Tim Ferris/4-Hour Body?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.