Primal Endurance: Escape chronic cardio and carbohydrate dependency and become a fat burning beast!

I love this book. The information that Mark and Brad have put together is the same as what I have found that works for endurance performance. Many years ago I followed the conventional wisdom that eating low fat, high carb was the way to go. It was very odd because following this diet, I had a spare tire around my waist. WTF!! What was even odder was that I was exercising a lot. People said that was what you need to do to lose weight...burn body fat. It was not working. Again, WTF!! One year I trained and ran 2 marathons (one in June, and the other in October). I didn't lose any weight that year even though I was exercising almost every day; lifting weights, biking, and doing very long runs. A couple years ago I changed my diet to low carb, high fat, a paleo/primal diet. In 3 months, I lost 50 pounds and I was just sitting on the couch watching TV. Go figure.Today, I still have a little spare tire, but I am following Mark and Brad's advice in Primal Endurance and my stomach is getting flat. What amazes me is how easy it is. I eat the right foods. I lift weights, but the workout doesn't take hardly any time...just 3 times a week for 30-45 minutes. I do a 5 by 5 workout and can do 5-7 exercises in that time. I do squats, Romanian deadlifts, straight leg deadlifts, and more. I love it. I also run long runs a couple times during the week for 1-2 hours each. I do sprints once a week too. The time I am exercising is shorter than what I was doing in the past, but the quality is very good. It really works. I am getting lean and my performance is outstanding. I am getting stronger in the lifts, and my running is very easy. It is awesome! Right now, I am losing 2-3 pounds of body fat a week, and I am looking awesome too. Thanks!!! This book rocks!

Primal Endurance is a fascinating, well-written, well-researched and fun to read book about attaining ultimate health and fitness. While it turns everything most athletes have believed for years on its head, there seems to be a great deal of science and anecdotal success stories to back it up.Both my husband and I have been reading the book and learning a lot from it. I'm pretty much a fitness beginner, just started to run for the first time in my life this summer - so I think the book will make sure I build a solid and maintainable level of fitness. My husband has been running regularly for years and occasionally competing with good results - but this summer he got injured and burned out from what was probably overtraining. So Primal Endurance is a really eye-opening read for him and involves a complete shift in the way he's used to training - but he's giving it a real try to see how it works.The book is very thorough and definitely exceeded my expectations on the amount of information it would contain. It includes sections on not just training, but the importance of rest, diet, stress, sleep, etc - it's a real prescription for how to live a healthy lifestyle, and I think it can be just as useful for people who are only trying to be fit and strong and who aren't runners.I love the success stories scattered throughout the book - through the personal anecdotes you can see clearly how this training program has worked for many people, including many very serious and very successful athletes, bringing them to a higher level of fitness and overall health with much less injury than they had faced before. The stories are extremely motivational as well as being fun.Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone looking to achieve and maintain high levels of fitness while not compromising their health in the way that many athletes do.

This was a good read. Helped connect a few dots about a primal lifestyle and endurance, highlighting some new things, and reiterating some old things. I have to admit, I haven't fact checked everything so I can't speak to the completeness of some of the statements made but in general, it was helpful for me in my endurance pursuits and how to train and eat better. I've noticed a difference by following some of the guidance offered.

The book "Primal Endurance" provides a powerful and necessary message that you do not need to subject yourself to excessive exercise or carbohydrate heavy diets to become your best possible self - whether you are a professional athlete or an individual simply wanting to be healthy. The discussions about diet and exercise are animated by the comparison of an athlete building either a "Tesla engine" or a "SmartCar/DumbCar engine" to take into training, competition and every day life. The tone of the book is upbeat, funny and scientific, while being down-to-earth. I found myself realizing that each bit of information could be applied to both professional athletes and older men and women who just like to take a neighborhood stroll after dinner. Few, if any, books on fitness can reach such a wide audience at the same time. Congratulations to the authors for their contribution and for filling a niche in the industry that no one even knew existed until now! I will keep referring back to this book as I coach athletes and also as I personally move forward - reaching to become my best possible self!

About one chapter worth of really good information stretched out over the length of a book. Primal Endurance has actually been really helpful to me and I am glad that I read it. I feel I got my money's worth. In fact, I have lost 20# of body fat since reading this book. However the value in this book comes from about 4 or 5 big ideas. These concepts are supported with very little detail and all could have been crammed into one chapter. To me, it felt like there was a lot of filler material and repetition. Because the book is so general, I don't really think it is appropriate for a beginner. It worked for me because I have been working on my endurance for a while and I had specific goals in mind.