Posts Tagged ‘review’

For those of you that don’t know, I’m a huge fan of the 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, so much so that I preordered his new and highly anticipated 4 Hour Body. The 4 Hour Body can pretty much be summed up as a cook book for the human body. It’s a rather large hard cover book where you read a couple of chapters about the “basics” and then jump to the chapter the best fits what you want to do.  For me the first one was definitely about losing weight since I sit at a desk all day and broke my leg over the winter which definitely added to the nice little belly I had.  Beer might have also contributed to the belly’s size btw…haha.

Here are a few of the chapters that I was particularly interested in:

• How to Lose 20 Pounds in 30 Days Without Exercise
• From Geek to Freak – How to Grain 34 Pounds in 28 Days
• Occam’s Protocal 1 – A Minimalist Approach to Mass
• Engineering the Perfect Night’s Sleep
• Ultra-endurance 1 – Going from 5K to 50K in 12 Weeks
• Six Minute Abs – Two Exercises That Actually Work

So how much did I actually lose? 9.4 pounds to be exact. I went from 156.6 pounds to 147.2 pounds in 2 weeks. I made a quick graph from the data in Google Docs to help show just how fast I was dropping weight. I also lost 2.5% of body fat, dropping from 17.5% to 15.0%.

So what all did I do?  Well as the book suggests, I didn’t exercise, but I did follow what Tim Ferriss calls the slow carb diet.  Basically you cut out breads, grains, and other high carb foods as well as sugars and instead eat more of a high protein diet that is heavier on lean meats, beans, and vegetables.  Obviously he still lets you have a glass or two of dry wine a night which was a nice change for me after mainly drinking beer over the winter.

What Did I Eat?

Most of my meals started with a vegetable, then I added a protein. Breakfast was an exception as Tim wants you to get at least 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up. This was honestly the hardest part for me because I don’t eat large meals to start with, especially not in the morning. I ended up doing a combination of organic eggs, spinach, and black beans though to get as close as I could to 30 grams.

For lunch and dinners I picked my vegetable, broccoli was my favorite, and then added my protein. Lean ground beef, chicken, steak, whatever… The leaner the better. One night we even had spaghetti-ish squash.  He suggests sticking to the same couple of meals so that’s what I did.  I didn’t give up pop though and had 1 or 2 cans of diet pop a day.  That’s the limit before it effects weight loss.

Cheat Day

Once a week the 4 Hour Body suggests you have a cheat day where you can eat / drink anything you want. Let me warn you from experience that you will feel like shit after eating really healthy for a week and stuffing your face with crap. Although it was nice to have beer, pizza, and anything else you wanted. I can’t argue with his methods on this, it works.

Before & After Photos

I wish I would of taken more than just a kinda front shot. The photos show a change, but not nearly as noticeable as it is in real life. The two spots in the photos where you can really see though are my face and stomach. Dang I was fat!  Can you imagine the changes I would of seen if I had done a full 30 days?!

What Now?

Well for those who think this is one of those diets when you quit you gain all the weight back, it’s not. I’ve been off the diet for 2 weeks now and I’m only 1 pound heavier than I was when I was on the diet. I will say that I do eat healthier overall though, mainly because of how good I feel. After 3-4 days into the diet I had so much more energy I didn’t know what to do with it all.

I do want to do a full 30 days or possibly try some of the other cool things out there like the couch potato to 5k in 60 days. When I decide which I’m gonna do I’ll definitely keep track and post it up for everyone to see.

Overall I really don’t have anything bad to say about the 4 Hour Body. I recommend this book to pretty much everyone I know, I just wish more people would actually pick up a copy.

Special thanks to Pat Flynn for posting his Insanity Workout Results which led me to actually make this post and have the courage to post before and after photos.