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Choose More, Lose More for Life

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Transform Your Body, Transform Your Life!

Each season, millions of viewers tune in to see Chris Powell lead extraordinary transformations on ABC's breakout hit reality-transformation show, Extreme Weight Loss. Now, building on the basic weight-loss philosophy introduced in his bestselling book Choose to Lose, Chris has created a transformation plan anyone can follow--one that recognizes that no weight-loss journey is the same, and that more options mean longer-lasting results.

At the center of Chris Powell's Choose More, Lose More for Life is Chris's carb-cycling plan, which kicks your metabolism into full gear by alternating between low- and high-carb days. Never carb-cycled before? No problem. Powell provides all the information you need to get started and see immediate results. Been carb-cycling but need to shake things up? This book provides four different cycles--Easy, Classic, Turbo, and Fit--to help you find a plan that fits you.

Chris also understands that weight loss plateaus when we get bored. So in this book, he focuses on choices--including more than twenty new workouts called Nine-Minute Missions--that pack maximum results into minimal time. He also offers more delicious and easy recipes to keep you eating well, more tracking logs to keep you motivated, and more success stories to inspire you as you write your own--one that lasts for the rest of your life!

"If you want results--if you want to lose that weight and transform your life¯you need to stop thinking about it and get going! You hold in your hand the map to an incredible path to success, and I'll be right beside you 100 percent, cheering you all the way to your finish line. You're choosing to make a healthy change, and I'm choosing you. It's going to be a wonderful journey for both of us!"

- Shape Your Body in Just Nine Minutes Each Day

- Find a Carb Cycle That's Made for You

- Build in Cheat Days to Enjoy Foods You Love

- Eat Carbs to Lose Weight

- Transform Your Body, One Success at a Time

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

25 people are currently reading
297 people want to read

About the author

Chris Powell

68 books19 followers

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5 stars
132 (27%)
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191 (39%)
3 stars
120 (25%)
2 stars
28 (5%)
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8 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
Profile Image for Leenda dela Luna.
98 reviews6 followers
August 16, 2013
Meh. Carb-cycling is new to me - I have no idea if it would work for me.

The book repeats itself a LOT. Could have been about 1/2 the size, or less.

I'm highly frustrated by the "you hate yourself for being fat" statements.

The workout plans are a great idea but most involve knee bending. Most overweight people have knee problems... so the workouts are very doable and, therefore, not likely to be done on a regular basis. I'm 2.5 yrs into repairing my knees (gone from being on crutches full time and unable to step up 3" to doing 16" box steps) and am still unable to do the vast majority of the exercises listed (mountain climbers, burpees, squats, lunges, thrusts, down & ups, etc). I'll stick with my personal trainer.
Profile Image for Jessica.
380 reviews33 followers
August 18, 2013
Inspirational part of this book is great, but the diet part is really confusing.
Profile Image for Sarah Elizabeth.
5,002 reviews1,411 followers
own-but-unlikely-to-read
August 11, 2016
This book is so freaking confusing. And I'm sorry, but I want to eat cereal for breakfast - I don't want to have to cook, or eat vegetables! And 5 meals a day? I can't cook 5 meals a day!
Profile Image for Adrienna.
Author 18 books242 followers
June 3, 2015
This read was easier, understandable, and seeing charts to help with his overall diet program. It has high carb/low carb days, even reward days. It kind of reminds me of Dolvett Quince's "3-1-2-1" diet on some levels. But he allows you to eat 1200 on low carb day and high carb 1500 but it also includes whole grains, pasta prob whole grain, and didn't recall reading potatoes but I like red/Yukon golden?! The exercise 9-minute workouts also relates to Dolvett's; so I will just do my "Biggest Loser" DVDs I have which are intervals of circuit training already as he recommends in his book too. Not sure if I will try it, but did write the simplified methods: easy, classic, turbo, and fit. I am in the classic one based on what is suggested; easy is for those who do not like to follow diets. My issue is temptation of some foods or moods that would take me off track from time to time. Men do not consider women's monthly that we crave things that are not surely on any fitness-trainer's diet.

