanding YouOutstanding You: Discover, Design and Achieve Ultimate Fitness.

2008-09-12 | Ron Betta (Orlando) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Some new and useful thinking
I found a few gems in this book. For one, I discovered that the target heart rate is not as important as we've been led to believe. Indeed, not important at all.

This is a book that will encourage and inspire you if you find it hard to stay motivated in your exercise and eating program.

2007-06-16 | Copywriting for the Discriminating - - http://www.powerwriting.com (Midwest U.S.A.) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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The Ultimate Fit or Fat

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780618002047
• Notes: Label New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Form: NEW

Description

With more than three million copies of previous editions in print, this classic exercise manual has shown Americans from all walks of life the route from fatness to fitness. Now Covert Bailey has totally rewritten and revised FIT OR FAT for the first time since the book's original publication in the mid-1970s. His dramatically new approach to fitness incorporates the most recent scientific findings. Weightlifting, whose fat-burning potential is only now becoming fully understood, plays a large role in Bailey's new program, which stresses what he calls "the four food groups" of exercise: aerobics, cross-training, wind sprints, and weightlifting. He also stresses the importance of intense exercise, showing readers how to build intensity into their daily programs safely and effectively. Covert Bailey's ULTIMATE FIT OR FAT will not only be of interest to a new health-conscious generation but will be eagerly sought out by the millions of readers who have come to rely on the Bailey approach to keep their bodies in peak condition.

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"In my little way I'm going to rattle the world," proclaims Covert Bailey, who already rattled the world when he changed the way America looked at weight loss and exercise with his original Fit or Fat in the mid-1970s. Now he's back with a new spin on the Fit or Fat principles. This small book (180 pages, about 5 by 8 inches) teaches you how to get fit faster and raise your metabolism. To improve your fitness level most quickly, Bailey recommends his "Four Food Groups of Good Exercise": aerobic exercise, cross training (varying your exercise choices), wind sprints (short bursts of high-intensity activity), and weight lifting. "I'm not burning a lot of calories while I'm exercising, but my body is changing into a better butter-burning machine," he says. "The purpose of my exercise is to change my chemistry." As we expect from Covert, his style is clever and feisty--the book is fun to read, and the information goes down easily. He offers some witty, memorable principles, such as "The more muscle an exercise uses, the less long you gotta do it!", "If you're fit, exercise long; if you're fat, go short but often," and this motto for the older exerciser: "When you are over the hill--you pick up speed!" He includes a body-fat test and a find-your-pace fitness test. --Joan Price

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Customer Reviews

Good stuff
Amazing that this 10 year old book purports to "put an end to the diet mania." At least the author concludes the introductory interview with this statement. He is right, it should have. But still there are bestsellers year after year that tell people what to eat. Clearly, by now, everyone in the US knows what to eat.

This book explains how to exercise so that eating is just one part of your overall fitness plan.

The sad thing is that there is still no social penalty for being fat in the US. As the book suggests, health care insurance MIGHT become more expensive in the US if you are fat, but that has not happened yet.

In any case, this is an excellent book that gives you a metric, body fat, and along with eating healthy, if you exercise as per Bailey's plan, leaves you zero excuses for being unhealthy. This book plus a single diet book should allow anyone to become healthy. But still there is a steady stream of books on diet and fitness which do NOT have new information. Irrational? Yes (welcome to the US circa 2009)

Don't look beyond this book, its information is not going to become dated. Maybe the explanations of why this program works will be expanded but it has the correct tools to help you.

2009-10-21 (NY, NY) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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either or!?
Sensible, logical, motivational. Packs a good punch and gets one going. Should be prescribed reading for anyone over 10.

2009-09-16 (Hanoi, Vietnam) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Simply the Best!
I'm a "normal" 68 year old woman, and I've been doing various kinds of exercise in fits and starts for years.

The thing that has got me exercising regularly now, for past few months, is the new knowledge about how exercise prevents Alzheimer's (my mother had it) and Parkinson's -- How serious exercise actually takes advantage of the brain's plasticity (and I have been feeling smarter -- memory much better).

I bought this Ultimate Fit or Fat because I heard somewhere that it was a superior and really informative and user friendly book about exercise. All true. I've been reading this stuff for ages and I've never seen it explained so carefully and clearly and in such a FRIENDLY tone. This guy is a genius explainer, a genius motivator. I now can understand pulse rates, body fat percentages, etc. etc. Okay, sorry, I've gotta go get on my elliptical trainer, now.

2009-02-04 (L.A., CA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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The Ultimate Fit or Fat
Covert Bailey is the smartest man in America. How easy it all is when someone finally tells the truth. Through out the diet books and make room on the shelf for The Ultimate Fit or Fat! There are no quick fixes or majic pill, there is only commom sense. Follow what he says, it will change your live in ways you never imagined.
Thank you Covert Bailey.

2007-02-26 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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not what I expected
It's nothing but an exercise book. I don't need a book to know that exercise is good for me. I'm not sure what I expected but this book wasn't it.

2006-05-09 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 2

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FIT OR FAT

Description

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Customer Reviews

Saved my body image
This first of Covert Bailey's "Fit or Fat" series, the 1978 publication, saved my life literally when I was a sophomore in college and had gained much weight and, although I had been a fairly active person, hadn't been exercising. Covert's 12-minute approach to aerobic exercising -- which doesn't mean just dance, it means anything that keeps your heartrate up to a certain level for a certain amount of time -- made me realize I didn't have to "waste" precious time to get in shape. But most of all, I DIDN'T HAVE TO DIET! He explains the importance of light weight lifting and to basically give yourself a break and accept that none of us are going to have a perfect body. He also turned me on to jump-roping as a cardiovascular exercise, and I still love it. Anyone concerned with health ought to check out Covert Bailey!

2000-04-08 (Gallup, NM USA) | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 5

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The Fit or Fat Target Diet: The Easiest Plan for Your Best Diet

Product Details

• Notes: Discredit New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• ISBN13: 9780395510827
• Adapt: NEW

Description

A sound and simple nutritional program for choosing the healthiest foods and achieving permanent weight loss without gimmicks. Bailey employs a unique target system that helps easily balance one's diet to obtain the full range of nutrition and reduce harmful fat.

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Customer Reviews

Hates fat people
Covert Bailey has some good ideas. I have read a few of his books (I bought the first one over 20 years ago), and I have to say that I am often bothered by how much he seems to despise fat people. It is kind of a turn off, and I realized that his attitude is just too negative.

2010-03-10 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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Some Good Advice, Some Poor Advice
I'm not sure where I should put this book in terms of how good it is. Undoubtedly, it has some good advice and I would be lying if I said otherwise. At the same time, Bailey is off the deep end, which is fine if you too are off the deep end. But if you're only starting to get into a pattern of weight loss and healthy eating, this book is probably going to turn you away from that.

The fact of the matter is that Bailey has some good advice shrouded in inanity. If you eat cheese and crackers, chips, cookies, and honey roasted peanuts every night, you're not going to stop that completely and eat non-fat yogurt, non-fat cottage cheese, and ice cream once a year. It's just not going to happen. To think as much is pure folly.

The problem with this book, and every other diet book out there, is that they all say to do it now. Now now now. This makes little sense, since we have to consider the fact that any change is something we want to maintain for the rest of our lives. So, while yogurt and cottage cheese might be the ultimate goal, I think it's more effective to start with one small change at a time.

If you're not starting from scratch, but are trying to get a feel for how to hone your current healthy eating habits, this book is for you. This is precisely where I found myself and I think it did open my eyes to a few things. For instance, I think the anti-fat bandwagon is way, way overblown. But in this book, Bailey does make a good point that many of the foods that are high in fat are also very low in nutrition density. This is by far the best argument yet for avoiding things like cheese and honey.

Still, I think eating 1 bowl of ice cream a year is well into fanaticism. As is his obsession with fat. Cutting down is good. Avoiding it like it's evil is another thing entirely. In fact, it bothers me that Bailey seems to suggest that chemical substitutes are an acceptable way to avoid fat. That's a bothersome notion.

And really, why on earth would you be against pancakes? I eat buckwheat pancakes with fresh fruit and no syrup. Please explain to me why this is bad. Our psychotic fixation with directing unnecessary derision against one food is clinical sometimes. This book provides some serious examples of that.

Another thing I do not like is that portion control is not a goal in this book. He essentially admits that it's fine to eat like a slathering hog, just so long as you eat healthy food. I could not agree with that less. One of the problems we have in this society is that we cannot and will not control the amount of food we eat. If we ate reasonable amounts, there would be less of a need to consume 3 pounds of lettuce every night.

Having said that, I will reiterate that the content of the book is solid, in terms of what should and should not be eaten. Hey, let's face it, 24 ounces of steak every few days is going to kill us. Period. Eating foods high in calories and low in nutrition will fatten us, and leave us unhealthy, yearning for the nutrition our bodies require.

The concept of nutrition density is one that people should take from the book. We need nutrition, not calories. If we get ample nutrition then we're all set. If, however, we pile on the calories and lack the nutrition, our bodies cry for more food. And we give it more food, usually bad stuff.

So take the idea of nutrition density from this book. But leave the artificial substitutes there. And leave the notion that you can stuff yourself at every meal. Those are bad ideas, period. Eat a nutritious diet, learn portion control, and keep it natural and you'll do fine, even if you do eat ice cream (small portions) every night.

Worth the read, but beware of neurotic & poorly thought out advice.

2003-06-22 (Millington, NJ United States) | Helpful Votes: 13 | Rating: 3

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ONE BOOK WHICH HELPED LAUNCH HIGH CARB/LOW FAT CRAZE!
Sometime in the late 70s to early 80s an anti-fat movement began to gain momentum, to the complete detriment of American health. Mr. Bailey along with Nathan Pritikin, Jane Brody, Dean Ornish, and many others (including that hyperactive woman who kept screaming: "Stop the insanity) became the gurus who have helped lead Americans into the state of health we are in today. Ladies and gentlemen, please read the statistics - Americans have never been so obese, not to mention the fact that type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. are increasing in this country. The "eat all you want", high carb/no fat/low fat solution may work (at best) if you workout maniacally, to the extreme on a daily basis (stop or reduce your daily workout and the weight comes back with a vengeance - EVEN IF - you are still following your no fat/high carb plan! Since the mid 80s I had tried to lose weight and keep it off by following this philosophy and I experienced short periods of weight reduction at best (it was always an unrelenting struggle). I would always gain the weight back faster than ever before - that is - until I got off the "fat free/low carb merry-go-round" and switched to the "Protein Power Program". I've lost the weight painlessly, gained energy, and only have to workout 3 to 4 days a week to maintain (I include free weights, and Pilates). It's hard to believe that after all these years the philosophy behind books such as this one continues to prevail. I only wish I could give this book 0 stars. Please check out the books by Drs. Michael & Mary Dan Eades, Dr. Atkins, and Dana Carpenter, and Dr. Diana Schwarzbein.

2001-04-28 | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 1

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great way to analyze the nutritional value of low-fat food
At first I didn't get this book because of another reviewer's comments. But, I like Covert Bailey's books so much that I decided to go for it. I'm glad I did. There's different material here than in Smart Eating -- greater depth. The prior reviewer mentioned "Bailey units," which is not a concept in the book. I suspect the reviewer was referring to the target units used to analyze food for serving size, calories, and nutritional value. It's similar to other units, points, or exchange models. I found the target unit analysis very useful as a tool for checking up on how I'm doing. I've been very successful eating low fat and have lost 46 pounds, but a recent analysis of my eating using the concepts in this book revealed some room for improving the nutritional quality of my food. Someone new to the target concept might need to do more analysis at first to get used to the model. The circular target chart is a bit clearer in Smart Eating, but The Fit or Fat Target Diet doesn't have all those recipes. Great stuff for analyzing food quality.

2000-12-24 | terranah (Rhode Island) | Helpful Votes: 11 | Rating: 5

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Superceded by Bailey/Gates Smart Eating
Great principles. No one cares about Bailey units, however. The book has been superceded by Smart Eating by Bailey and his associate, health promotion educator, Ronda Gates. In addition to an update of Target Diet Principles Smart Eating includes 200 quick-to-fix great tasting recipes that are keyed to the Smart Eating Target concept

1996-09-16 | Helpful Votes: 20 | Rating: 4

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The Complete Fit or Fat Book: The Phenomenal Program that Successfully Guides You from Fatness to Fitness

Description

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Customer Reviews

The Complete Fit or Fat
Of all the diet/weight-loss/fitness books I have read (and I have read more than a few!) this has got to be the best! It's a great read, fun and informative at the same time.

2010-03-15 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Four Great Books for the Price of One

This volume combines four Covert Bailey's best selling titles: "The new fit or fat", "The fit or fat woman", "The fit or fat target diet", and "Fit or fat target recipes". These books give practical advice on exercise, training and diet, and it does so using a clear way and with a great sense of humor. A complete package that even includes a recipe collection to lose weight and stay fit.

When I bought this and a couple of other books, about six years ago, I was looking for an introductory reference on aerobic training, fat burning, and on the use of heart rate monitors for general fitness improvements, and wasn't disappointed at all, since what I learned really worked out for me: Armed with a Polar Heart Rate Monitor (the old M61) I was able to drop more than 200 lbs in about eight months, and the heart rate monitor training has helped me keep those lbs off for over six years. Not only I went fro size 44 to size 32 pants, but also obtained substantial benefits that included weight control, cardiovascular improvements, lowered blood pressure, and improved muscular-skeletal strength and flexibility, but also the myriad of mental and psychological benefits derived from being in the best shape of my life.

I especially like the chapter about measuring your own Fat and Fitness. The formula to estimate Body Fat Percentage is very useful if you don't have a Body Fat Scale or Monitor at Home. I used the formula, and other data that I found on several books to set-up an excel spreadsheet to monitor my progress, which gave me motivation to keep training smarter.

In short terms, based on my experience I can recommend this book, and it's a great reading as well.

Another tools you may want to consider, to complement this book and your strategies for boosting your metabolism, loosing weight, and even more important keeping that weight off are:

- A Body Fat Monitor or Scale. This will help you monitor your progress, to assure that the weight you are loosing is fat (fat lost = increased metabolism) and not muscle, water or bone mass (decreased metabolism).
- "Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss", which is another very practical, readable and insightful book, focused on how to boost your metabolism.
- "The Abs Diet: The Six-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life".
- A Heart Rate Monitor Wrist Watch. This is an excellent tool that will help you monitor and control your Heart Rate in order to keep yourself in a burning fat state (increased metabolism).
- "The Hard Body Guide". Excellent strategies, programs and workouts, aimed to increase your muscle mass.

If you are focused only on your diet, the first three may be worth considering. If you exercise, or want to start doing it right, the last two are for you. If you do both, all the four recommended options can improve your results.

2006-07-26 | The Automation and Control Guy | Helpful Votes: 31 | Rating: 5

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Smart Eating

Description

In this companion volume to his best-selling Smart Exercise, Covert Bailey teams with Ronda Gates to show you how to achieve and maintain your ideal weight without ever dieting. The secret is choosing the right foods, and the authors tell you exactly what your body needs. Especially useful is the unique Smart Eating Food Target, a pull-out diagram that grades foods according to their fat and fiber content. And the 200 recipes specifically keyed to the Food Target make it easy to cook meals that are as nutritious as they are tasty.

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Customer Reviews

Smart Eating?
I learned a lot from this book but it really left me wanting to know more. His other books are much better. The recipes were not very exciting. I loved his other books and was dissappointed with this one.

2000-07-18 | Helpful Votes: 14 | Rating: 3

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Great!
This is the most sensible way to look at food I have discoverd. I've heard Gates lecture and it's too bad her diet plan strategy is not in the book (she reported Bailey "lost interest" in the "writing process" of the book so this was excuded. You can write to Gates c/o P. O. Box 974, Lake Oswego, OR 97034

1996-09-17 | Helpful Votes: 13 | Rating: 5

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