Canter Bridge

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Harley Pasternak thinks you can stay fit on 25 minutes per day and he backs up his confidence with quotes from celebrities who say he’s right. Halle Berry leading the list of enthusiasts. This reviewer thinks most of us lack the genes and the circumstances to manage that. Still, I think Pasternak’s program is a great supplement to gym-based fitness disciplines. I travel half the time and take 5-Factor Fitness on the road. This works if you stay in a hotels that have a cardio machine (stationary bike, treadmill) and a set of dumbbells and will actually go there before settling into ESPN and your in-room minibar. Perhaps G.P. Putnam’s Sons should work out a strategic alliance with the Gideons.

Fitness on the road is the holy grail of many business travelers and there isn’t a lot of help waiting in the hotel hallway to nudge us in the right direction. Pasternak’s plan will for some readers be the missing page of the fitness-while-in-Peoria playbook.

In the book, Pasternak divides his time between the 5-Factor fitness regimen and the 5-Factor way to eat. Along the way, he mixes in plenty of encouragement without going gushy on his reader.

I find the fitness part of his book valuable because it provides a plan a guy like me can stick to. The food portion of the book is unnecessarily harsh on the better diets, claiming that each one he mentions is extreme, will keep you from eating like a human being, and `not the whole story’. Arthur Agastston, the creator of the South Beach Diet, might find Pasternak’s negativity surprising, since the entire South Beach approach is set up around eating well and enjoying your food. Agatston also majors on explaining nutrition and why diet and the body work the way they do.

However this review is not the International Human Rights Court and Pasternak’s criticism has hardly sent cardiologist Agatston to the poor farm, so we’ll let that pass.

On the positive side, Pasternak provides plenty of workable recipes to complement his 25-minute workout.

If you want a concrete plan to get fit and have only a little time for doing so, Pasternak’s 5-Factor Fitness is not a bad place to start.

For me, this book lives in my suitcase. At home, I’ll stick with the Y.