I do know that I already fluctuate in calorie count on MyFitnessPal from 1500-1800, so I do need to eat less to see weight loss. But I do more than 9 min workouts that may be up to 27 minutes or so with intervals; I do usually 45-50 minutes 4 days a week and trying to move back up to 5-6 days. I go to gym for cardio dance hip hop on Mondays, machines (strength training) on Tuesdays, Cardio kickboxing on Wednesdays, may go back to either pilates (strength train) or cardio dance on Thursdays (now has been rest day for the past month), cardio dance hip hop on Fridays, and walk on either Saturday/Sunday (nature walk) or running errands. But gym 4 days a week for sure. Now Saturdays a trainer wants me to come to his class cardio kickboxing on Saturdays. Each class is 50 minutes. Sometimes I do a biggest loser 8 min circuit training DVD up to 32 min total, max is 56. So since I am not seeing weight loss but seems like gain (and doing this exercise regimen for 2-3 months), going back to walking in mornings and workouts at nights, and/or need to work on calories! I am apparently eating too much! Smoothie diets can add up to 1800 calories, I know, I did it last week (only fruits and veggies).

So now doing H Burn (hormonal burn) since seems to be my issue. 10 days. If digestive system is still bad, do that for 5 days called D burn from the BURN book by Hayley P.

Otherwise, I might have to get on his show or Biggest Loser after this year of trial and error. I joined the gym in Feb 2015.

Leisure read 2015
Profile Image for Teri.
41 reviews1 follower
October 27, 2013
I'm a big fan of the show "Extreme Weight Loss" which airs on ABC. I kept thinking as I watched the show that Chris Powell looked familiar and with a little searching on the web I realized he was the trainer who worked with the man on the documentary "The 400 Pound Virgin" that I had watched a few years ago. Chris has such great enthusiasm and energy it's hard not to get pumped up when watching him on TV. That energy and enthusiasm comes through in his book too.

The first part of the book deals with transformation and how to go about making a personal transformation that will help you with your weight loss endeavors. The book gives 4 different plans each of which follow a carb cycling system (low carb and high carb days). It also lays out two different forms of exercise, both cardio and strength training. I'm an avid exerciser and do strength training consistently and Chris's nine minute missions caused sweating, huffing and puffing, self talk to help me get through the 9 minutes and some sore muscles. That being said, if you are a beginner the book lays out exercises for you as well so the workouts are good for both beginners and those who already workout. I have moved on to different strength workouts, but I still use his cardio interval workout plan switching every week the duration of my intervals in my cardio workouts.

I would have given the book five stars because I thought the information in it was excellent, but some of the layout seemed a bit confusing. I already had a bit of experience with carb cycling, but when I first read through that section it didn't seem as simple as it really is. After studying the book for awhile everything came into focus and it made perfect sense, but I just wondered if someone new to wanting to eat healthy would understand it before they gave up and moved on to a different book.
Profile Image for Noah Bourdeu.
39 reviews11 followers
March 26, 2016
This is the first book by Chris Powell that I have read and I was really impressed with the amount of content that he covers, think of it as a workout plan, eating strategy, and recipe guide all-in-one. Like most people I was familiar with Chris from his show Extreme Weight Loss with his wife Heidi. I really love both of their energy and enthusiasm, which is what attracted me to learn more about their methods, specifically Carb Cycling. I had always been skeptical of cutting out Carbs, but Chris's method only has you cutting out carbs for a day or two at the most. This makes sense to me seeing as how carbs are a essential Macro Nutrient that your body requires. He also offers several methods, making this book very flexible and able to meet everyone's needs, ranging from top-level athletes to the morbidly obese.

The training outlined in the book is very piratical, however, be warned, it is also very demanding. It focuses on HIIT and Tabata training principles. The nutrition section was also very helpful to me, it gives you a great idea of what you should be eating, however, not much information on how much, which took me a bit of research to find out.

If you are overweight and want to lose weight in a healthy and controlled manner, I believe this book will benefit you a lot.
Profile Image for Kristina.
165 reviews
April 4, 2016
First off, I love Chris Powell with a passion. I think he is a genius in all things fitness. I adore his show and have no doubt that his program works wonders. For that reason, I am going to do my best to review this as a book and not review his plan.

I felt there was a lot of "fluff" that was unnecessary. There were a lot of "You can do it! It is so much fun! And because it is fun, you can do it!" over and over. This made it seem very redundant to read. The success stories were enough to demonstrate that this program can be successful without all the extra "cheerleading" going on. The cheerleading seemed to take away from the actual plan. You read 30 pages of cheerleading building up to a two-page instruction of the plan. I would rather of had a 12 page pamphlet detailing the outline of the program without all the extra stuff. Additionally, I didn't like that it talked about exercise and then nutrition. I felt it should have been the other way around since his plan revolves around carb-cycling.

