Tim Ferris/4-Hour Body?

enriant

Hey all! I'm just curious whether any of you have tried the "4-hour body" plan and, if so, what your experiences were with it.

I'm not looking for an extreme diet change, but a lot of what he describes seems relatively reasonable for as far as diet plans go.

Wetcoaster

Sounds ridicules to me.....the guy who wrote is is just a blogger.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2011/03/the-4-hour-body-not-so-much/


Claims

The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat–Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman claims to show how to make a small tweak here and a tiny change there for big results achieved with maximum efficiency. From fat loss to muscle gain, from incredible sex to deeper sleep, from longer runs to a perfect baseball swing, Ferriss sets out on an obsessive quest to find a better body for both men and women. The diet plan, referred to as the Slow-Carb diet, claims to teach the reader how to lose 20 pounds in 30 days without exercise.
Synopsis of the Diet Plan

The Slow-Carb diet describes the possibility of losing 20 pounds of body fat in 30 days by optimizing any of three factors: exercise, diet or a drug/supplement regimen. The permitted foods include lean proteins, legumes and vegetables (mostly green vegetables). He presents five simple rules for reducing body fat:

Rule 1: Avoid any carbohydrate that is (or can be) white. On the list he includes bread, rice (including brown), cereal, potatoes, pasta, tortillas and fried foods with breading. The exception to this is they may be consumed within 30 minutes of finishing a resistance-training workout such as the one described in another chapter of the book.

Rule 2: Eat the same few meals over and over again, limiting the variety in meals. Ferriss lists foods by categories (proteins, legumes and vegetables) and suggests dieters mix and match by constructing each meal with one pick from each of the three groups. Dieters can eat as much as they would like by picking three to four meals and repeating them.

Rule 3: Do not drink calories. Milk, soft drinks and fruit juice should be avoided. With the exception of red wine, alcohol should be avoided.

Rule 4: Avoid fruit. The only exceptions are tomatoes and avocadoes and he suggests limiting avocadoes to no more than one cup or one meal per day.

Rule 5: Take one day per week and eat whatever is desired. Ferriss refers to this as a “cheat day” and says there are no limits or boundaries during this day.


While Ferriss does refer to scientific research, he is not a qualified health professional and much of what he discusses is contradictory. There is no concrete evidence to support his claims to exclude fruit, whole grains and dairy (other than cottage cheese, which he allows), and eliminating these foods from the diet can make it difficult to consume certain vital nutrients. The scientific research studies he cites are certainly credible but taken far out of context in his interpretation. Further, Ferriss used himself as his own subject for much of his claims, but the use of his own experiences does not translate to all individuals—males and females across a variety of age groups—as he suggests.

Wetcoaster

Ferriss’ most outrageous suggestion: living on just a few hours of sleep by breaking sleep into six rigorously-scheduled 20-minute naps each day. I talked with an old friend, Dr. Jonathan Emens, now an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University where he conducts sleep research. Could I leap tall buildings on the strength six cat naps? Jon didn’t hedge: “People are always looking for shortcuts around their physical needs. But we need sleep the way we need oxygen and food. There are no shortcuts.”

As for the Ferriss approach: “It’s dangerous,” Jon told me bluntly. “Setting aside the metabolic, cognitive, and emotional impact of not getting enough sleep, the risk of car accidents or on-the-job accidents alone should keep people from trying this. Would you want to get on a plane if you knew the pilot only got two hours of sleep a night?”

segovm

The sleep thing is actually not too insane, it's called polyphasic sleep with Leonardo da Vinci being a famous adherent to the practice.

Sadly, for most people, it's wildly impractical, but it's not an outright bad thing, just an odd suggestion to try and incorporate into a modern structured life.

AnthonyThrashD

The second half of the book focusing on the vagina/orgasm was a surprise. As for his dieting ideas...

