Book Review: Forever Strong by Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Dr. Lyon is a physician who studied geriatrics and nutrition at Washington University. This is a long book with a lot of information, but it could be easily summarized as this. For optimal health benefits we should prioritize building our skeletal mass over fat loss. According to Dr. Lyon the way to do this is to by changing our mindset, increasing our protein intake, and weight training. I joked as I was reading this book that it could have been written by Mike and Suzanne, as that is the message they have been giving us at Forward Fitness for some time now.
In the introduction to the book, Dr. Lyon talks about needing to have a growth mindset which is key when trying to make changes in your life. The book is then broken into three parts. Part One is titled: The Stakes. Part two: Chart Your Road Map to Success and Part Three: Take Action.
The book includes charts and graphics that help illustrate key points. There is also an appendix with meal plans, recipes, and workouts. Dr. Lyon’s references her website quite a bit in the book, I personally did not find the information on her website overly helpful and to access pretty much anything on there you must give them an email address. I did enter my email a few days ago and so far, I haven’t gotten anything but I’m sure there will plenty of emails in my future.
I listened to this as an audiobook initially and now I am going back through different parts of the book that I want to take more time with. The first section of the book starts with some history of the diet culture in our country. This is where she begins to make the case that we have spent far too much time focusing on fat loss when what we should be focusing on is increasing our skeletal muscle mass. She discusses how this can help with disease control and she spends time discussion how increasing protein intake and weight training is beneficial at different ages.
The second part of the book is when she really gets into the specifics of the why and how we should be increasing our protein intake. She talks about amino acids and macros. There is information on carbs and fats. The book includes charts with food information, how to calculate your macros depending on if you want to weight loss, weight gain or maintenance. This is the section of the book that I am going back over more carefully. The visuals that you don’t get in an audio book are very helpful here.
The third section of the book is how to put it all together. She starts here with what she refers to throughout the book as the “Lyon Protocol” which is her food/meal plan. She also talks about the importance of getting a baseline assessment of where you are so that you can track your progress. She even mentions using an InBody scan because it is a much better tool than just a scale. She also recommends seeing a physician and getting bloodwork done. While she hits on the idea of weight training throughout the book the focus in the first two sections is on protein intake. In the third section she gives more information on training. She does advise that the best way to make sure that you are training correctly is to seek out a good personal trainer. Her overall advice on training is to do 3 days of weight training a week with 2 days of cardio.
Again, the book does include charts and forms that you can use to help you track your journey. I’m still looking for PDF’s that I could download as I think that would be more beneficial than writing in a book that I will eventually loan to others to read but I haven’t found them yet. I would also recommend that even if you start with the audio version of this book you might want to eventually have a hard copy (maybe when it comes out in paperback) to go back to for specific information.
The biggest complaint that I have seen about this book is Dr. Lyon’s opinion of plant-based diets. Full disclosure for our members who follow a plant-based diet, she talks a lot about how hard it is to get the correct amount, or kinds of protein needed by following a plant-based diet. She also talks quite a bit about the benefits of red meat in your diet. She does mention in places ways to increase protein when following a plant-based diet, but I would say that she is trying more to show people why following a plant-based diet is not as beneficial to your health as we used to think it was.
Overall, I learned a lot about the science behind why we need to increase our protein intake and weight train to help us improve our health as we age. The subtitle to this book is: A New, Science-Based Strategy for Aging Well. I’m not so sure about the “new” part as I feel like this is something that Mike, Suzanne and Cati have been talking about for a while, but I guess that just shows that they are making sure that we are getting all the information that we need to make the best choices that we can for our health.