Like I said before, the plan seems perfectly doable, simple to follow and implement, and covers all the important aspects of weight loss. I recommend reading the book for the program, but it might be better to skip straight to the plan.
Profile Image for Michelle Cohen.
19 reviews3 followers
December 10, 2013
I picked up this book after watching my friend lose a tremendous amount of weight on the Extreme Weight loss show. I breezed right through the book, placing bookmarks along the way. If you do want to follow the cycle plans, you must prep your food ahead of time. I find it easy to drink a protein shake for one of the meals to help with planning time. Besides the reduced caloric intake, this is pretty much how normal people should eat: without processed junk.

What I didn't expect from the book is help with an emotional purging of my past. I thought I was just going to get down to the basics of a new diet and here I figured out that I am worth it. My previous thoughts were that others came before my own well being. Now I set time aside to use the gym and I have my daughters prep food with me. (they like to, I swear!) A happier mom= happier kiddos.

So not only does Chris take the time to teach you several different carb cycles, he teaches you how to let go and to see the positive aspects of your life.
Profile Image for Ashley Musick.
17 reviews3 followers
May 26, 2016
I was intrigued by the information I had read on carb cycling and decided to give it a try. I read this book to get a good game plan for my month long trial run. I appreciate the well-rounded system that Chris puts into the book. Along with detailing carb cycling, he also gives you some recipes, a ton of workout plans and guides, and obviously charts and details for various carb cycling plans. This is good.

Still the book doesn't seem to answer all my questions. Some of my questions are pretty obvious. I keep returning to the book to look for clarifications and look up information on the workouts. I even go to their blog looking around. It feels choppy and some things are hard to find. More organization and a better reference section would help me.

Overall I think it's a nice introduction. Still, I think all of the information could be better organized in the book and more details should be added in lieu of rehashing thoughts or instructions.

Now we wait and see if there are results.....
Profile Image for Suzie Waltner.
Author 13 books148 followers
September 25, 2013
I feel like this book had a lot of the same information a lot of other books have in it but Chris Powell put them all together. Yes, it's a good thing to track your food, exercise, eat every few hours, eat a combination of protein, complex carbs and fat. A lot of his success stories were from people from the show (Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition) so I felt like I had already heard those stories.

His 9-minute movement workouts end up being 15 minutes when you factor in the warm up and cool down he strongly suggests you do.

Overall, I feel like this plan is too complicated for my life right now and would require a lot of prep work so I'll stick to what has worked for me (calorie deficit and exercise).
Profile Image for Kristen.
497 reviews
February 4, 2014
Carb cycling makes sense to me as far as the science of it goes...it does seem like a lot to keep track of while you are learning how to do it. I read this book because I was curious about carb cycling and some experiences I've had with up'ing my calories one day and resuming a lower calorie content the next. What he says follows with what I've experienced. I don't know if I'm in need of following his cycling to a 't', but I love to read different philosophies and I can see how I'll incorporate a lot of what he's said into my own eating habits.
Profile Image for Heidi.
116 reviews
July 25, 2014
I think the world of the Powell Pack and their contribution to the world of health and fitness. This book provided a wealth of knowledge and it as a plan that clearly gets results. As an insulin dependent diabetic, this would be one of the worst plans I could follow (my doctor agrees). Diabetics depend on a specific amount of carbohydrates per day and base their insulin intake on those carbohydrates. With that being said, this is just my particular situation. Read the book, consult a doctor and move forward. Best of luck!
Profile Image for Amethyst.
51 reviews41 followers
November 28, 2014
I find it hard to rate this book, because as books go, it has a lot of exclamation points. However, under the supervision of Powell Metabolics I began carb cycling last week, and overall it seems sensible. I like the idea of personal transformation, and making promises to oneself and keeping them. All of that makes sense. I would recommend getting a hard copy of the book because on my kindle the images were too small to see well and I couldn't figure out how to make them bigger, and the charts and ages were helpful.
Profile Image for Monja.
287 reviews7 followers
August 5, 2013
I really liked this book and found it very easy to read and understand. I am beginning this program of carb cycling -- where your daily meals (5 per day) are either high carb or low carb, with workouts in the morning (9 intense minutes) and a shredder exercise any time after that. The meal ideas look good and since today is my first day, I will not be able to critique them completely; however, so far today, they are filling and tasty. More later.
15 reviews
January 28, 2014
I think his approach to the habits of lifestyle change and not just diet and exercise ideas was really refreshing. I think that reading his first book prior to reading this would make reading this even more substantial in its progression.