Banning certain foods, banning certain macros, liquid only diets, consuming weird chemicals to increase metabolism, excessively eating certain foods & macros, submerging yourself in freezing water...all bad ideas.

caloric deficit == weight loss!

enriant

For some context:
My boyfriend has been following the diet for about a month and a half, since it seems to be helping a lot with his insomnia.
I'm trying to cut back on dairy b/c lactose intolerance and b/c I'd like to transition to veganism
I'm a vegetarian so my intake of protein and fat is largely bean- and nut-based anyway, even more so without dairy.
Cutting back on bread and refined carbs seems... good? regardless of who's suggesting it?

The thing I'm really skeptical about is no fruit, though I've heard a lot of different things about fruit over the years (eat it all! eat it some! too much sugar! the only good kind of sugar! etc.).

The various vitamins, etc., he recommends worry me, and the notion of an extreme cheat day once a week seems crazy but is somewhat in line with things I've heard re: 5:2 fasts (something a couple of my family members have tried and really liked), and "tricking" your body out of starvation mode (though that comes out of pro-ana blogs, etc., so I try to ignore it)

a LOT of it seems like taking a lot of generally-accepted wisdom -- high protein, low carb, moderate frequency high intensity exercise -- taken to something of an extreme.

As segovm said -- the sleep thing is real, but it terrifies me.

wetcoaster -- If you look at those "rules" and see them as "diet guidelines," replacing "never" with "try not to" or "reduce" ... doesn't it sound like every diet guideline?

I'm really not trying to advocate this -- my gut reaction when I read this was that it sounds insane and unreasonable. But I've tried it for a couple of days and kinda like it, and as I said, my boyfriend's had some success with it (but he's also almost 25% taller than me and, logically, 50% heavier, so I don't put too much stock in that). I'm mostly curious what sort of experience people who *aren't* his in-book examples have had.

segovm

Yeah I hate to quote fad diets but the whole "paleo" thing sort of makes a lot of sense to me. Eat the stuff our bodies evolved to eat, non-processed food that would have been available for millions of years.

Our bodies are incredibly adaptive but I suspect in the wild we ate mostly fresh fruits and veggies with an occasional boost of animal protein to help build muscle.

I heard something the other night that sort of made sense to me, if it has a food label it probably isn't food. They only put all those nutrition labels on the processed stuff. Meats, fruits veggies and unprocessed whole grains just don't have it and don't need it. They are food.

I figure any guy can write a book telling people what they should and shouldn't do or we can just try to discern what humans have done for hundreds of thousands of years and go with something close to that.

For weight loss, really you just need to eat fewer calories than you burn. For health though, I think that the source of the calories you do eat has some impact on how you you feel and likely how healthy you are in the long term.

joshpass

Yeah I hate to quote fad diets but the whole "paleo" thing sort of makes a lot of sense to me. Eat the stuff our bodies evolved to eat, non-processed food that would have been available for millions of years.

Our bodies are incredibly adaptive but I suspect in the wild we ate mostly fresh fruits and veggies with an occasional boost of animal protein to help build muscle.

I heard something the other night that sort of made sense to me, if it has a food label it probably isn't food. They only put all those nutrition labels on the processed stuff. Meats, fruits veggies and unprocessed whole grains just don't have it and don't need it. They are food.

I figure any guy can write a book telling people what they should and shouldn't do or we can just try to discern what humans have done for hundreds of thousands of years and go with something close to that.

