4-Hour Body Abbreviated

7/29/2019 4-Hour Body Abbreviated

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4-Hour BodyThe Slow-CarbDiet

Tim Ferriss has tried a lot of diets.Here's one that he thinks is the best.

And it is pretty easy to follow.

How to Lose 20Pounds in 30 DaysWithout Exercise

Out of clutter, find simplicity.-Albert Einstein

11:34 A.M.

SATURDAY, JUNE 20,2009, SANFRANCISCO

Text message from London, eighthours ahead, meant to impress:This is my dinner. Happy times!The accompanying photo: apepperoni and sausage pizza so largeit doesn't fit on the screen.Chris A., a fellow experimenter, andI were having our weekly virtualdate.

Text response from me:This is my breakfast. BREAKFAST.Can you hear the insulin pouringout of my eyes? Woohoo! Ante up,

fat boy.My accompanying photo: two bearclaws, two chocolate croissants,grapefruit juice, and a largecoffee.

Response from Chris:LOL . . . please don't make me dothis . . .

And so it continued, a text-messageeating contest. The truth is, I dosome version of this every Saturday,and thousands of people over the lastfour years have joined me in doingthe same. In between pizzas and bearclaws, the net result is that the

average follower has lost 19 poundsof fat, and a surprising number havelost more than 100 pounds total.This odd approach has producedsomething of a small revolution. Letme explain exactly how Chris and Ireach and maintain sub-12% bodyfat, often sub-10%, by strategicallyeating like pigs.

TheSlow-Carb Diet-Better Fat-Loss

Through Simplicity

It is possible to lose 20 pounds ofbody fat in 30 days by optimizingany of three factors: exercise, diet, ora drug/supplement regimen. Twentypounds for most people meansmoving down at least two clothingsizes, whether that's going from asize 14 dress to a size 10 or from anXXL shirt to a large. The waist andhips show an even more dramaticreduction in circumference.By April 6, 2007, as an example, Ihad cut from nearly 180 pounds to165 pounds in six weeks, whileadding about 10 pounds of muscle,

which means I lost approximately 25pounds of fat. The changes aren'tsubtle.The diet that I'll introduce in thischapter-the Slow-Carb Diet-is theonly diet besides the rather extreme

Cyclical Ketogenic Diet(CKD) thathas produced veins across myabdomen, which is the last place Ilose fat. There are just five simplerules to follow:

RULE 1: AVOID"WHITE"CARBOHYDRATES.

Avoid any carbohydrate that is, orcan be, white. The following foods

are prohibited, except for within 30

minutes of finishing a retraining workout like thoin the "From Geek to Fre"Occam's Protocol" chap

bread, rice (including brpotatoes, pasta, tortillasfood with breading. If yoeating the aforementionanything else white, youJust for fun, another reathe whities: chlorine diothe chemicals used to bl(even if later made browcommon trick), combineresidual protein in mostfoods to form alloxan. Ruse alloxan in lab rats todiabetes. That's right-it'sproduce diabetes. This is

you eat anything white oDon't eat white stuff unl

to get fatter.

RULE 2: EAT TSAME FEW MEOVER AND OVAGAIN.

The most successful dietregardless of whether thmuscle gain or fat-loss, efew meals over and overare 47,000 products in t

U.S. grocery store, but o
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of them won't make you fat.Mix and match from the followinglist, constructing each meal with onepick from each of the three groups.I've starred the choices that producethe fastest fat-loss for me:

Proteins*Egg whites with 12 whole eggs forflavor (or, if organic, 25 whole eggs,including yolks)*Chicken breast or thigh*Black beans*Beef (preferably grass-fed)Pork*Fish

Legumes*Lentils (also called "dal" or "daal")Pinto beansRed beans

Soybeans

Vegetables*Spinach*Mixed vegetables (including

broccoli, cauliflower, or any othercruciferous vegetables)*Sauerkraut, kimchee (fullexplanation of these later in"Damage Control")

AsparagusPeasBroccoli

Green beans

Eat as much as you like of the abovefood items, but keep it simple. Pickthree or four meals and repeat them.

Almost all restaurants can give you asalad or vegetables in place of frenchfries, potatoes, or rice.Surprisingly, I have found Mexicanfood (after swapping out rice for

vegetables) to be one of the cuisinesmost conducive to the Slow-CarbDiet. If you have to pay an extra $13 to substitute at a restaurant,consider it your six-pack tax, thenominal fee you pay to be lean. Mostpeople who go on "low"-carbohydrate diets complain of lowenergy and quit because theyconsume insufficient calories. A half-cup of rice is 300 calories, whereas ahalf-cup of spinach is 15 calories!

Vegetables are not calorically dense,

so it is critical that you add legumesfor caloric load.Eating more frequently than fourtimes per day might be helpful onhigher-carb diets to prevent gorging,

but it's not necessary with theingredients we're using. Eating morefrequent meals also appears to haveno enhancing effect on restingmetabolic rate, despite claims to thecontrary.Frequent meals can be used in somecircumstances (see "The Last Mile"),

but not for this reason.

