Jim Karas got into the weight loss business by accident. As a recent graduate of the Wharton School of Business, Karas spontaneously took over a workout class at his gym when his instructor called in sick. The gym’s owners employed him, and he became one of the world’s first personal trainers, working with celebrity clients like Diane Sawyer and Hugh Jackman. He charged them $10,000 a week to live in their homes, rearrange their food supplies, and teach them how to incorporate a personalized diet and exercise plan into their busy lives.
In his book, Karas applies business language to weight loss programs. “Creating your mission statement” is about coming up with a plan that will work for you, “the CEO of your body.” “Going public” means you tell the people in your life what you are planning, even though you are unsure of its success. “Researching the competition” means you have to find the one diet that works best for you. “Managing” means you must take charge of your new lifestyle. Likewise, you “invest” in workouts, and keep coming up with “new strategic plans.”
Karas, who has struggled with weight issues himself, takes a cut-and-dried approach to the problem. He thinks in terms of physics: You must cut down on calories or burn them up through exercise. He also thinks in numbers: In business, revenues minus expenses equals profit or loss. In weight loss, calories in minus calories out equals body weight.
“You want to allocate your calories to keep your revenues low,” he writes, “and exercise to keep your calories out, or expenses, high.”
On the Business Plan Diet, you keep a food diary of everything you eat and develop awareness of portion sizes and calorie counts. Many people do not realize, for example, that a typical business lunch of a Caesar salad, pasta with oil and tomatoes, bread, wine, and a small dessert has 2,300 calories, even though an average man needs less than 3,000 per day. He advises you to read food labels for calorie counts and other nutritional information. Karas emphasizes five servings of vegetables per day and three servings of fruit per day, and recommends a small serving of protein with each meal.
He thinks it’s best to eat five or six times a day, including snacks late morning, early afternoon, and after dinner. You should eat any food you want, including chocolate and pastries, as long as you have only a small portion. He believes you should lose weight slowly and think in terms of a lifetime of healthy eating. On his program, he says, women only lose about 0.8 pound per week and men up to 2.5 pounds.
Karas’s main emphasis is on exercise, particularly weight lifting, to increase muscle mass. His reasoning is that if your body is muscular, you will burn fat more quickly. Therefore, “your exercise allocation is 25% cardiovascular, 75% strength and resistance training.” His exercises require simple gym equipment.
See: Karas, Jim. The Business Plan for the Body (New York: Three Rivers Press) 2001.
Created:
2001
Categories:
Low Calorie, Activity Emphasis
Website:
Meetings:
No
Books:
No
Expert Review:
Nothing dangerous in this diet, although the experience he has with its successes may be largely based on celebrities willing to pay someone a lot of money to keep them on track. It doesn't really offer anything new in terms of diet types other than new business metaphors to keep your focus on the "plan."