For weight loss, really you just need to eat fewer calories than you burn. For health though, I think that the source of the calories you do eat has some impact on how you you feel and likely how healthy you are in the long term.

good god. I almost never read and reply on the forums but thank you segovm! You have said something that almost nobody says on this website. Yes to lose weight, you usually simply need to be in a calorie deficit. That doesn't mean you are healthy though. It also doesn't mean your cravings will go away, you will sleep right, your skin will look nice, your gut will be healthy, etc etc, I could go on forever. For those that want health, and not just simple weight loss, you have to do more then just simply be in a calorie deficit. For those that don't care, then more power to ya. But I get tired of people on this website giving false information and saying it's "wrong" to ban certain foods. It's not wrong, it's a choice. For me? I lost 160 pounds originally and realized since I busted my *kitten* so hard to get that weight off and wanted to say off and wanted to be as healthy as I could be, I have done and continued to do tons of research on health as well so I am healthy and not just a guy that lost 160 pounds but is secretly dying inside. Hell, there is such a thing as a healthier overweight person compared to a skinny or "fit" unhealthy person.

Anyways, point being, does Tim Ferris's thing work? Sure. It's not wrong, necessarily. But you don't have to do that for help loss. When I coach people, I ask them at the beginning what their overall goal is. Some people don't care that much about health but just looking better in the mirror. And they want to continue to eat crappy. others want to be as healthy as possible too. I could care less, whatever you decide. We are all in the same boat here. We are trying to better our bodies in some way shape or form or we wouldn't be on MFP. Stop attacking each other.

HaggisWhisperer

I followed the 4 hour body diet guidelines and lost around 40 lb. It is really just paleo plus legumes. There is nothing inherently unhealthy about the diet. The diet got me eating far more vegetables than I had ever eaten before - a habit I have kept up since stopping following the diet. Remember that in a lot of places round the globe fruit would only be in season for a few short months. Following the diet you are only recommended to cut out the fruit for 6 days in the week and is just to keepsugar levels in the diet as even as possible. I find that he has a really fun writing style and what he said really spoke to me at that time and motivated me to make some much needed changes. Some of the stranger stuff in his book like the ice baths I have never tried. I tried the supplements but to be honest they were very expensive and didn't make much difference to me. Although I have now pretty much stalled out on the diet I haven't put the weight back on. I'm now trying a few different things to see what will work best for me. I think the best diet has to be the one you are able to stick to and delivers the results.

menosmas

About two week into 4 hour body...lost 3 pounds so far. For me it seems easier to concentrate leaving the carbs off and not really count the calories. When I was counting calories, i was always trying to fit what I would normally eat into a very small number of calories and it stressed me out. On this plan, I concentrate on a lean source of protein and as many vegetables as I can make myself eat and I am always full. I log what I eat just to see what the nutrition looks like, but I don't make choices according to calories. This is what is happening...my calorie totals naturally end up at around 1300-1450 calories. My carbs are 100g or below and I don't feel that severe sleepy lull I used to have several times a day. I also am finding that by drinking 2-3 glasses of water and a 30 G protein shake before my coffee, I don't usually even finish my coffee which is a miracle for me. I have 4 kids, 4 schools, I am a student, I wake up around 5:30 everyday and do typical Mom chores all day until bed around 9:30-sleep at 10:15.
Interestingly, On my cheat day, I ate cheese, bread, and a large fuji apple for lunch and within 15 minutes I had the familiar sleepy lull...I enjoyed cheat day. I love my carbs, dairy and fruits, but I don't love feeling so tired after a meal. Day after cheat day, I was actually happy to return to meat and vegetables. I have found the legumes to be a bit high in carbohydrate for me though. I eat only half a serving of beans with either eggs or another protein source for a meal.

menosmas

Me again, BTW, I worked out and counted calories for over a year and lost and gained the same damn 4 pounds! I did build muscle, but at 43 I really need to shed the extra fat too.

fanceegirl75

I tried this 3 yrs ago with much success in just a couple months. I did grow tired of the beans with every meal. I started it again 3 1/2 weeks ago and I'm down 4 lbs. My weekly weigh day is Thursday so hoping to add another pound to that # if not more. For me it works. True Tim Ferris is no Dr. and he doesn't claim to be. You are eating protein, veggies & beans/legumes. What's unhealthy about that? MFP doesn't like "diets" so this will get bad feedback like anything else.