Review of Belinda Benn's Get Lean Program By Ted Landry of CriticalBench.com
Belinda Benn is an Aussie who lives in Panama. She describes herself as a fitness model with a love of surfing, competing in the Australian Open Surf Masters in 2003. She also loves boxing and has trained under the Grand Master Vince Palumbo (IKBBF Middleweight World Pro-Boxing Champion). One look at her photos and you'll see that Belinda is a truly beautiful woman with an incredible body. Any woman would be envious of her but here's the amazing thing—she's 47 years old and is seriously hot.
By her own admission she didn't start exercising until she was 37, when she decided she wanted to take up surfing. Belinda's Get Lean program is based on her personal experiences and outlines the process she went through to develop the fantastic body she has today. The book includes here Get Lean Action Plan, her 3-Phase Fat Burning System, her secrets to success, and more. Let's take a look at her program and see what it's all about.
Belinda says that the goals of her Get Lean program are to help you to: eat to burn fat efficiently; better understand your own personal metabolism; learn healthy eating habit s to help control your future body fat levels; and record and measure your progress for future improvements.
She opens the book by providing some background information and an overview of her approach towards diet and exercise. She also discusses her ten secrets to success. One look at these and you'll see that she is absolutely right on the mark with each of them. This first section is wrapped up with information about food, nutrition and protein supplementation.
In Part 2, Belinda outlines the basics of the Get Lean program. Here, you basically learn the framework for implementation. The plan is spread out over three phases, each of which lasts for one month. Phase 1 is Momentum, where you begin the process of increasing your fat burning metabolism. Phase 2 is Acceleration, which helps reduce your body fat percentage while simultaneously maintaining your energy levels. Lastly, Phase 3 is Peak, which is where you will achieve your 'ideal physique.'
This section outlines everything you need to know including tracking progress, supplementation, self-monitoring, sleep, short- and long-term rewards and tracking progress. Here she's also got a great section on the 'fat burning zone,' which is one of her 'secrets to success.' Belinda has devised a formula that identifies the target heart rate that will put you in your ideal fat burning zone.
The next section provides a day-by-day guide to carrying out Phase I of the program. I love the way Belinda has gone to great lengths to make following the program as simple as possible. Each day is completely laid out for you. For each day of the month, she provides recommendations for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She also includes suggestions for three snack times spread throughout the day. On each page she provides a handy diary so you can chart your progress along the way. She provides daily forms for all three phases of the program.
Part 4 of the book provides the Get Lean Program Food & Recipe Guide. Here, you learn how to prepare the meals that are mentioned in the daily charts. One of the things I noticed in the guides is that whenever Belinda recommends a particular dish in her daily charts, she references the page number where you can find the recipe in Part 4 of the book. This is a great reference and makes following the program even easier.
This section of the book is well organized and like the rest of the guide, it's very easy to follow. Some of the topics she covers in the opening pages of the book include: getting organized in the kitchen; strategies for 'staying lean' in the supermarket; and weekly and monthly shopping guides so you'll have everything you need on hand. A food substitution guide and a 'low glycemic food guide are two nice additions to the book.
The recipes are organized by category and provide a nice range of options that will suit just about anyone's taste buds. For those of us who are put off by lengthy lists of rare and hard-to-find ingredients, there are no worries. None of the recipes are overly complicated and none require any out-of-the-ordinary ingredients or special cooking skills.
I'm happy to say that I can highly recommend Belinda Benn's Get Lean Program. Her approach is both sensible and practical. And for you guys, just because the book is written by a woman, it doesn't mean it won't work for you. She has not written this to necessarily be a gender-specific approach. So ladies and gentlemen—feel free to dive in and get lean.
