Erin Oprea

I’ll admit I would like to be healthier—to eat better, find the time to exercise, lose a few pounds. Most people (even you skinny peeps) can probably agree with this. Walk into any bookstore and go to the health section. You’re going to find hundreds of books that offer advice, diets, and more.

Enter personal trainer Erin Oprea. Her country music clientele includes Leanne Womack, Denise and Alan Jackson, and Carrie Underwood. And her new book, The 4 x 4 Diet, gives the common man the same tools. The trick? You have to follow through on them.

The concept behind the 4 x 4 Diet is that there are 4 healthy habits you must embrace as well as 4-minute tabata workouts (we’ll get to these in a couple minutes).

The four healthy habits are nothing new. There’s no earth-shattering secret to losing weight. You reduce the things that are harmful to you and your health. These include starches (but you won’t completely cut these out), sugar, sodium, and alcohol.

Tabata workouts are kind of fun. I’ve done them before. You do eight repetitions of 20-second, high-intensity activity followed by 10 seconds of rest, for a total round of four minutes. Now, don’t let this fool you, you are going to exercise for more than 4-minutes. It’s just that one round equals for minutes. In her examples, Oprea has you doing about ten rounds which will total 40 minutes.

What I most appreciated about Oprea’s book is that she gives readers the “why” of her method—the science behind her habits. She shows how starches, sugar, sodium, and alcohol can wreak havoc on your body. There are also great resources in the book: delicious recipes, several different tabata workouts (complete with photographs of each exercise), and a guide to slowly eliminating the harmful foods from your diet (removing one each week is more practically than going cold turkey with everything).

If you’re looking to change your lifestyle instead of losing ten pounds for that special event, The 4 x 4 Diet is sure to deliver results, both physically and mentally.

***Blogging for Books provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. All opinions expressed are my own.