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Diet and Fitness Explained
Ever wished you could eat whatever fast food you liked, take no exercise, and be slim and healthy? Well you can't. But you can do the next best thing, which is to enjoy healthy food even more than you enjoy fast food, and enjoy exercising even more than you enjoy sitting on the sofa. Diet and Fitness Explained is the book that gets under the skin of our eating habits, and provides a simple, easy to understand guide to the entire riddle of diet and fitness.
213 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 23, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
August 9, 2018
Brilliant
Another absolutely amazing book by William Porter. I first read alcohol explained and was blown away by the research there.
This book diet and fitness explained contains so much vital information. It’s not about being perfect but having the knowledge to make better choices. I must say I loved the bit about a coffee first thing in the morning.
I now love my sobriety lifestyle and am feeling the best version I can following your advice. I have exercised regularly for years not only for the physical benefits but the mental benefits.
I bought this book on kindle read it and now ordered in paperback.
Well done William you are a genius in this field.
Another absolutely amazing book by William Porter. I first read alcohol explained and was blown away by the research there.
This book diet and fitness explained contains so much vital information. It’s not about being perfect but having the knowledge to make better choices. I must say I loved the bit about a coffee first thing in the morning.
I now love my sobriety lifestyle and am feeling the best version I can following your advice. I have exercised regularly for years not only for the physical benefits but the mental benefits.
I bought this book on kindle read it and now ordered in paperback.
Well done William you are a genius in this field.
February 22, 2019
Helped break years of bad habits
I’ve been eating until I was “full” for all of my adult life. One of the key points of this book is to simply stop eating as soon as you realize you are no longer hungry. The author drives this and other points home with sound logic and reasoning in a way that even my food-loving subconscious can understand. This book changed the way I look at eating and my relationship with food. If you struggle with overeating or just want to improve your health, this book is a must-read.
I’ve been eating until I was “full” for all of my adult life. One of the key points of this book is to simply stop eating as soon as you realize you are no longer hungry. The author drives this and other points home with sound logic and reasoning in a way that even my food-loving subconscious can understand. This book changed the way I look at eating and my relationship with food. If you struggle with overeating or just want to improve your health, this book is a must-read.
January 12, 2020
Recommended
This book --by explaining physiological processes --allowed me to formulate a rationale and motivation to do what I have always known I needed to do for my body.
This book --by explaining physiological processes --allowed me to formulate a rationale and motivation to do what I have always known I needed to do for my body.
March 22, 2020
I came to this off the back of "Alcohol Explained", which is one of the more useful books I've ever read, and this one is pretty awful. Not offensive, not even wrong exactly. Just thin. It doesn't say much.
There's a section on how certain foods are hard on your digestive system that starts to get interesting and then stops. The fitness material is basic to the point of being useless. Anyone with any real interest in the subject will find nothing here they didn't already know, and I kept waiting for the thing Porter does well and it never arrived.
He was a paratrooper, so he isn't unfamiliar with being fit. He'd have passed a genuinely hard selection and held a standard for years. But having done hard training is not the same as understanding why it works, and this book is the distance between the two. A soldier follows a programme somebody else designed.
Which made me think about why the alcohol book works, because the contrast is the useful part. There he had twenty-five years inside the subject and a model he'd built to save his own life. He cited nothing and it didn't much matter, because the explanation was right and he'd paid for it. Here he's a bright man with an interest in staying healthy, applying the same condense-and-explain method to a field where he has no particular purchase. What comes out is assertion.
And the missing citations stop being survivable. One reader who likes his other books. And who says he has no problem with diet or fitness himself and was hoping for more, which is exactly my complaint from someone friendly to Porter. Notes that he brushes aside the scientific literature on nutrition. I can't confirm that from memory, but it fits what's on the page. Not footnoting a model you can personally vouch for is one thing. Waving away the evidence base of a subject while writing an introduction to it is another.
There's a mountain of published research on this. Michael Greger's "How Not to Die" works through thousands of studies and shows you where every claim comes from. This is one man's opinions, clearly written.
