Jeff O'Connell

Zuzka Light

Zuzka Light has single-handedly ushered in the YouTube fitness revolution. Viewers love Light for her short, ferociously effective workouts and her in-the-trenches, never-give-up positive attitude In 15 MINUTES TO FIT, her hotly anticipated debut, she offers a 30-day fitness plan guaranteed to burn fat and build ripped muscles. Based on innovative high-intensity interval training, the workouts are designed to be done anywhere, anytime (no fancy gym equipment necessary), in just 15 minutes a day.

The Simple 30-Day Guide to Total Fitness, 15 Minutes at a Time

15 Minutes to Fit

Tori Carrillo

Admittedly I skimmed through this book. I picked this up from my local library after hearing about it from multiple book blogs I follow. I have seen a few of Zuzka Light's YouTube videos prior to picking up her book because my trainer would use some of her burpee exercises for our bootcamp, but I had no idea it was the same person until I started reading her book. 

One of the reasons I ended up skimming through this book is because I wasn't able to connect with Zuzka's voice and tone. Many of the things discussed in this book seemed superficial and she came across a bit condescending. The perfectly placed and staged pictures of her throughout the chapters didn't help with this. I felt like she was writing a book because she doesn't quite understand why people wouldn't like working out and eating right. So she gives us her plan because obviously it works for her and she loves it so we must all be doing something wrong. She does try to tackle this in her book and admits she is one of the few that loves working out, but even after this admission the condescending tone never quite went away for me. It could just be I was looking for a more motivating and less "well, why aren't you already doing this because you could look as good as me" attitude. 

Some of the things I did enjoy about the book were an easy guideline for daily caloric intake based on your weight and goals (pg 85), an easy portion size guide using your palms/hands (pg 87), an explanation about the main 3 food groups to focus on to maintain health, a few of the recipes that I'll probably copy and save for later (it does help when you notice that the same dressing is used in multiple recipes), and of course the actual workout plans and examples of the exercises. I do think that some of the exercises might be much more intense than people are expecting when they pick up this book simply based on the title, but if you have watched her YouTube videos then hopefully most will understand why these 15 minute workouts work so well. I also liked the idea of her "21-item grocery list" (pg 68) until I realized that it's not really 21 items as much as it is 21 categories, but it is a good starting point.

I look forward to implementing her 15 minute workouts and also focusing on a calorie deficit with some help from her portion guidelines and 4 hour eating schedule. But other than the workouts, I did not gain much additional health information from Zuzka's book that I didn't already know. Nothing in her book made me want to get up and start making changes immediately.

15 Minutes to Fit The Simple 30-Day Guide to Total Fitness, 15 Minutes at a Time

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