Book review: Harley Pasternak's "Five Pounds"

WalkingAlong

Anyone read this? I like to keep up on the latest diet/fitness books. In this one, HP outlines a plan for the long haul that involves five basic rules:

1- Aim to walk 10,000 steps a day
2- Do 5 minutes of resistance training a day. He says do one exercise per day, and lists 14, and a simple training regimen (3 sets, 20 reps, etc.)
3- Get 7 hours uninterrupted sleep per night
4- Unplug for one hour a day
5- Eat 3 meals and 2 snacks a day, roughly every 3 hours, each including protein, 'fibrous carbs' (produce or whole grains) and healthy fats. Give yourself around 2 cheat meals a week.

At the end of the day you journal just a yes/no to each of the five things. He suggests weighing monthly. I think the book title is referring to how most of us are either working on those first 5 or last 5 lbs., so often.

Things I like: Simple, unintimidating, no complex rules, makes basic sense, focus on walking and NEAT, I like the small daily resistance component, flexible, realistic for the long term.

Things I didn't like: Eating 5 times a day means pretty small meals for many of us. He's pretty into low fat foods like egg whites and nonfat dairy. Some of the usual diet book cliches- "Rev up your metabolism", etc. Some misrepresented info ("a pound of muscle may burn 10-50 calories more than a pound of fat"). If I'm going to do only 7-14 resistance exercises a week, one of them isn't going to be tricep extensions. I'd sub push-ups. No unitaskers!

Obviously, this is not a suggestion and it differs from the MFP plan (and dogma), but different things appeal to different people. If anyone's bored with strict logging and wants to try something new, it might be a fun one.