Lose It!: The Personalized Weight Loss Revolution [Paperback]

I had the advantage of having used the loseit app for 9 months prior to buying this book, and both my wife and myself had lost 85 lbs each in this time period, even though we don't even eat the same foods. Prior to this program, neither my wife or myself had ever been able to lose a significant amount of weight, and indeed, I thought that I had reached the point of no return. So I had already known in a powerful way what the book "Lose It" was going to say, but I still bought 2 copies. The book makes the powerful point that the act of counting and recording calories consumed makes a person accountable for what they eat, and then it becomes very clear to them how to cut their calorie intake just a bit in order to create a calorie deficit. Most people I talk to still don't understand or get why this is so powerful, but I know from personal experience that it works BIG TIME. If you read the book, and use the app and be honest with yourself, you WILL lose weight, and a lot of weight. The book also makes the point that people overestimate how much weight that they think they can lose in the short term, and underestimate how much weight that they think they can lose in the long term. But I am living proof that a lot of weight can be lost in the longer term by sticking with the small changes that a person makes with their calorie intake.

But in order for it to work, you really have to know how many calories you should be eating to lose weight for a person of your age, weight, height, and gender. This is where the app and/or website can help you by constantly recalculating your calorie needs as you lose weight, and reminding you on a daily, hourly basis of where you stand. I've astonished myself with my own success, so was very excited about getting the book to learn absolutely every idea I could find related to this topic, and after reading the book I still learned a lot of new things that will be valuable to me in the new year.

I own 9 books on losing weight, but I consider this book my crown jewel centerpiece of all of them that ties them all together in a very powerful meaningful way. All of the weight loss tips that people read about constantly are useless if they are not put into the context of an overall eating plan that monitors every last bite of food that you put into your mouth. Without a calorie counting plan, you are flying blind and are unlikely to succeed in a significant way.

What should have been hammered home a bit harder in the book was the huge resource that the app is in terms of keeping track of calories vs simply writing them down. I could never have achieved this weight loss by writing things down because I would have never been able to keep all the paper handy, and it would have been very tedious to get the information quickly. The app works because it makes this task very streamlined, such that after you build up your food database with the foods that you eat, you can log it all in in a few seconds. The app does the math, has a huge database of food to look calories up, and it summarizes a lot of information effortlessly. That makes it EASY PEASY to track and record a mountain of valuable food information. Using the app/website, I've been able to record everything that I've eating in the past 9 months, and that is a VERY POWERFUL IMPORTANT database. Prior to 2010, I had no clue what I was eating in terms of calories, or why I was eating too much or where the problem areas were. Once you start tracking it, it all becomes very clear, and you learn how to make smarter choices. The book points out this powerful truth, and I know from experience that it is 100% true.

Another thing that I like about this book is that they stick to the truth, and don't try to spew out a lot of weight loss nonsense. All of the information is valid as far as I can see. With this book, the reader the "trick" of losing weight will immediately become clear. Prior to encountering these ideas, I was stuck navigating through a lot of "noise" in the weight loss world, basically just navigating with a hope and a prayer. Weight loss tips without a centrally managed overall calorie tracking eating plan are basically useless and this is what keeps people fat.

There are a lot of inspiring examples in the book of how some small changes made to a person's diet will add up to significant weight loss in the long term. I have experienced this first hand, and it is very exciting to see fat fly off your body as the weeks and months go by.

This is NOT just another weight loss book to be buried in with lots of other weight loss books advocating this or that. This should be the CROWN JEWEL CENTER PIECE WEIGHT LOSS BOOK The authors of this book are much too modest. This book is an extremely valuable powerful tool that explains why calorie counting is a necessity in today's world, why it works, and how to do it. What is not emphasized enough is why the "loseit" app/website is such a wonderful resource. Once a person makes loseit.com their home on the net, and makes it a part of their life, THEN all the other books on weight loss make sense, and will also help them reach their goal. But weight loss tips, and tips on exercise in and of themselves without a total overall CENTRALLY FOCUSED MONITORED CALORIE EATING PLAN are pretty much useless, since your brain and body will find a way to defeat your best efforts if you are flying blind. A lot of would be weight loss candidates don't seem to understand or accept this, and it is their downfall. You can know all the weight loss tips in the world, but you still have to face the same question every day: "what am I going to eat today?". If you don't know whether or not you can eat that nice piece of chocolate cake, you are likely to either deprive yourself of it and later over indulge, or over indulge and eat the chocolate cake plus 3 butter tarts. You start to relax once you calculate that you can in fact eat the chocolate cake and still lose weight because you know exactly where you stand. You'll know exactly what your calorie deficit is today, this week, and this month. You'll be able to see concrete results, and that's what it is all about.

