The Perfect 10 by Yasmin Karachiwala: Fitness Book Review

Don’t let fingers win, says Yasmin Karachiwala in The Perfect 10: 10-Minute Workouts You Can Do Anywhere, a book with a mind boggling variety of workouts. She points out that with technology, we just use our fingers to press remotes, rather than get up and move.

She’s got a point. We need to build fitness in our lives now, make it a routine, a habit, but fun rather than a chore.

Yasmin has supplemented her descriptions of exercises with pictures, and there’s a QR code too, which leads you to a video section on her website. I appreciated this, as I find it easier to exercise by following along with an instructor on video. However, the QR leads to a page with all the stacks, so I didn’t know where to go for the warm up or cool down sections. She can share time stamps of videos with these sections so that they’re easy to find.

The book is informative – did you know that fat occupies more of your body than muscle? That’s why you should try to build muscle. She also has divided gym goers by personality and I enjoyed identifying my fitness personality. I would have liked to be a Steadfast but I’m probably a Big Dipper.

Some sentences in the book are LOL, like this one – I’ve seen more bodies than undertakers.

Her acronym SMASH*N tells us we need Sleep, Movement, Attitude, Strength Training, Hydration and Nutrition to be fit.

Other interesting facts she shares include water boosts metabolism by 25% for an hour after drinking. Yasmin has also given recipes, many of which have chocolate! Dark chocolate, but still.

I enjoyed looking at the photos of celebrities working out mostly on fancy equipment at her gym. There are fitness stories by her clients included here which are inspiring. One talks about how the gym is her me time. Another points out that we should go beyond the superficiality of losing weight and focus on feeling good.

She reminds us that the weight loss benefits of exercise kick in only after 20 minutes, so we need to spend half an hour or an hour at least on our bodies everyday.

I found Katrina Kaif’s words inspiring – we should focus on the link between our mind and body when we exercise – and enjoy working out. Very true. I enjoy putting mental burdens aside and lifting physical ones in the gym for an hour.

Her end note is inspiring – the body is a vehicle, it can limit you or expand possibilities for you at work, home. The other day, I was exhausted by night and tried to recall what I did to make me feel this way. I had spent an hour downstairs with the kids in the Ganpati welcome procession. I realized if I was more regular with my exercise, I would probably feel less tired on days that stretched me.

Do read this book and more than that, act on it to feel better and lighter, both in and out. Buy it here.

This review is powered by the Blogchatter Book Review Program.