Get with the Program! : Getting Real About Your Weight, Health, and Emotional Well-Being

by Bob Greene

Lose weight, get in shape, understand your emotions, and feel good about yourself. These are the interrelated goals of Get with the Program by Bob Greene, best known as Oprah's personal trainer and coauthor of Make the Connection.

Using this book is like having a personal coach working with you on emotional and behavioral changes as well as diet and exercise. Greene realizes that if you've had trouble losing weight, you need to understand your attitudes and obstacles before any diet or exercise program will work. So phase one of the program is a self-examination regarding changing your life, including written exercises to help you understand your emotions. Phase two adds aerobic exercise, without changing your diet, to rev up your metabolism. Phase three focuses on the emotional connection to eating habits, including identifying emotional eating triggers and working to overcome them. Phase four adds strength training and dietary changes.

Get with the Program is conveniently spiral-bound, so it's easy to fill in the written exercises and view instructions and photos of the physical exercises. It's highly recommended for people who have had trouble losing weight and are serious about getting in shape--physically and emotionally. --Joan Price

Genres: Health, Nonfiction, Fitness, Food

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Bob Greene is a personal trainer who writes on health and weight loss. He works and writes with Oprah Winfrey.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Isabel Rebelo da Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written book about health and eating wise but didn't tell me anything that I didn't know already. Maybe a good book for a person that leads an unhealthy life when it comes to food and exercise. It also has some good points about overcoming emotional eating. It is a nice book, with good information, but as I said, it didn’t teach me, personally, nothing new.

[Darryl Diamond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ha... it took me years to read this one through. I finally read it from start to end.

Great reference read to understand your own emotional eating reasons, your eating behaviours including the history, the start up of taking on exercise/weight lifting and the incremental increase of moving/lifting.

The journal style and start-up questions are first of its kind I've seen.

Its a strong reference to begin taking care of your body.

[Luis Cortez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short an interesting reading. I liked the way that the author tries to reach people who wants to lose weight explaining in detail how our metabolism works, the difference between the diets, its pros and cons and the most motivating thing is that he explains a combo of diet+exercise by phases, starting with the low demanding exercise and diet, even allowing you to keep your actual diet and changing it little by little. I think that way you starting creating good diet and exercise habits and you starts replacing bad for good ones.

[Olatomi Afilaka · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was simple and straightforward to follow. The advice is also productive and manageable. It is not overwhelming

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an Oprah fan who watched her transformation I immediately picked up this book in 2004. I like Bob Greene. His writing is informative and reassuring. I read this book a couple of times at different points in my life. Reread in 2006 then again in 2009 it all still rang true. Honestly, still working through a lot of what was written but sometimes when having a difficult time will read the section on "Emotional Eating" to get inspired not to give in. It is not just about food and there is a real psychology to eating. Anyone who is at a point that needs some reassurance that they are not alone in the crazy weight game and want to be informed from one of the best trainers this is a good read.

[Dorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome starter program for the unmotivated! It starts with very small, easy steps and slowly builds up to regular exercise and a healthy diet. I've been revisiting this book for years, every time I get off track.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book about steps one can take to achieve lifelong weight loss and health broken down into four phases. While it has great advice about exercise, it spends surprising little time exploring what one should eat. I would have liked more on that.

[Mizbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

library book

Greene writes well. His books are informative.

[Cal]

just got it for christmas..yet to read!

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an excellent and inspiring book: just what the doctor ordered for a pre-holiday fitness and health boost. It's easy to read and understand and apply-what more can you ask for?

[DianeK Klu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now to put it into practice!!

[Tracy Schillemore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friendly fitness book.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of cheese.