Kiwi icon and former Silver Fern April Ieremia documented her 2011 weight loss journey through a variety of media – a dedicated Facebook page for fans and followers, a New Zealand Women’s Weekly Column, and now through the book April Loses it: 30 Kilos in 30 Weeks! The book’s cover claims you can lose 30 Kilos in 30 Weeks following April’s plan, developed by Auckland gym owner and former Army fitness trainer, Scott Cottier.
I’m liking
The book doesn’t present a fantasy in how difficult losing a substantial amount of weight is – especially endeavouring to lose it at a relatively fast rate. There is a raw edge to the mental battle of significant life change that April has to adhere to in order to reach her goal. It is one thing to make a decision for change, but the follow through is often what lets us down. It lets April down sometimes, but she never fails to get back on the figurative saddle again. Her stamina is fairly impressive and yet she doesn’t make it look easy.
There are tidbits that those eager to be fitter and thinner will be able to pick up on to use in easy, at-home, everyday ways. Technically this plan can be done with no special equipment or the introduction of new foods. The primary focus exercise-wise is on walking/running and doing resistance training using one’s body weight – so anyone could actually manage to follow this. The eating plan is never really detailed in the book but basically involved a lot of apples, stacks of water/green tea, small amounts of protein, veges and pasta.
Things that made me go hmmmm
Firstly, I feel like the book’s cover page is a bit misleading. April didn’t quite get to 30 kilos of weight loss and she didn’t lose her weight within 30 weeks. Nor did seemingly anyone following the plan through the Facebook page. I finished the book feeling slightly disillusioned – not that I would embark on such a challenge myself – but the challenge is basically of The Biggest Loser proportions. Most home weight loss junkies or newbies would struggle to take on such a challenge (April certainly did). So to pick up the book off the shelf and think it will enable you to lose 30 kilos in 30 weeks is, as far as I can see, an unproven purported possibility using this particular plan.
The 30 plus weeks are documented in a linear fashion. This is good in that the reader feels the struggle and witnesses the weight loss at each part of the journey. However, it has lead to a disorganised book as far as a weight loss plan goes. The story is somewhat interesting and there is probably an element of nostalgia in it for some of the target audience (i.e. those who decided to partake of the plan through the April Loses It Facebook group). The combination of April’s colloquial, bloglike writing style and having to filter through this to find the actual eating plan and fitness guidelines is a tad bizarre. For the regular reader, there is much repetition of what worked and didn’t work, what battles April has faced in overcoming some of her personality traits that are less conducive to weight loss and those that assist her in reaching her target. VERY fortunately (if it weren’t for this, the book would not present a useable plan for weight loss at all) I reached the end and found the chapter that details Scott Cottier’s fitness plan in a straightforward and concise way.
As a new mum, I really struggled with how this book could apply to losing the near 10 kgs of body weight I still carry postpartum. The plan is pretty extreme (not a fault of the book per se); the time necessary to complete it is quite demanding as you can imagine with wanting to get through so much weight loss in a short time frame. But Scott the trainer addresses some of this applicability in his little sideline comments that are littered through the book, and these show how parts of the plan can be adopted by different lifestyles (at one stage he basically says: if you just want to see some difference, give up fried food and walk somewhere every day for 30 days and you will be on your way. That’s the sort of start anyone could partake of, surely).
April is brutally honest in that the weight loss goal she set was because she was vain and wanted to not only be healthy but turn heads while doing it, and look hot in her cover page image. This comes of as slightly shallow but due to her refreshing awareness of the narcis’sistic nature of her goals, one can plow through the pages with health in mind. There is also some not-so-subtle advertising for the gymthat the fitness plan takes place in/through.
The conclusion
If you’re a big fan of April you will probably enjoy the book and her admirable dedication and honesty found within the pages. If you’re simply looking for a weight loss system you will find it, but you really only need the back chapter detailing Scott’s military-based system. Whether there is enough there to warrant the cost of the book – I have to be brutally honest and say you could likely find something similar online.