If a person reads this book, uses the iphone/ipod app, or uses the loseit website, or another similar calorie counting website, things will start to fall in place, and THEN they will be able to make sense of all of the other weight loss books and tips out there. It is as though a veil is lifted away from their eyes, and they can see very clearly what all of their mistakes were, often little mistakes, and it will be strong incentive to make the changes that will result in significant weight loss.

At the beginning of 2010, I thought that I was a hopeless case, and that this sort of weight loss for me was impossible or else something that I could never do until I retired and basically lived in the gym. I never started until April 1st of 2010, and then I just started playing with the loseit app hoping that maybe I could lose 10 lbs. I never in my wildest dreams thought that I'd be able to shave off 85 pounds off my body. This little app and website suddenly revolutionized my entire life. It's THAT important, that simple, and that POWERFUL. This book works best when used with the loseit.com website, and together, they are a super powerful weightloss secret weapon. Those who don't understand this will probably remain fat, and in awe of those who do finally learn this.

Weight loss is a lot more about INFORMATION than it is about will power. People who don't understand this try too hard, thinking that they can force their way to slimness. You can't force your way down to significant weight loss because your instincts will get the best of you. The trick is to slowly drain off the fat such that you don't even notice that you're cutting back ever so slightly. The road to success because clear once you have a blueprint in front of you.

I've never been overweight and I went on Lose It! in November 2010 to lose 17 lbs. I just want to get out of the high end of a normal weight range into the low end of a normal weight range.

I lost 7 lbs in the first 2 months, and I'll reach my goal in 3 more months.

The Lose It! App is excellent and very easy to use!

The Lose It! book is filled with solid strategies supported by statistics for weight loss, such as:

*Calorie reduction leads to weight loss, and if a fad diet works it's because there is calorie reduction involved.

*Calorie reduction is most important, and exercise helps a lot, too.

*Nearly half of Americans underestimate the calories they eat in a day, and many overestimate the calories used in exercise/work.

These are things I liked about the book:

*It made it clear that when given the right tool for weight loss (the power to really and easily track each calorie) we can!

*Chapter One is subtitled Calories Unmasked, and points out we can make educated decisions: A Starbuck's Grande Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha Espresso is 500 calories; 1 slice of Meat Lover's Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut is 480 calories, etc.

*Chapter Three, subtitled Unleashing Your Inner Athlete, is excellent and includes suggested routines as well as photos of certain exercises. If you need some fundamentals on working out, and some solid routines here it is.

*Chapter Five is Identify Your Type with some solutions to these problems. This was interesting, here they are:
1. The Weekender lives by the book all week and throws it out the window on the weekend.
2. The Calorie Drinker believes that liquids don't count so thinks the large coke at 400 calories is nothing (they suggest mixing 1/4 coke with 3/4 diet coke).
3. The Low Hanging Food Grabber gets calories where they are left out at work, at home, at a friends, leftovers from the kids, etc.
4. The Stress Eater. Enough said.
5. The Judger isn't losing weight and thinks it can't happen to them. Chances are it has to do with portion size, nibbling, overestimating calories exercised, etc.

The book is filled with solid and excellent ideas. There are success stories in it, such as people losing over 100 lbs, how they did it, and how they feel empowered to keep it off.

The Lose It! Application works. If you are going through a lifestyle change, get the book, too! If you are already up to date and healthy with your diet and exercise, it's not really needed.

I've been using the free App on my iPhone already; which works fantastically. Then I read the book which adds another weapon to my weight loss arsenal!

The book takes a wonderfully sensible, no-nonsense approach to gaining back control over my food choices. I've already lost 9 lbs, and know it's only the beginning! The App is a powerful tool, but the book backs it up with knowledge & know-how. (Thank you, especially for including success stories, easy tweaks to make that add up to big results & info re: busting plateaus!)

I bought the book to read on my iPhone, so whenever I need a boost of motivation, it's right there in my hand along with the App. Thank you for giving me the tools to make smart, responsible decisions that lead to success!! Margo

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