I thought I would really enjoy this but unfortunately found it a bit of a slog to get through. Not really easy reading.

This is a very good book if you are a beginner and have no knowledge at all about how the human body works. The author explains in detail and this can get tedious if you are not a beginner. Overall a good book but could have been more concise.

Wanted to love this and get into it etc but really struggled to get into it. Just not my thing I suppose, think maybe an actual book that I could flick in and out of might have been better for me!

a very practical book which is definitely useful to refer back to and gives you 'food for thought' (pardon the pun)

As an ordinary person with no hope of sporting greatness I wasn't sure what I would get out of this book but it is really interesting in the way it tackles food and our relationship to food. This isn't a "diet" book, it is a book to educate you about food as fuel - what to eat, when to eat and how to change your attitude to food. I got a lot out of it and it certainly gave me things to think about in my own lifestyle choices.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

This was an unusual book that I will probably go back to reading at some point. It's rather different as it goes into detail about how we can eat for energy.

Although it's a book that I will go back to, I'm giving it a three star rating because I actually cannot remember anything about the book that stands out for me. There are other books that have blown me away and that I cannot put down and those get the five star rating. This is a handy to know book but how much of the information I'll put to use is another matter.

Full of excellent and well presented information on the way to feed and fuel your body. Very easy to understand and comprehensive throughout.

Nutritionist James Collins is a world leader in the field of performance nutrition. He’s guided the eating habits of Olympic athletes and premier sports stars. His first book, The Energy Plan, is not about cutting out food groups, quick fix diets or denial. Instead, it’s about fuelling your body so it performs better and you feel fitter, have more energy and can fight off illnesses. The Energy Plan is well worth a read, whether you’re training for a marathon or just want to avoid the 3pm energy slump.

As a lifelong yo-yo dieter with headaches, grumpiness and HUGE energy dips (who mistakenly thought I actually knew what I was talking about nutrition) I have needed this book for such a long time. Simple but not patronising, this has changed my whole perception on how I fuel my day. Mandatory reading for everyone who has a body!

This book is packed with nutrition and scientific advice for improving your energy levels and general physical well-being. It has a lot of advice for what to eat and when depending on your activity levels, daily schedules and stage of life. The author is realistic in acknowledging that managing food desires is not easy when travelling or out in general and has a chapter discussing that. There is also one about how the body has different needs as it ages. He discusses some newer ideas about certain food and supplements but acknowledges that the science is not yet there to prove it definitively. A lot of books give such ideas as facts and thus make themselves less credible.

My main challenge with this book is that I’ve read it all but am not really much wiser as to how to structure MY Energy Plan. It talks about Fuelling Plates (equal amounts of protein, carbohydrates and vegetables/fruits) and Maintenance Plates (equal amounts of just protein and vegetables/fruits) but I don’t know which plates I should schedule on which days and which meal in those days according to the exercise I do. There’s also a Competition Plate but that doesn’t apply to me as I don’t do competitive sport. Then there are Medium, Low and High Days where you have five (three meals, two snacks) different proportions of the above plates. Then it gets confusing as the examples under Medium Day show several different scenarios which do not match the proportions given under the Medium Day header. I did a spreadsheet for myself to try and understand. All was well until we get to “Mia’s Energy Plan” in the book which says she has five Medium Days and two Low Days. But Friday and Sunday don’t match the Medium Day definition as both snacks are Maintenance and not ‘1 Fuelling, 1 Maintenance’ as it states. Yes, completely confused? Me too. As to why she has Low and Medium on which days I am further bamboozled. She exercises three mornings a week and one exercise (HIIT Class) is on a Low day and the other two (Weights and Long Run) are on Medium Days.

So this would be a great book if only I could work out the logic and apply it to myself. I wonder if having a paper copy of it would help and the fact I am trying to find sections again on my Kindle is not helping. So back to the spreadsheets and not the gym...

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK, Ebury Publishing for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Free book offered to "live life better" for 2019 - how could I resist?? Self help books are always somewhat useful, even if only to reinforce what you already know :-)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It gives great insight and really helps readers understand the benefits of this kind of lifestyle. It’s insightful, well written and packed full of great advice and helps the reader understand everything thoroughly enough to make a well informed decision about whether to start this lifestyle or not