The 4 Hour Diet

gersoco

I haven't heard of 4-hour body before reading the WebMD article in the link. I noted that the Cons are from folks who have their own agenda (read: their own diet books to peddle) and the guy who runs quackwatch.org says it's a quack but hadn't read the book.

All it all, the WebMD makes me want to take a closer look at this meal plan.

AddA2UDE

I was a big Tim Ferriss fan from reading The 4 Hour Work Week and bought this book when it came out. I lost a lot of respect for him after reading it. There is a lot of goofy stuff in it. Consume protein within the first 30 minutes of waking to to lose weight faster, ice baths to lose more weight, gaining 63 pounds of muscle in 28 days, etc, etc. There are over 200,000 people on this website (MFP). A lot of them have had great success. NONE of them have attributed that success to these type of goofy suggestions. Not to mention, all of the success stories on MFP have absolutely nothing to gain from you. Ferriss will make another bank account deposit when you use his info. You be the judge............................

AddA2UDE

I've never been able to do the four hour diet. The Golden Corral always kicks me out after about two. They're *kitten*.

LMAO!

mjbrenner

I am now experienced with The Four Hour Body, and I feel comfortable giving a review of the book.

I like The Four Hour Body and am experiencing very real progress with it. I have nothing to gain by explaining why I like this system. Rather than dismissing the entire book out-of-hand a sheer quackery, I would encourage you to approach the book, and my review below, with an open, yet skeptical, mind.

First, let's acknowledge that Tim Ferris is a businessman and marketer. Many parts of The Four Hour Body seem to be designed to engineer book sales and enthusiasm through the use of grandiose claims. Yes, a fifteen minute female orgasm is entirely possible, IF you first redefine what an orgasm is. Count calories is completely unnecessary, IF you can make good use of other data. Still, there are very real pearls of wisdom that are worth taking from the book.

The Four Hour Body is not a strict diet prescription - many critics of the book, and many of its supporters, fail to recognize this, although it is clearly stated. Instead of an absolute list of dos and don'ts, the book provides a baseline guide to work from. You are then encouraged to gather data as you make the suggested lifestyle changes and alter the plan as appropriate. In this way. what the book suggests is very compatible with MFP. Data collection and interpretation leads to meaningful lifestyle changes.

Tim Ferris does take the stance that neither all calories, nor every individuals base metabolic rate, are created equal. There is very strong scientific evidence that the thermic effect of food, changes to an individuals base metabolic rate through stimulation of brown adipose tissue, hormone balance within the individual, and many other factors play a real roll in weight loss and gain. While the science may be disputed, it falls far from the realm of quackery.

In the end, the slow carb diet suggested by the book provides a solid means of fat loss by controlling spikes in blood sugar though avoidance of certain foods. For some people, blood sugar spikes are not a problem. For others who process simpler carbohydrates poorly (myself included), this a literal life saver.

The online community surrounding The Four Hour Body is very active, and anyone interested in the diet should really check out the various blogs and forums that exist. People who find success with the diet seem to be those who embrace it as a lifestyle and also perform the active level of experimentation and data collection that Tim Ferris suggests. Many people combine the slow carb diet with the Paleo diet to good effect.

I am happy to discuss the diet with anyone who is interested. I do not mind debating the merits of the diet and the science behind it, provided that the critics contribute meaningfully to the discussion.

aquapussy

Why can't people get through their heads the key to weight loss is to eat less and exercise more. That is what it comes down to. How you do that is another story but save your money. Weight loss does not require a book or anything other than the willingness to monitor your eating habits and get active.

EDIT: Also you don't need a book to tell you how to eat low carb. Here it is for free: Stay away from simple carbs, eat under 70g of carb a day. There now send me donations.

JeSuisPrest

Why can't people get through their heads the key to weight loss is to eat less and exercise more. That is what it comes down to. How you do that is another story but save your money. Weight loss does not require a book or anything other than the willingness to monitor your eating habits and get active.

EDIT: Also you don't need a book to tell you how to eat low carb. Here it is for free: Stay away from simple carbs, eat under 70g of carb a day. There now send me donations.

:flowerforyou:

tamanella

Never heard of it, but all I can tell you is my doctor told me it all comes to what you ate at the end of the day along with exercise to loose the weight. Even the dietician that I saw told our whole class the same thing. I have had more success doing MFP than I ever had in my whole entire life, as it is a life style change! Just like the Atkins diet, which was the rave, and the dietician told our class that high amounts of protein will shut your kidneys down, and look what happen to that guy, he is now dead, so what does that tell you! Everyone must do what they feel is right for them, and personally I stay away from any and all diets that are promoted in books and etc. Healthy eating habits and exercising is the safest and healthiest way to loose any amount of weight. And I only take advise from my doctor and my dietician.

I couldn't help but want to clear this up: Dr. Atkins died from a traumatic brain injury, not from his own diet. :0)

Whirlagirl

I have a friend who used this diet over the last month and lost 20 pounds in that time. It just seems a low card, higher protein diet with an emphasis on rest and recharging the body. Can't say much about the blood tests and supplement thing as we didn't discuss it, but it worked for him and he met his goal.

chinamonkey

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fact that sleeping for 20 minutes at a time mean's you'll never hit a REM cycle, which can be really bad for you, can't it?

this is true.

REM cycles are essential for good physical and mental health. this is the deepest stage of sleep in which the brain cells renew and repair...your heart slows to its slowest beats and allows the body to fully rest....Alcohol can also prevent REM sleep.

There have been cases of people dying through exhaustion and weakened physical states from not havingREM sleep..shall find some if people want.

zippo32

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/425770-the-4-hour-diet?hl=4+hour&page=2#posts-5894005
this was a test...........

MrZZeroG

Here's some info...it's called the "4 Hour Body"....can't imagine who has the kind of schedule to take 6 - 20 minutes a day instead of sleeping 8 hours a night. Sounds crazy to me, but to each his own, right?

http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/expert-reviews-timothy-ferriss-4-hour-body

do yourself a favor, click the link. even if its just for a good chuckle....

I read the review and it sounds a lot like none of the people that were quoted actually read any of the book. It was as if they were reacting to the author's interpretation. I can tell you the quote on cold water is just absolute nonsense - I know, because Tim wrote about my story in the book.

The point of the 4 hour body was NOT to be a "weight loss" book, but on how to take some unconventional methods and accelerate results. I think everyone might start with the appendix on spotting junk science - a very large portion of diet/nutrition advice begins here.

We tend to oversimplify the problem, substituting a lot of fancy words to represent fairly complex physiological responses. Listening to this kept me overweight for about 20 years even though my background would have made it easy to verify.

I wanted to believe.

I eat different than what is described in the 4 hour body (slow carb), but did verify that the methods worked. I have been working on a lot of "N = 1" experiments and while people might use that to degrade the research, current leading researchers (see TEDMED.com) don't agree. We have ways to aggregate N=1 experiments and get great results (patientslikeme.com).

So, I think that there is room for debate and most people are so mis using macronutrient juggle (proteins, carbohydrate and fat) that many diets that get raving reviews are just as unfounded.

Ray