Book Review: Run Your Butt Off

RUN YOUR BUTT OFF

A Breakthrough Plan to Lose Weight and Start Running

By:  Sarah Lorge Butler, Leslie Bonci, and Budd Coates

Published: March 15, 2011

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Shed unwanted pounds and keep them off ONCE AND FOR ALL with Run YourButt Off!, a back-to-basics, test panel–approved weight-loss plan and beginners’ running program that yields sustainable, healthy results. The Run Your Butt Off! program is founded on the simple concept that in order to lose weight, calories burned must exceed calories consumed. No gimmicks, no shortcuts, no silver bullets can circumvent that reality. With this program, you’ll learn to burn fat from both sides of the weight-loss equation—the calories in and the calories out—at the same time. Run Your Butt Off! will make you fitter, stronger , and leaner .

This book is aimed at non-runners who would like to learn how to begin running.  Th book featured a target group of people who tested the system.  Different chapters of the book featured what things worked for that member of the test panel as well as for other beginning runners.  I appreciated their honesty and the struggles, as well as, successes that they shared.  

This book gives you a very clear workout plan to begin running.  You start with walking for 30 minutes straight and work in more running each week, or however long it takes you to feel ready to move to the next step of the workout.

I ran/walked a 5K in June so I am obviously ahead of week 1 already, but I truly appreciated the explanation that running doesn't necessarily mean fast.  I think I have been trying to push myself to run faster, but I can still get just as good of a workout in running at my walking rate or a tad faster.  I am anxious to see if this extends my time that I can run.  

The steps into full-on 30 minute running are gradual and at your own pace which I appreciate.  The book also gives lot of websites and tracking journals for you to use.  A lot of the book also includes nutrition tips and heavily encourages you to keep a food journal.   As a new runner, I am not always sure what is the best to eat/drink before and after a run and this book explains all of that.

I really appreciated the tips in this book and had a few Aha! moments.  I am anxious to really get started with this plan because it is one of the few that really feels manageable.  

I read this book on my Kindle, but I almost wish I had this book in hand because of the workbooks and journals it includes.  I can go online and print them off though, which I appreciate.  

If you have never been a runner, want to get back into running, or are just curious about eating right and working out, I highly recommend this book.  "Those first few steps are a leap of faith."  Won't you take the leap with me?  I will keep you posted on how it is going for me.