The Testosterone Advantage Plan : Lose Weight, Gain Muscle, Boost Energy

"I bought this book a while back, skimmed through it, then put it on the shelf. I recently brought it back out and have begun following its advice. The main thing I love about it is that it is finally a diet for guys. Most of the other stuff out there is geared towards a woman's dietary needs (even the ones that claim to be for everyone). It also includes strength training. If you've ever seen guys that have lost weight by starving themselves and not working out..you know how much it is needed.

The main thing is to use the formula for protein/fat/carbs that is in the book. You will have to give up sweets and alcohol, but the results are worth it. Stick to the diet, you will probably eat more food & more often than you do now.

There is also a personal trainer service (for $$) available at menshealth.com where you can print out menus, grocery lists & workouts, which includes the ability to download examples of the exercised into your iPod.

"
~ Written on 2008-07-29

"The book has changed my life. I am eating much more healthy and more often. I have been on the diet and excercise for 3 weeks now. I have lost 10 lbs and have gained muscle, along with testosterone. I would recommend it to everyone."
~ Written on 2008-06-01

"I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to transform their body and is serious about it.

I think that the most valuable thing in this book is the shopping list and the daily meal planner. That and it is about and for men. That is so rare in a society that praises Atkins and other fad diets (mainly for women)

Overall I lost 23 pounds and can now bench 210 from 185. I also didn't follow it exactly. I ate the prescribed meals in the book but i mixed and matched. Overall I don't think that I lost any particular gain from doing that. This plan is also no beer but I still had a few on the weekends.

The most important thing I learned from this book is that diet is 90% and lifting is %10. This is so true.

The workouts were great as well. It is in three phases and I actually lost count of the weeks and never got onto the third phase. I did do it once but not enough times to really get into the groove.

I learned a whole bunch about how to eat and what to do to look better. This book is also an easy read. I think I read the entire thing in an hour and a half and it is packed full of info. The advice is real life. They know that you are going to slip up and know that you aren't going to ride a bike to work for extra exercise and show up all sweaty.

The reason I gave it four stars and not five is that they act like running is a horrible thing. And while I would like to agree, I still like to run and think that there are more benefits to running than what is said in the book.

To the author:

Thanks a lot, this book put me on the right track to becoming a healthier person."
~ Written on 2008-03-17

"I'm just entering my 7th week of this program and love it. I've made great gains in the past few weeks while sweating off about 10 pounds. The first four weeks of the program nearly did me in (20 reps, omg), but well worth it. My only issue, and it's a small one, is I wish they had given more resources for recipes as following the "diet" for 9 weeks using the same recipies gets old really fast."
~ Written on 2007-12-05

"The worst kind of [...] imaginable. This book advocates a zero cardio training approach, which is completely brainless. Research has proven that weight loss is the result of less calories in vs. calories out. Intense cardio training is the most time efficient way to burn calories. When coupled with a reasonably calorie restricted diet, this is what burns fat. Period.

Weightlifting makes you look pretty, and is an important part of the whole, but the authors place far too much emphasis on it. Research has proven that building muscle DOES NOT dramatically increase metabolism. It makes you look nice, is fun, builds stronger bone structure etc., but has only minimal effect on overall metabolism.

Their diet is too high fat and too high protein. They need to read Nancy Clark's Sport Nutrition Guidebook. Year's of research prove that you can build lots of muscle with only a 15% protein intake. Carbs assist with protein synthesis and provide energy and are by far the most important part of the diet.

They do get a few things right: progressive overload, avoiding bad fats, staying away from supplements etc., but these are buried in piles of bad information. They only have pictures of six guys from the original 30, and they don't look that impressive. No testosterone testing was done to "prove" their "claims" about boosting it.

Finally, the writing is terrible. Maybe if my IQ was significantly lower I would get motivated by the chest-thumping garbage, but I just found it overly cheezy.

"
~ Written on 2007-05-08