Book Review: Walk Strong, Look Up: The Most Powerful Exercise for Your Body and Soul {Revell Blog Tour}

From the back cover:
Are you ready to get fit and lose weight?
Imagine learning how to use walking as your key to optimal health and fitness!
Chantel Hobbs knows what it's like to struggle with your weight for years and how hard it is to make regular exercise a part of your life. She's been there. One day Chantel vowed to lose weight and keep it off for good. And that's exactly what she did. Nearly 200 pounds lost and years later, she shares with you the power of combining the world's most natural exercise--walking--with prayer and praise directed toward the One who made your body.

Walk Strong, Look Up is the whole package, complete with
--workout routines
--tips on proper shoes and nutrition
--recipes for power shakes
--a free download of Chantel's personal coaching

Chantel also shows you how walking and praying at the same time both intensifies the workout and adds a spiritual component to exercising that helps you maintain your energy and enthusiasm.

If you've been putting your health or your relationship with God on the back burner, now is the time to change that. With Chantel by your side, you can change your health and your spiritual life--starting today.

Chantel Hobbs is a motivational speaker, life coach, personal trainer, marathon runner, wife, and mother of four whose amazing weight-loss story has been featured on Oprah, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, The 700 Club, and on the covers of People and First magazines. She appears weekly on two fitness-themed radio programs, is currently working on a PBS special about fitness, and lives in south Florida.

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Review:
I have to admit, I've been one of those people that puts faith and exercise in separate "compartments," and never combined them. I'd have my quiet devotional time, and then separate "exercise" time. When I was invited to review Walk Strong, Look Up, I was intrigued by the idea of combining the two. It certainly seems natural enough, but it wasn't anything that I'd ever considered.

Chantel Hobbs has laid out a wonderful plan where she explains the WHY and the HOW of what she calls the "Walk with Him" program, which requires one month to get fully acclimated. Week one starts with three 30 minute walks. Week two also includes three walks -- a 30 minute walk, a 45 minute walk, and a 60 minute walk. Finally, in week four, Chantel has us up to five walks -- three 45 minute walks, one 30 minute walk, and one 20 minute walk. Ultimately, the "Walk with Him" program has you walking 5 days a week, with 45 minute sessions.

In a friendly, conversational style of writing, Chantel shows us everything we need to know to get going on our path to "spiritual" and "physical" fitness. With her Biblical knowledge, Chantel encourages, inspires, and gets the reader thinking about how we can "stay the course" in our walk. With her fitness expertise, she also provides practical tips for choosing the right walking shoe, nutrition, and even great recipes for "power shakes" or smoothies.

At the time of writing this review, I am on week 3 of the "Walk with Him" program. I particularly enjoy the "pre-walk challenge," where Chantel guides the reader into a place where we strive to gain peace in different areas of our life, and well as getting truly connected to God. I've been motivated to stick with the program and "stay the course," as Chantel describes in the last chapter. Looking up to Him for everything I need, and walking strong physically and spiritually are two things that I definitely want to do! I thank Chantel for writing such a great book, that inspires and motivates me to do just that!

Walk Strong, Look Up is a great book for anyone looking to go deeper in their relationship with God, as well as for anyone looking to get fit and stay fit. When we literally "walk" with Him, it brings us to a place where we can be healthy, lose weight, and stay fit. If that sounds like something you're ready for, don't hesitate to pick up this book!

**Thank you to Revell, a division of Baker House Publishing, for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.**

**Available September 2011 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.**