Two. And I'd still hand "Alcohol Explained" to anyone who drinks more than they want to.
There's a section on how certain foods are hard on your digestive system that starts to get interesting and then stops. The fitness material is basic to the point of being useless. Anyone with any real interest in the subject will find nothing here they didn't already know, and I kept waiting for the thing Porter does well and it never arrived.
He was a paratrooper, so he isn't unfamiliar with being fit. He'd have passed a genuinely hard selection and held a standard for years. But having done hard training is not the same as understanding why it works, and this book is the distance between the two. A soldier follows a programme somebody else designed.
Which made me think about why the alcohol book works, because the contrast is the useful part. There he had twenty-five years inside the subject and a model he'd built to save his own life. He cited nothing and it didn't much matter, because the explanation was right and he'd paid for it. Here he's a bright man with an interest in staying healthy, applying the same condense-and-explain method to a field where he has no particular purchase. What comes out is assertion.
And the missing citations stop being survivable. One reader who likes his other books. And who says he has no problem with diet or fitness himself and was hoping for more, which is exactly my complaint from someone friendly to Porter. Notes that he brushes aside the scientific literature on nutrition. I can't confirm that from memory, but it fits what's on the page. Not footnoting a model you can personally vouch for is one thing. Waving away the evidence base of a subject while writing an introduction to it is another.
There's a mountain of published research on this. Michael Greger's "How Not to Die" works through thousands of studies and shows you where every claim comes from. This is one man's opinions, clearly written.
Two. And I'd still hand "Alcohol Explained" to anyone who drinks more than they want to.
May 27, 2019
A good non patronising read
So often self-help books pontificate and this one doesn't. It presents interesting information about diet and exercise and allows you to draw your own conclusions. I'm not sure that I agree with the animal protein view but I certainly am not made to feel guilty about being omnivorous. I think I way pretty well and there are a few light bulb moments nonetheless.
So often self-help books pontificate and this one doesn't. It presents interesting information about diet and exercise and allows you to draw your own conclusions. I'm not sure that I agree with the animal protein view but I certainly am not made to feel guilty about being omnivorous. I think I way pretty well and there are a few light bulb moments nonetheless.
September 22, 2019
Worth a read for sure
I have read tons of diet books , This book really struck a nerve, so much common sense and very thought provoking that I now know now that have been over complicating diet for years .
Read this book. The author is very smart and interesting .I already want to embark on my new journey after reading last page buts it’s the middle of the night. I read this book and could not put it down till I finished.. Thank you Mr Porter .
I have read tons of diet books , This book really struck a nerve, so much common sense and very thought provoking that I now know now that have been over complicating diet for years .
Read this book. The author is very smart and interesting .I already want to embark on my new journey after reading last page buts it’s the middle of the night. I read this book and could not put it down till I finished.. Thank you Mr Porter .
April 29, 2019
Great easy read
This is a great book for anyone looking to make a change in their unhealthy lifestyle. With so much information out now this book is a perfect starting point of you are new to all of the health info and are looking for an easy way to sort out information overload.
This is a great book for anyone looking to make a change in their unhealthy lifestyle. With so much information out now this book is a perfect starting point of you are new to all of the health info and are looking for an easy way to sort out information overload.
June 15, 2018
A good positive book
. Makes you want to change your eating habits for the better and get off that couch! Well worth the read.
. Makes you want to change your eating habits for the better and get off that couch! Well worth the read.
August 12, 2018
Great explanation
Short, helpful, common sense information that will help you improve your health. Listen to your body, eat healthy and exercise.
Short, helpful, common sense information that will help you improve your health. Listen to your body, eat healthy and exercise.
August 18, 2021
Fluff
If you know absolutely nothing this might help In some way. Makes statements at such a high level on areas so complex that I consider this fluff. Waste of money.
If you know absolutely nothing this might help In some way. Makes statements at such a high level on areas so complex that I consider this fluff. Waste of money.
August 9, 2024
Reading out of curiosity after reading the author's excellent books on alcohol and nictoine.
