Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (December 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736919953
ISBN-13: 978-0736919951

Description (Publisher Website)

Laurette Willis, creator of the PraiseMoves™ DVD, offers a plan that will help women incorporate “Total Fitness“ into their busy schedules by blending the spiritual and physical areas of their lives.

When asked what three of the most important things in life are, many Christian women say God, family, and health. Unfortunately, most women don’t think of their health until there is a problem. And they also may go for weeks without investing quality time in their relationship with the Lord until faced with a challenge or the realization that they feel empty inside.

In The Busy Woman’s Guide to Total Fitness, readers will learn how to “strengthen their bodies and spirits in 20–minutes–a–day” with:

• quick and easy nutrition tips
• energizing 20–minute workouts
• prayer, meditation, and journaling suggestions
• fitness for the spirit, soul, and body
• a 21 Days to Total Fitness program

Buy This Book

Author Bio
Laurette Willis, the founder of PraiseMoves^®, is a Women’s Fitness Specialist and certified personal trainer, as well as a popular keynote speaker and an award–winning actor and playwright. She has written The Busy Woman’s Guide to Total Fitness and has produced three PraiseMoves™ videos.





Review

The premise of this book is that in 20 minutes a day you can do a workout and spend time with the Lord. This sounded great to me when I first saw the title. I do think that the majority of the book is excellent, and I really like the author's idea of combining scripture contemplation while doing strengthening exercises.

That being said, I wouldn't recommend this book to someone who is easily offended by something that is liberally dosed with scripture. This book makes no bones about the fact that it is a Christian book and that's ok for me, but if it's something you don't like, you can't skip past those points with this book. This book is all about combining scripture with exercise.

I really thought this was a good book and had some excellent ideas in it. The one problem I did have with it was when they started talking about Yoga as evil.

"I call yoga the missionary arm of Hinduism and the New Age movement. From experience I can say that yoga is a dangerous practice for Christians and leads seekers away from God rather than to him." (p. 166)

For me yoga has just been about stretching and I run away from anything new age or wiccan. I thought it was interesting then that the author introduced her 'alternative christian yoga' which looks suspiciously like regular yoga. But then PraiseMoves is what she calls it and has built a business around the name.

I don't find this all bad, this has been done for years and as long as it works, I'm not sure I care what the names of the poses are. The book has some wonderful pictures of the actual poses and exercises presented, and also has a small area at the end of each chapter where you can review and do a bit of journaling. I thought this was a nice touch, but felt there could have been more room left for it, but that's just my preference.

Overall I'd recommend this book, because it does have some wonderful information and ideas in it. But because of the yoga thing and the strong Christian views that are presented I'm only going to give it 3 out of 5 stars because it won't appeal to everyone.



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