Hack Your Fitness

Title: Hack Your Fitness: The High Achiever’s Guide To Getting Ripped in Under 3 Hours a Week
Author: Jay Kim
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
pages: 273
ISBN: 978-1-61961-589-2
Genre: Health & Fitness

Reviewed by: Beth Adams

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Pacific Book Review Star
Awarded to Books of Excellent Merit

Jay Kim is quite the guy, a celebrated author having published Hack Your Fitness: The High Achiever’s Guide To Getting Ripped in Under 3 Hours a Week. In his book he takes the reader into his confidence and reveals just what the root cause factors are to getting and living healthy – even allowing for a “cheat treat” once in a while. He was motivated to write this book when, one day, his wife punched him (lovingly) in his stomach, saying “Where are those abs?” This awakened Kim into figuring out just how to eat and exercise; fitting it into his schedule while forming a new “habit” of working out 3 times a week.

His book is literally peppered with quotes from famous people including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Aristotle, Robert Greene, as well as the fictional character Gordon Gekko, all supporting winning philosophies which parallel and reinforce Kim’s mindset. Jay Kim keeps the heat turned up on the informational dissertation to readers explaining all of what he figured out he needed to do to get in shape, as he is his own brand – and must portray his winning qualities in all he does – especially his personal appearance. With impeccably written galley text within Hack Your Fitness, I sense the writing style to be a product of The Book In A Box Method, resulting in a read which is very conversational in style yet with extreme confidence woven between the lines. The words flow as if the reader was at a seminar with Jay Kim speaking.

Whereas I believed the book would initially get right into exercise, he uses roughly the first half of the book to talk about diet. Perhaps a bit redundant to the scores of popular diet books in the genre, Kim does emphasize his MEFP – an acronym for Minimal Effect Fitness Protocol. Keeping to the basic nutrition rules of protein, carbs and fat, Kim puts his thoughts and experiences into a blunt and direct tell-all about how, when and what to eat. He discovered he was failing as eating food in the proper order, a syntax problem he says, so it was when he put things in order his results became self-evident. His body fat percentage decreased, his energy increased. The results he gained were physical, psychological and emotional – all in one bold hack. By working out in the morning he says will enable you to keep to a schedule more easily, as throughout the day “life gets in the way,” and time is no longer in your control.

The exercise sections of his book are amazing, how Kim boils down to less than one hour, 3 times a week, a routine which does not require expensive work out equipment, shoes, belts and paraphernalia. His claim-to-fame is the squat; as being the best of all exercises. It works out legs, balance, upper body and stamina while building strength. To compliment the squat he suggests the chest press. That’s it. These two exercises, when done properly, will tone and build a body worthy of a warrior. I found his comment about people often disregarding the legs while overdoing their arms humorous, as he claims people often don’t see legs (covered in jogging pants) whereas the arms are displayed as being golden.

Kim also finished his book with a “Hack of the Hack!” By this, he takes what he has articulated in the first three hundred pages and reduces it to outline form – for those perhaps with ADD or grew up on Cliff Notes. As Hack Your Fitness-The High Achiever’s Guide To Getting Ripped in Under 3 Hours a Week is good advice to everyone. Confucius said, “Good advice, well received, is the sign of intelligence.”

Hack Your Fitness is loaded with excellent information and easy to put into practice. This is an amazing book for anyone looking to build a solid foundation of fitness and nutrition based knowledge. This book is for anyone who wants to improve their overall health and wellness!