The Shredded Chef: 120 Recipes for Building Muscle, Getting Lean, and Staying Healthy Hardcover – Print, October 27, 2016 by Michael Matthews (Author),‎ Andrea Lynn (Editor) (Waterbury Publications Inc) (IBRCookBooks)

But first, here's the deal: you don't want this book. You want Michael Matthews' other book, Bigger Leaner Stronger (or if you're a woman, you presumably want his female-geared book Thinner Leaner Stronger, which I of course have not read). That book is excellent and contains every useful piece of information in this book and then some. If you already have BLS, this isn't going to get you anything useful. It's supposed to be a cookbook that goes along with BLS...but the recipes are pretty much completely useless for that purpose. The BLS program is basically a very high protein diet, and these recipes simply aren't any higher in protein than typical stuff. Just use normal cookbooks and/or grab some recipes from the web.

So that explains why I rated it one star: there are zero people who should buy it. Now, as for why I'm conflicted about that? Well...it also changed my life, hopefully forever. Because I didn't know BLS existed when I bought it. I bought some other cookbook and Amazon popped this up as a suggestion, and I thought what the heck. And then I read it, and the first part (before the recipes) was something of an epiphany. It's a scientific, evidence-based method for losing fat and building muscle, which immediately appealed to me. I quickly bought BLS and read it, then I built myself some meal plans, bought some weights and protein powder, and got to work.

It's hard. Really hard. This is definitely a "no shortcuts" method. But when I bought this book a few months ago I was 207lbs., which at 5'9" is....not good. I estimated I was around 25% body fat, which also is very bad. This morning I weighed 191, I'm somewhere between 15 and 20% fat, and I'm way stronger than I was. I look a lot better too. And I'm not remotely done. So, the system definitely works.

But to execute it you need the workout part as well as the diet part. BLS contains both of those things, whereas this book only contains the diet part and in less detail. And again, the recipes aren't actually useful. So, while I'm incredibly glad that I bought this book, nobody actually needs it. If you want to change your body and you're willing to work really hard to make it happen, grab Bigger Leaner Stronger.

I considered splitting the difference between the 5 stars it should get for changing my life and the one star that's my actual recommendation to people. I guess that would have been a 3 star review. But nobody reads 3 star reviews, and in any case I'm telling you not to buy the book. So 1 star it is...but if you're interested in this sort of thing, go buy BLS, which I'm definitely giving 5 stars!