I think this one contains sensible advice which comes together particularly well in the end. Particularly welcome is that it is not at all overbearing and so treats the reader as someone in the possession of a brain in their head with the agency to use it.
I don't have any issue with diet and fitness so I was personally looking for a bit more but I'd say this book is not aimed at me and won't mark it down because of that.
A couple of things I did find a bit dubious though is the stuff on taste and the brushing away of the scientific literature on nutrition. With the former one of the issues with junk food is that it does in fact taste pretty good on top of being convenient. Eating mindfully as the author recommends is definitely a sound suggestion but I don't see how it diminishes the pleasure of eating a pizza and a burger. Sure they're both salty but it's not all there is to it and the combination matters. Conversely just you try chow down on some unsalted vegetables or legumes. They're not particularly pleasant but well prepared and with a bit of salt they're lovely as is the case for the things junky foods the author describes.
On the scientific literature I understand that the author is trying to make a case independent of it and to get people to think for themselves but it actually bears out what he is saying about a healthy lifestyle. It's also worth pointing out that adequate protein intake whether from vegan or other sources is very beneficial for weightloss because it curbs hunger and contributes to overall health and fitness but I got the sense reading this that the author is not of that view. I could be wrong about that point but something in the book left me with that impression.
Still I think this is useful if you have a problem with overeating, eating unhealthily, and/or a sedentry lifestyle and don't know much about the topic to begin with.
If you're after something more because you don't have an issue with any of the above and you're just looking to get a bit nerdy with it then I'd suggest looking elsewhere. This is not to say this is a bad book because it isn't. It's just that the author is clearly writing for a different type of reader than me.
I think this one contains sensible advice which comes together particularly well in the end. Particularly welcome is that it is not at all overbearing and so treats the reader as someone in the possession of a brain in their head with the agency to use it.
I don't have any issue with diet and fitness so I was personally looking for a bit more but I'd say this book is not aimed at me and won't mark it down because of that.
A couple of things I did find a bit dubious though is the stuff on taste and the brushing away of the scientific literature on nutrition. With the former one of the issues with junk food is that it does in fact taste pretty good on top of being convenient. Eating mindfully as the author recommends is definitely a sound suggestion but I don't see how it diminishes the pleasure of eating a pizza and a burger. Sure they're both salty but it's not all there is to it and the combination matters. Conversely just you try chow down on some unsalted vegetables or legumes. They're not particularly pleasant but well prepared and with a bit of salt they're lovely as is the case for the things junky foods the author describes.
On the scientific literature I understand that the author is trying to make a case independent of it and to get people to think for themselves but it actually bears out what he is saying about a healthy lifestyle. It's also worth pointing out that adequate protein intake whether from vegan or other sources is very beneficial for weightloss because it curbs hunger and contributes to overall health and fitness but I got the sense reading this that the author is not of that view. I could be wrong about that point but something in the book left me with that impression.
Still I think this is useful if you have a problem with overeating, eating unhealthily, and/or a sedentry lifestyle and don't know much about the topic to begin with.
If you're after something more because you don't have an issue with any of the above and you're just looking to get a bit nerdy with it then I'd suggest looking elsewhere. This is not to say this is a bad book because it isn't. It's just that the author is clearly writing for a different type of reader than me.
August 17, 2020
Great Easy To Digest Book On Diet And Fitness
A Excellent read,highly recommend. The author explains and outlines Diet and Fitness in a easily understandable way, without going into the science in detail. I like how the author gets straight to the point in the chapters,which allows the reader to understand, but he does not force the advice but allows you to decide for yourself. The principles are simple and I have implemented some of them into my Diet/fitness plan.
If you like this read I also recommend Alcohol Explained written in a similar style by the Author.
A Excellent read,highly recommend. The author explains and outlines Diet and Fitness in a easily understandable way, without going into the science in detail. I like how the author gets straight to the point in the chapters,which allows the reader to understand, but he does not force the advice but allows you to decide for yourself. The principles are simple and I have implemented some of them into my Diet/fitness plan.
