Book Review: Don’t Lose out, work out by Rujuta Diwekar

Warning: Sitting is the new smoking!

Don’t lose out, work out! is all about staying fit. It is a very informative book on fitness, which tells a lot about the human body, heart and dispels quite a few myths associated with exercise and fitness. Rujuta Diwekar has written a book that has educated an ignorant jogger like me on how to stay fit the smart way. Off course staying fit is all about sweating, but Rujuta tells us the smart way of doing it.

The chapter on Exercise science – what happens behind the scenes is really informatory as it tells about the energy systems present in this body, fuel, muscle types, after-burn, muscles, tibia, bones, ligaments, joints and their relation to muscles, and most importantly the heart.

She tells us that only aerobic activity is not enough for the body and more importantly for the heart. It has to be supplemented by an-aerobic activity as well. That is where the real fat burning takes place, and what better to do an-aerobic than pumping iron in the gym. The book also explains some common training terms and at some point I must say it becomes too technical or medical, at least for an electronics engineer I had to read the stuff a number of times to make myself understand it, but off course it is written in a very creative manner so one tends not to lose focus. She also explains pre and post workout meals, the importance of hydrating oneself besides giving ample guidelines to make progress. Each chapter is followed by a summary which I found to be really helpful. God, I wish our text books were written this way.

The chapter on Cardio is talks about training the heart and why cardio as well as anaerobic exercises are good for the heart. To cut fat you need to do anaerobic, to enlarge the blood carrying veins in your heart you need to do anaerobic and to improve the size of your left ventricle, you need to do cardio.

I found the sample exercises extremely useful and have adopted stage 1 program and am also following it. I skipped the chapter in Yoga, since I am not in to it.

Finally there is a chapter at the end which sums up all the things discussed in the book. Last of all it has an exercise tracker or a log which helps you in maintaining a log of your exercise activity.

The book is written in a very frank manner and gets the point across to the reader. So if you want to stay fit and lose some KGs as well just read it. But then its not one of those books which you read and rejoice, it’s a book which you read and then act on it.