Review: "The Great Fitness Experiment" by Charlotte Hilton Andersen

The Great Fitness Experiment by Charlotte Hilton Andersen
Published 2010 via Clerisy Press
★★★

2.5 stars. In The Great Fitness Experiment, Andersen describes a year of trying fitness routine after fitness routine to see what worked 'best' (read: led to most weight and fat loss). She kept a blog throughout the process, and...it became this book.

On the plus side: Andersen's voice throughout the book is lively and entertaining, and a lot of her advice is very sensible—there isn't a one-size-fits-all routine, BMI is bunk, et cetera, et cetera.

On the...not so plus...side: It becomes clear fairly early on that Andersen isn't really practicing what she's preaching. Two things stand out: first, she rarely follows a prescribed workout, as she usually cobbles together an estimation of the workout based on what she can find online rather than buying the book or paying for lessons or whatever, and she almost always supplements the workout with extra cardio, more reps, etc. Second, more troubling...her results are pretty much always measured in body fat loss and sometimes weight loss, and she's almost always disappointed with the results—but she's coming at it from the perspective of someone with a long history with an eating disorder (not fully under control) and who has a concerningly low body fat ratio to begin with. I genuinely don't think it would have been possible for her to both get results she was happy with and keep her toes on the healthy side of the line.

It's a fun read at times, but probably the best outcome of it all is that a provider eventually referred her to eating disorder therapy. It looks like that's covered in book two (I'm sort of surprised that the publisher signed on for a second book—not because of this book itself, but it looks like the second book has exactly the same premise, and usually I'd expect a second memoir to have a new spin), but I don't think I'm going to be hunting that one down. Here's hoping that, more than a decade on, Andersen has found a bit more balance.