Having gone through the Body For Life plan during the summer of 2006 what results did I find?

Well the results are pretty impressive I think... I lost 6 inches of my waist in 12 weeks, which amounts to 23.5lbs.

And all that while still going to the pub from time to time and eating out.

The picture at the top of this page was me at the end of my 12 week challenge. On the right is a picture of me at the end of my Body For Life challenge - notice the difference in the size of my stomach!

The Body For Life plan is a way of life - a way to eat and exercise to look and feel your best ever.

Numerous "before-and-after" photos exist showing amazing transformations and the key to these changes revolve around 4 key principles:

1) Nutrition - arguably the most important factor of all, learning how to eat correctly is of vital importance to the process.

2) Cardio - using fat burning exercises to help your dieting and shedding of excess fat.

3) Weights - using weight lifting to shape and tone your body (and yes, that includes ladies as well as us guys!)

4) Attitude - getting your head straight to help you succeed.

Over the next few weeks I will be adding detailed information on all 4 of these aspects so stay tuned and come back often!

The nutrition section of the Body For Life plan is known as Eating For Life.

The details are reasonably simple:

You aim to eat 6 meals a day, each one consisting of a portion of lean protein and one of carbohydrates. Fats are generally avoided, and those essentially fatty acids tend to be got naturally via oily fish and so on in the diet.

The book usefully provides a list of "authorized" foods in both areas - such as chicken, swordfish and prawns in the protein section, and green vegetables and oranges in the carbs section.

This makes it surprisingly easy to stick to the diet without too much hassle.

There is also a huge array of authorized entire recipes both at the official Body For Life site (link further on down this page) and in a stand-alone book called Eating For Life. I have reviewed the book on my blog should it be of interest.

An additional benefit of the Eating For Life nutrition program is that you get one day off each week. For a full 24 hour period you can eat whatever you like - pizza, chocolate you name it.

This makes it considerably easier to stick to the diet because you know your "free day" as they are known is rapidly approaching. You're not giving up your favourite food for ever - just for 6 days. And surely you could manage 6 days without chocoloate if you could eat it with no feeling of guilt on the 7th?!

Cardio is needed in order to burn off excess fat, so making you look healthier, leaner and also showing off your new muscles.

In the "good old days" cardio used to involve hours and hours of running or cycling. It took up huge amounts of time, wasn't very effective and could be incredibaly boring.

I, for one, don't fancy spending an hour a night on a stationary bike staring into space :-)

So Bill Philips designed a new way to burn fat - a more effective way that takes less time.

Essentially what the Body For Life program recommends is a version of the high intensity interval training (or HIIT) method.

Using this method you spend around 20 minutes doing cardio, 3 times a week. Each session involves specific rotations of slow and fast exercise - though the exercise tends to be the same.

That is to say you may run fast for 1 minute, then run slower for a minute and so on. My aim here isn't to reveal all the secrets of the Body For Life cardio program but just give you sample.

In my experience this exercise works very well (as evidenced by my own results above) but be warned - by exercising using the HIIT method, if done correctly you'll be ready to pass out by the end of the 20 minutes.

It doesn't sound long - but trust me once you've got into it it can seem like a lifetime.

Still, the buzz you get at the end, and the feeling of knowing you've done somethig positive makes it all worthwhile - and you'll be amazed how quickly you start to become accustomed to the program and find you're either running faster or further in the same 20 minutes.

Literally within a week or two you'll be noticing the difference - and not just in your waistline!

Ask a hundred gym regulars what is the best way to lift weights in order to look and feel better and you'll likely get 100 different responses.

So it's nice to be able to narrow down a formula that has been proven to work for literally thousands of fitness fanatics over the years.

The Body For Life plan gives a very clear plan that will work for virtually anyone who cares to try it.

Based on the maxmimum weight you yourself can lift it means it can be tailroed to any strength and fitness level.

Essentially you carry out a number of exercises that are recommended doing a number of sets. With each set you do fewer repetitions but use heavier weights so you are slowly overloading your muscles, but warming them up for safety first.

Most people would agree that gradual overloading of properly warmed-up muscles is the best, safest and most effective way to add muscle to your frame.

Weight lifting is recommended for both men *and* women to help add shape and strength to your body.

In the weight lifting section of the plan the body is split up into areas based on muscle groups (biceps, triceps etc.) and different exercises are done over 3 days. The workout should take 30-45 minutes per session.

So you essentially have by now 3 days of weights, 3 days of cardio and a free day on which you don't exercise and can eat whatever you like.

Trust me, with that sort of workout schedule you'll be needing your free day, and it's an ideal way to fit family meals, parties and evenings out into your fitness regime.

Attitude or mindset is the key to success with any new habit - espcially a diet or fitness regime.

It will involve a lot of change - a new diet, exercise, cutting out lots of "bad" things (junk food, alcohol, cigarettes etc.) and so you need to be sure you can stay on the straight and narrow and so succeed at your goal.

Luckily in the Body For Life plan Bill Philips offers some intelligent advice on staying motivated.

The biggest thing to remember is that the Body For Life plan is only a 12 week plan. In that time many people see amazing transformations.

So even though it is likely to be tough, only start the challenge when you feel certain you can see it through, and remember that:

a) The Body For Life challenge is only 12 weeks long - think how quickly the weeks fly by right now

b) You get a free day each week without diet or exercise so you can do what you like then

Just think in terms of tiny, baby steps. One day at a time. One meal at a time. One rep at a time in the gym.

If you're like 99% of the people who do the Body For Life plan, by week 12 you wil be looking and feeling so much better you won't want to stop!

And that's the perfect ending ;-)

Now, go one, give it a try today. You'll find the book itself below so get ordering!