Master Your Metabolism : Review
By Leigh Peele
Update: Due to a high volume of complaints and death threats I have written a follow up post which you can see here after you finish the one below.
I am not going to lie, I went into this review looking to rip apart every bit of this book piece by piece. It is no secret my general feelings toward most television and celebrity trainers. I have even spoken particular about Jillian Michaels before in a very…opinionated manner. If you know me at all, and know that I am reviewing this book, then you are going to assume that this isn’t going to be pretty. Well, let’s see shall we?
My Trip to Books-a-Million
I live right by just about everything. With a 12 min walk I have video games, three different grocery stores, two Starbucks, shoes, clothes, bookstores, etc. You name it and I can walk to it in 12 mins. I don’t run, I hate running. If I did though it could be even quicker.
I set out to take a walk up to the bookstore, I got inside, grabbed the book, and headed to the counter.
No one was there.
This is a f**king bookstore. It was dead. It was literally me, a chick drinking coffee 15 feet away in the cafe, and a guy outside smoking a cig. Finally the cafe girl see’s me and calls someone upfront to the register.
She was defensive from the get go.
Question: Why is it when it is other people screw up they think they can deflect it by being a jackass and turning it around on you? That doesn’t work so well on me.
I am standing there, still smiling and being nice, and I give her the book. She asks me if I have a membership card, I say no and not interested, but thank you anyway. She says, “Okay, well just so you know you would have saved $2.34 today.” Really, really you snooty little bitch, really? It is funny that you think after I stood here for 10 mins, and that you gave me attitude about the fact that you are late, that I am going to feel as if my world is crushed knowing that.
Needless to say I didn’t like her. Final point, that is a poor marketing strategy, Godin would not approve.
The First 20 mins of reading
I got home, I curled up next to my pup, and I dove in.
I read fast. I am not a super speed reader, but I can read pretty quickly and have excellent comprehension. Unless very technical I can get through a book pretty fast. The less technical the better my speed. The first sections of this book were basically a quick overview of Jillian’s early years and how she got started, and ultimately what led to her writing a book on Metabolism. It was there my tone changed while reading. My inner monologue got all soft on me. It is hard to hate almost 60% of who you have trained and come to love over the recent years.
That’s right, turns out Jillian was just another of my clan. I saw it before she said it and I knew the whole book, almost word from word before I even read it. I didn’t even need to read it. It has been in my email box forever now. I know how she got there, I know where she THINKS her road now is going to take her, and I know that she is going to end up just as screwed up as before because she still isn’t getting it. Worse, she is selling what she doesn’t get to others who don’t get it. It is the blind leading the blind.
To give a short overview:
Jillian was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism after years of driving herself and body into the ground. Not to mention those poor Biggest Loser contestants. She was living off of 1200 calories a day (she states and stated of tracking), never slept, had high cortisol, etc, etc.
Sound familiar?
What happened? She started eating healthier, stopped overtraining, and some other big things that were left out of the book (drugs more than likely if really hypo) that lets her eat 1800-2000 calories a day now. She still has a sluggish metabolism compared to others but hey, that is life, and she feels better now than before. That is all that matters right?
No Ms, Michaels, you have only got one piece of the puzzle and either you don’t realize how much you take in or you are, and more than likely, putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.
The whole book, “Master Your Metabolism,” was written by someone who is still being the slave to their own. Oh yes, it has a big purple hat and cane and it has you do its bidding.
The Flawed Research and Anecdotal Overload
Most of the book, and really I do mean that, is filled with wrong information on studies, how things work, and personal stories that have no relevance to science in anyway, shape, or form. One of her “ah-ha” moments was when her friend Vanessa got her lab tests back and everything was glowing beautiful. They played the “I do/you do” game and since Vanessa never had a soda or ate junk food, that stuff became the target. OBVIOUSLY this is the answer we were missing all along.
That is the basis. What I want to know is what about the millions and million of people who are fine that eat fat-free potato chips?
From there she gives some studies (that are crap or she didn’t read) backed by book recommendations (that are sketchy, like Ageless by Suzanne Somers). I will highlight some of the majoring glaring flaws below.
The Toxins, oh no not the Toxins
Throw out your make up, your shampoo, your floor cleaners, your plastic containers, etc. Basically anything that you could possible use in a day because it is killing you and making you fat.
The Plastics, oh no not the plastic
I have already covered this recently but the very things she says to avoid have been proven to not have any role in sexual hormone increase in the body.
Organic, for the win!
If you don’t eat organic, you are a bad bad person with a bad bad thyroid.
White is the new death
Yep, no white again for the win!
In short, it is the book for the utter most paranoid people there can be about what is in their foods. If you are looking for a book that is going to (wrongly) feed into your fears about what you do everyday in your life and make you afraid of leaving your house or even to be in your house in the first place, this book is for you.
My closing points
I feel bad for Jillian. Not in a cocky or condescending manner, but because I have known women like her for a long time and they get so tunneled vision on the bad that everything is going to to around you that they can’t live and enjoy life.
News Flash: This world is not safe, the sweet potatoes can hurt you as much as the twinkie given the right cough or contact with the wrong bacteria, and most people are sick, fat, and sad because of what they do to themselves, not because of what is done to us.
Now wait, there is a shiny point…
So the f**k what?! Who cares? All you can do is be as happy as you can be and take care of the self the best you can. Do I have a problem with playing it safe on the off chance that things could be worse than we know now? Nope, but call a spade a spade, we don’t know and what we do know says so far, it doesn’t matter. You teaching people things as absolutes and not reading the research for what it is just causes more harm than good.
My biggest bone to pick though goes beyond this book. I want to close with a final statement/question for Jillian Michaels and who knows, she might just see it.
Final Question: If you found out now and understand that extremely intense overtraining mixed with poor nutrition is a recipe for disaster then what the hell are you doing on the Biggest Loser or taking apart in any of that kind of training? I know how long it takes for a book to come out, this wasn’t an overnight thing Jillian. You are on the show right now as I type this and contract or no contract, what you are doing to those people is wrong, you seem to know this now, but yet you don’t care.
In fact, in a recent interview you talk about how you may be quitting the show, but not because you realize that it may be unhealthy, not because you can’t stand the contestants.
Update: I have addressed some of the specific study issues that were raised in the forums in more detail about the plastics, organics, etc. If you want more information on that there.
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To learn how to REALLY help out your problems with overtraining and slow metabolic behavior you can check out the Metabolic Repair Manual as apart of The Fat Loss Troubleshoot package available now for immediate download here.
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