Make sure you stop and actually do the interactive questions at the beginning..write it down!

I plan to purchase this book as a reference even if I don't end up following carb cycling to a T! So many valuable charts and pieces of information!
Profile Image for Samantha Carter.
61 reviews1 follower
December 31, 2014
I got this book because I'm interested in Carb Cycling. Yes, it repeats itself a lot, BUT let's face it... If you have weight problems, you've already heard everything a million times, and it has yet to get through (says the girl who gained back half of the weight she lost in the first place) our thick skulls.

Overall, a great reference book, and I'm sure I'll be looking back at it several times as questions arise.

Here's to getting back in my size 4's in 2015!!!
Profile Image for Stina Roberts.
43 reviews1 follower
October 13, 2014
Really helpful techniques and suggestions for working on mental barriers to successful lifestyle change and weight loss. While there is a lot of food prep overall in this plan, I have found that doing one or two bulk prep days a week makes carb cycling and eating five times a day totally doable for my husband and I. Due to a current injury, I haven't been able to try the workouts yet but I'm looking forward to it once I've recovered more fully.
Profile Image for Annie.
31 reviews3 followers
August 18, 2013
I have read a ton of nutrition books and this one was by far the most motivating. I can understand why his clients get such amazing results. I've never really known the ins and outs of carb cycling and I thought it was really interesting and plan to try it. Great book for anyone regardless of fitness level.
Profile Image for Valerie Gonzales.
8 reviews3 followers
September 3, 2013
I think this is a very motivational book. It has helped me to become a believer in carb cycling and a can do attitude. I now do get up and exercise and eat within my first 30 min. I now drink the water my body requires and am feeling better. I'm glad I decided to buy this book and give it a try. Chris has given me tools to use, and now I use them to better myself.
Profile Image for Samantha Rosse.
60 reviews8 followers
March 28, 2024
I found this book very inspirational and easy to understand. Chris gave me a ton of hope that I like many others, can lose weight! I am very happy that I went and picked up this book. I've never learned so much from just a book before. This is a definite read for everyone trying to lose weight or find a new weight loss regime!
Profile Image for Rosemary Lugo.
3 reviews
September 8, 2013
If you have gone thru several diets and never finish them or have finished the diet lost weight and gained it back this is the book for you! Carb cycling is a way to lose the weight and it shows you how to change your lifestyle. Must read, especially if you want to Change your lifestyle and your families!
Profile Image for Katie.
22 reviews
May 7, 2014
Going to give Carb Cycling a shot. Though the layout of the book seems cumbersome. The 9 Minute Missions should have been layed out with pictures or guides to remind you of the exercises. Instead you are flipping back and forth throughout the book to piece together the appropriate exercises. Get a few sticky note flags to help you stay organized.
Profile Image for Leanne.
226 reviews1 follower
July 6, 2014
3 stars if you've read Choose to Lose - a lot of repeated info. A few tweaks make the book worth a quick skim. If you haven't read Choose to Lose, I'd actually start with that one. He says he simplified things in this new book but I actually find it to be more complicated. The recommended exercises in the earlier book seem like a better fit for a beginner.
Profile Image for Angie Libert.
342 reviews22 followers
July 11, 2014
The author is certainly not a nutritionist, so he has some really wonky dietary suggestions. As an exercise specialist, I like how he keeps his workout short. I think that his exercise experience is also what fueled his carb cycling methodology. It would have been nice if he would have explained the science behind his carb cycling methodology though.
Profile Image for Valerie.
28 reviews
December 4, 2013
Two weeks in and I've not been able to actually get the workout and breakfast done within 30 minutes of waking up. It takes a lot of meal planning and food prep to follow the eating but it can be done if you want it bad enough.
Profile Image for Jenna.
Author 38 books436 followers
November 13, 2013
Alternate between high carb and low carb days. More low carb to lose more weight. If weight stalls, eat high carb to slingshot your weight loss. Exercise daily - lifestyle cardio & bodyweight strength training.
Profile Image for Heather Love.
16 reviews1 follower
December 16, 2013
Absolutely wonderful read. Easy to understand and be motivated to take baby steps in changing your lifestyle over to a healthier way of living. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Profile Image for Nicole.
140 reviews
December 29, 2013
This book is even better than his first - more complete with more flexibility. You could read this one and skip the other one altogether. I'm planning to give carb-cycling - the backbone of the program - a try sometime soon!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews

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