If you like this read I also recommend Alcohol Explained written in a similar style by the Author.
December 6, 2020
Great book!
I love the no nonsense writing style. I also love that there isn’t some boogie man item to avoid like sugar or carbs, and he is not selling anything. This is truly common sense, but it doesn’t work out that way for so many of us. This book explains why that may be. The discussion of the body’s expectation to be bloated to be full - this is so me. I have read his two Alcohol Explained books and found those to be jems as well.
I love the no nonsense writing style. I also love that there isn’t some boogie man item to avoid like sugar or carbs, and he is not selling anything. This is truly common sense, but it doesn’t work out that way for so many of us. This book explains why that may be. The discussion of the body’s expectation to be bloated to be full - this is so me. I have read his two Alcohol Explained books and found those to be jems as well.
November 6, 2022
After reading Alcohol Explained and have now been off the booze for 3 months, I decided to read William Porters book on diet and Fitness. I really enjoy his blunt way of explaining things and I know it will annoy some people but his style of reappearing things in different ways resonates with me. It’s weird how I’m now thinking about how my body feels after eating a meal. I also consider “am I really hungry, or is it just a craving?”
April 8, 2021
Eye Opener
Kudos to the author. After reading this book and Alcohol Explained, William Porter brings up alot of very eye opening and poignant points about addiction and eating. Many of the points discussed in this book I have never realized before and is now helping me to make better choices.
Kudos to the author. After reading this book and Alcohol Explained, William Porter brings up alot of very eye opening and poignant points about addiction and eating. Many of the points discussed in this book I have never realized before and is now helping me to make better choices.
February 6, 2024
Nice book
You can change your life significantly with better respect to the current situation. Healthy life should be a goal to everyone, this book teaches you how to deal with this.
You can change your life significantly with better respect to the current situation. Healthy life should be a goal to everyone, this book teaches you how to deal with this.
March 7, 2021
Good book
Gave me a good understanding of the challenges faced with diet and exercise and how the body and mind works
Gave me a good understanding of the challenges faced with diet and exercise and how the body and mind works
July 25, 2021
Love this book
Very clear and easy to understand. Things we all probably already know but it’s nice to see them written down.
Very clear and easy to understand. Things we all probably already know but it’s nice to see them written down.
August 10, 2021
An interesting, honest, no nonsense account of diet & exercise from a very ‘real life’ perspective. I particularly liked the chapters on putting it into practice.
August 18, 2021
Who knew!
Great intro to diet and exercise. I learnt a lot in a short book. I’d like to understand more so some of the chapters could have gone deeper but overall really good.
Great intro to diet and exercise. I learnt a lot in a short book. I’d like to understand more so some of the chapters could have gone deeper but overall really good.
October 10, 2021
direct and factual
Very factual and motivated me to get fitter and loose weight ,knowledge has power many thanks to William your research is amazing
Very factual and motivated me to get fitter and loose weight ,knowledge has power many thanks to William your research is amazing
November 22, 2021
Simple yet effective
Diet and fitness explained on a basic level to help us understand. If you are new to diet and fitness, start here.
Diet and fitness explained on a basic level to help us understand. If you are new to diet and fitness, start here.
February 23, 2022
Clear and sensible
Concisely lays out the science behind why we are hungry, how food affects our bodies, and how to break the cycle of feeling tired and unhealthy. Thank you!
Concisely lays out the science behind why we are hungry, how food affects our bodies, and how to break the cycle of feeling tired and unhealthy. Thank you!
November 1, 2022
Helpful
This book is a quick read. He is direct and helps to change your perspective without being preachy. I recommend.
This book is a quick read. He is direct and helps to change your perspective without being preachy. I recommend.
January 2, 2021
Worth the quick read
Highly recommend this book- easy to understand with really practical tips to get started. One of the best books on the subject that I have read.
Highly recommend this book- easy to understand with really practical tips to get started. One of the best books on the subject that I have read.
April 12, 2020
A good overview and explained well, in simple terms.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews