Sunday, September 4, 2011

Book Review: "Love Food & Live Well" by Chantel Hobbs

I received the book “Love Food & Live Well” from the WaterBrook Press “Blogging for Books” program. The promotional blurb sounded great: “Turn food into your ally by following Chantel’s 80/20 rule: A full 20 percent of the time, splurge on the foods you love and incorporate them into celebrations and social occasions. The remaining 80 percent of the time, choose food on the basis of delivering maximum fuel for your body and ultimate health.”

She spends 10 chapters building up the background for her eating plan, giving a lot of information that is probably common knowledge to anybody who has ever read a book about eating a balanced diet: the difference between simple and complex carbs, the value of protein, and why you should not eliminate all fats from your diet.

Chapter 11 focuses on how to apply her 80/20 plan to your meals, but it seemed very skimpy. There are two recipes each for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had hoped for more examples and guidelines, perhaps a week of suggested meals to show how her system is supposed to work, but there were only repeated plugs for “see my other book.”

The book concludes with some good information on interval training, including detailed charts, and fifteen pages of exercises to do on a balance ball.

Overall, the book had a lot of good information, but I felt like it wasn't balanced in its focus. There was lots of general information leading up to her main point, but when you expected detailed examples of her plan, there were only teasers about buying her other books. 

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