We have all seen the rippling muscles of body builders, with so little body fat cover you seem to be able to see every muscle, every tendon, and every vein just under their skin. They may seem to be huge and strong, but in a sense they also look delicate. You and I have layers of "protection" on our bodies to withstand the knocks and thorns of a hard day's work '"down on the farm". But what would happen to them? And do you really find their over-developed bodies as attractive as they seem to?

That said, you have to hand it to the body builders. They sure know how to strip the fat from their bodies while they build their muscles. They have learned how to push their fat burning techniques right out to the limits their bodies can withstand. We may not want to go right out there to their extremes, but it would be really interesting to know how they do it. There have to be some lessons there of use to all of us. After all, obesity has become a huge medical issue in Western societies. If each of us could learn and put into practice just a fraction of what the body builders know about nutrition and exercise to eliminate fat, obesity could vanish in no time.

But how many of us have the interest or time to spare to take up body building to learn these lessons. How many of us would really want to look like that?

There is a very professionally done solution. Tom Venuto, a body builder and fitness expert with an impressive physique, has studied for some fifteen years how leading body builders reduce their body fat content while staying healthy and building their muscles. He has assembled his findings into a very readable book. Not just a book for body builders, though. He has written his book to communicate the lessons to the rest of us.

Body builders have no time for all the fad diets, short-term starvation or cleansing diets, diets that allow only this or that. They have had to explore the fundamentals of how our bodies really work, in many cases by trial and error as they have pushed out to the limits of medical knowledge about optimum levels of nutrition and exercise. They have moved well beyond generalized calorie counting, low carb or low fat rules.

Certainly they have learned what are the "right" and "wrong" foods to eat, but they have also found there are other dimensions to consider. Dimensions like how often to eat, portion size, when and what to eat before and after exercise, and the effects. Other dimensions, like the psychological aspects of our eating habits and motivation to make changes, also come into their techniques. They have learned how to manage their metabolism and to naturally control their levels of such hormones as testosterone.

It is mainly how we take care of our bodies that will determine how long we will live. It seems to be a serious oversight on our part for us to ignore what the body builders have learned about optimizing nutrition and the condition of our bodies.