Stephen Perrine - The Mens Health Diet: 27 Days to Sculpted Abs, Maximum Muscle & Superhuman Sex!

For Jennifer

FOREWORD BY DAVID ZINCZENKO,
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF MENS HEALTH MAGAZINE

INTRODUCTION
THE EASY WAY TO A HARD BODY

CHAPTER 1
WIN THE WAR ON FAT
Its time to take control and transform your life with the Mens Health Diet.

CHAPTER 2
HOW FIT ARE YOU?
Take the Mens Health Fitness Assessment and discover where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

CHAPTER 3
THE MALE BODY AT 20, 30, 40, AND BEYOND!
Everything you need to know about your bodyright now and for the future.

SPECIAL REPORT:
ANATOMY OF A POTBELLY
(And five reasons you might still be fat.)

CHAPTER 4
WHY THE SMARTEST DIET IS NO DIET AT ALL
How to turn fat into muscle without giving up anything, ever (seriously).

CHAPTER 5
HOW TO TRICK YOUR BODY INTO BURNING FAT
Meet your bodys best defense against weight gain: more muscle.

CHAPTER 6
THE MENS HEALTH RULES OF THE RIPPED!
Seven simple rules that will set you up for a lifetime of looking great.

CHAPTER 7
GET FAST & LEAN!
Discover the eight superfood groups in the Mens Health Nutrition System that will turbocharge your weight-loss plans!

SPECIAL REPORT
WHATS IN MACGYVERS FRIDGE?
24 smart food fixes that will smooth over everything from big-meeting jitters to big-date angst.

CHAPTER 8
THE MENS HEALTH MUSCLE SYSTEM
The greatest workout youll ever getinside a gym or out.

CHAPTER 9
IF YOURE NOT HAVING FUN, YOURE DOING SOMETHING WRONG
How to adapt the Mens Health Muscle System to meet your own needs and make sure you never, ever, get sore, tired, or bored!

BONUS CHAPTER
THE BETTER SEX WORKOUT AND DIET PLAN
A torrid turbo charge for bedroom bliss, with great food, great workouts, and great advice for coming through in the clutch.

CHAPTER 10
THE 250 BEST FOODS FOR MEN
The ultimate guide to eating the very best, no matter where you are or what you hanker for!

CHAPTER 11
THE MENS HEALTH DIET RECIPES
Mouthwatering concoctions to fight fat and fuel your muscles.

I lost my gut for Americas glory.

True story. As a teen, I was overweight, and it took a stint in the Navy to whip me into shapeand a career at Mens Health to keep me in fighting trim.

But how did I get that gut in the first place? Like a lot of people, I nurtured it into being as I grew up. My mom was out working afternoons, so there was nobody around to bug me once I stepped off the school bus. Id return home, plop down in the kitchen, and eat. Sometimes I would chow on tasty snacks Id drag home from fast-food land. Sometimes Id binge on whatever cookies, chips, or candy my older brother, Eric, might have missed. He obviously wasnt very attentive, because there was plenty for me to eat. And eat. And eat.

It got to the point where my brother would come around with his friends, point at me, and snicker, Watch the big animal. Its feeding.

Thanks, bro. By poking me in my burgeoning belly, you were doing me a favor, I know.

Since then, Ive learned a ton about physiology, nutrition, exercise science, and health. My career as a health journalist demanded it. But as I pored over the scientific journals and fought my way through the charts and tables, Ive been motivated by the same biology lesson I learned back in the Navy: survival of the fittest.

No, not mere survival of the fittest. It goes way beyond that. Its the happiness of the fittest. The sexiness of the fittest. The healthfulness of the fittest. The self-confidence of the fittest. The ka-ching of the fittest. The connections between weight and life rewards are amply proven in the scientific literature. Lots of people, from romantic partners to business partners, take clues about your fitness to lead, your fitness to love, and your fitness to stick around from the overall state of your physical fitness.

Thats rightvanity rules.

I wont comment about whether thats good or bad, but we all know that the health bias exists. Its an advantage you shouldnt cast aside carelessly. Every word we publish in Mens Health magazine serves that larger purpose: to help our readers seize the maximum advantage in health, fitness, and sex, and to succeed in life. And that that advantage begins with how much you weigh.

Weight is fate, my friends.

So when my colleague Steve Perrine proposed writing The Mens Health Diet, to distill the wisdom of 20 years of publishing into one slim (slimming) volume, it had a certain ring of familiarity. It was almost like the snide challenge my brother threw down to me as a teenager, minus the snide part. Can we help our readers rise to the occasion, and conquer the big animal thats lurking within, and spilling out over a stressed beltline?

Of course we can.

After all, Mens Health has helped tens of millions of men around the world32 editions and countingto conquer difficulties with their own equators. Why couldnt we put that advantage between two book covers, and help even more?

Youre holding the results of that quest in your hands. Steve Perrine knows more about losing weight than practically anybody on the planet, steeped as he is in the Mens Health way. And now you can benefit from the best of weight-loss theory and practice from these pages. The lean belly youve always wanted is here. Maybe the six-pack, too.

And no need to endure snide comments from my brother, Eric, to get there.

Heres to the new you.

Weve been expecting you.

David Zinczenko

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Mens Health magazine

One summers day in 1991, while taking out the recycling, I glanced down at the newspaper and saw an advertisement for a junior-level job at a new magazine called Mens Health. I drove my family out to Emmaus, Pennsylvania, to apply.

I didnt get that job.

Luckily, another position opened up soon after, and from that moment on, Ive been fortunate to work with the greatest team of journalists, publishers, and health-care professionals ever assembled. In particular:

Maria Rodale and the Rodale family, who have been fighting to awaken us to the connection between our health and our environment for more than 60 years. I hope this book brings readers one step closer to realizing a healthier future.

David Zinczenko, whose support, encouragement, and grace under pressure have made possible my endeavors and those of many others at Rodale Inc.

My brilliant co-authors, Adam Bornstein and Heather Hurlock.

George Karabotsos, Debbie McHugh, Laura White, Mark Michaelson, Mike Smith, Theresa Dougherty, Ruth Davis Konigsberg, Ursula Cary, Mike Zimmerman, and the team at Mens Health Books.

The editors of Mens Health and Womens Health magazines, especially Adam Campbell, for his exercise expertise; Clint Carter, for his nutritional insights; Bill Phillips and Steve Borkowski for their Web and marketing support; and Peter Moore, for his inspiring calm and professionalism.