Paul Goldberg - The Lean Look: Burn Fat, Tone Muscles, and Transform Your Body in Twelve Weeks Using the Secrets of Professional Athletes

A lot of men and women come to my fitness facility in hopes that I can help them lose weight. But I dont help anyone lose weight. I help them do something much better: get lean. The method that is most effective for losing weightcrash dietingis different from the most effective methods for getting lean, which youll learn about in this book.

Turns out, your weight is not important. The bathroom scale tells you very little about your health, your fitness, or even your appearance. What does matter is your body composition, or the relative proportions of fat tissue and fat-free tissue (mainly muscle) in your body. The most common way of assessing body composition is by measuring body fat percentage. A low body fat percentage is ideal. However, having a low body fat percentage is different from having a low body weight. If youre tall, large-framed, or muscular, you could have a high body weight but have a low body fat percentage. On the other hand, you could have a low body weight and even look skinny yet still have a high body fat percentagea phenomenon called normal weight obesity.

Health scientists and medical doctors used to believe that body weight was important. But within the past decade a revolution has occurred: The latest research has clearly shown that body composition is a much better indicator of overall health than body weight. Lowering ones body fat percentage is proven to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, various cancers, Alzheimers disease, and other ailments. It also improves energy levels, work performance, confidence, mood, and stress levels. Whats more, psychological research shows that a low body fat physique is also the most attractive physique for both sexes. Men prefer lean women to skinny women, and women prefer lean men to both skinny and overly muscular men. And now you can enjoy these benefits of leanness by following the simple and effective 12-week Lean Look program presented in this book.

Most of my clients are skeptical when I first steer them away from the medical scale toward the BOD PODa high-tech device in my facility that measures body fat percentage with a high degree of accuracy. But in the end they are always glad I did. With my clients I push the message that leanness is more important than weight so much that one of them nicknamed me The Dean of Leanand it stuck!

My journey toward becoming the Dean of Lean began in a small city just north of San Diego called Escondidoa virtual paradise for the sort of active kid I was. My family had orange groves, as did all the families on our street, and every day the neighborhood kids and I ran and played in them from dawn to dusk. There was no such thing as Game Boy, so we rode our bikes everywhere and passed the time with outdoor games instead. From these early experiences I learned that exercise can and should be fun.

In my early teens I discovered that I was stronger than most kids and I became interested in weight lifting. Luckily we had a terrific strength coach in our high school, Mike Dolan, who was a highly ranked Olympic weight lifter at the time. Under his guidance I made tremendous progress, and had fun doing it. In addition to being a competitive weight lifter I played noseguard and tackle on the high school football team. Being a competitive athlete taught me that hard work yields results, but smart workthat is, putting hard work to the best possible use with efficient, cutting-edge training methodsis better still.

I played college football and studied exercise science at Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado. My adviser there, Karen Jensen, was the person who first informed me about strength and conditioning coach positions, where people got paid to help men and women become fitter and healthier. From that moment onward I was determined to make a career in this field.

Karen also encouraged me to study nutrition, and I gladly began doing so. Meanwhile, as an athlete I had the opportunity to apply everything I was learning. I was able to put together my growing knowledge of nutrition and exercise science with what I loved to do, and establish a solid foundation for my future work.

In the summer after my final year of college, I took up mountain biking and I started to eat better (not only because I now knew how, but also because I didnt have a pass to the cafeteria anymore!). I dropped from my playing weight of 260 pounds all the way down to 225, becoming leaner than I had ever been. I felt great and I liked the changes I saw in my physique. This experience bolstered my appreciation of the importance of leanness in relation to looking and feeling my best.

In 1997 I received a masters degree in exercise and nutrition from Colorado State University Two years later I became the strength and conditioning coach of the Colorado Avalanche hockey team. Hockey players are tremendous athletes. Working with them has strengthened my belief that form follows function when it comes to improving bodies. These guys are very lean, strong, and healthy, and it all comes as a result of the smart methods they use to train for and fuel performance.

Elite athletes come in all shapes and sizes, but the one thing that nearly all of them have in commonfrom boxers and triathletes to figure skaters and beach volleyball playersis leanness. Sports stars such as golfer Tiger Woods and tennis player Maria Sharapova truly exemplify the Lean Look. And since top athletes are the leanest people around, doesnt it make sense that nonathletes might borrow their methods to achieve the Lean Look for themselves? Its not as daunting as it sounds. Im not talking about quitting your job and working out several hours a day. Im talking about using the most effective nutrition and fitness strategiesthose that athletes swear byand adapting them to your lifestyle.

As the performance director for a new fitness facility in Evergreen, Colorado, I do exactly what Ive just described in my work with many nonath-letesmen and women of all ages, goals, backgrounds, and starting points. Believe it or not, I use essentially the same approach to help a grandmother improve her mobility or an obese teenager get lean as I use to prepare my hockey players to win another Stanley Cup.