The following meal schedule is basedon a late sleep schedule, as I'm anight owl who gives up the ghost at2:00 a.m. at the earliest, usually with

wineglass or book still in hand, laheroin addict. Adjust your meals tofit your schedule, but make sure tohave your first meal within an hourof waking. Meals are approximatelyfour hours apart.

10:00 am - Breakfast2:00 pm - Lunch6:30 pm - Smaller second lunch8:009:00 pm - Recreation or sportstraining, if scheduled.10:00 pm - Dinner12:00 am - Glass of red wine andDiscovery Channel before bed

Here are some of my meals that

recur again and again:

Breakfast (home): ScrambledEggology pourable egg whites withone whole egg, black beans, andmixed vegetables warmed up orcooked in a microwave using Pyrexcontainers.Lunch (Mexican restaurant): Grass-fed organic beef, pinto beans, mixed

vegetables, and extra guacamole.Dinner (home): Grass-fed organic

beef (from Trader Joe's), lentils, and

mixed vegetables.

Just remember: this dietforemost, intended to benot fun. It can be fun wittweaks (the next chapter

but that's not the goal.

RULE 3: DON'T

DRINK CALOR

Drink massive quantitieand as much unsweeten(with no more than two of cream; I suggest usinginstead), or other no-calcalorie beverages as youdrink milk (including sonormal soft drinks, or frLimit diet soft drinks to than 16 ounces per day ithe aspartame can stimu

gain.I'm a wine fanatic and htwo glasses of red wine aevening. It doesn't appeaany negative impact on mfat-loss. Red wine is by nrequired for this diet to w100% allowed (unlike whand beer, both of which avoided). Up to two glasper night, no more.

RULE 4: DON'T

FRUIT.


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Humans don't need fruit six days aweek, and they certainly don't need ityear-round. If your ancestors werefrom Europe, for example, howmuch fruit did they eat in the winter500 years ago? Think they hadFlorida oranges in December? Not achance. But you're still here, so thelineage somehow survived.The only exceptions to the no-fruitrule are tomatoes and avocadoes,and the latter should be eaten inmoderation (no more than one cupor one meal per day). Otherwise, justsay no to fruit and its principalsugar, fructose, which is converted toglycerol phosphate more efficientlythan almost all other carbohydrates.Glycerol phosphate p triglycerides(via the liver) p fat storage. There area few biochemical exceptions to this,

but avoiding fruit six days per weekis the most reliable policy.But what's this "six days a week"

business? It's the seventh day thatallows you, if you so desire, to eatpeach crepes and banana bread until

you go into a coma.

RULE 5: TAKE ONEDAY OFF PER WEEK.

I recommend Saturdays as yourDieters Gone Wild (DGW) day. I am

allowed to eat whatever I want onSaturdays, and I go out of my way toeat ice cream, Snickers, Take 5, andall of my other vices in excess. If Idrank beer, I'd have a few pints ofPaulaner Hefe-Weizen.I make myself a little sick eachSaturday and don't want to look atany junk for the rest of the week.Paradoxically, dramatically spikingcaloric intake in this way once per

week increases fat-loss by ensuringthat your metabolic rate (thyroidfunction and conversion of T4 to T3,etc.) doesn't downshift fromextended caloric restriction.That's right: eating pure crap canhelp you lose fat. Welcome to Utopia.There are no limits or boundariesduring this day of gluttonousenjoyment. There is absolutely no

calorie counting on this diet, on thisday or any other.Start the diet at least five days before

your designated cheat day. If youchoose Saturday, for example, I

would suggest starting your diet on aMonday.

That's All, Folks!

If the founding fathers could sum upour government in a six-pageconstitution, the above is all we needto summarize rapid fat-loss for

99.99% of the population. Followedto the letter, I've never seen it fail.Never. When you feel mired indetails or confused by the latest-and-greatestcontradictory advice, return to thisshort chapter. All you need toremember is:

Rule 1: Avoid "white" carbohydrates(or anything that can be white).Rule 2: Eat the same few meals overand over again.Rule 3: Don't drink calories.Rule 4: Don't eat fruit.Rule 5: Take one day off per weekand go nuts.

$1.34 PER MEAL?

Andrew Hyde is community directorat TechStars, a well-known start-upincubator in Boulder,Colorado. He is also an Internet-famous big bargain hunter. I use"big" in both the figurative and literalsenses: Andrew is 6'5" and 245pounds. I should say that he was 245pounds. In his first two weeks on theSlow-Carb Diet, he lost 10 poundsand, perhaps more impressive,racked up incredibly unimpressivecosts:

Total per-week food costAverage per-meal cost: $

And this was including ograss-fed beef! If he'd easalad three times a weekfew proteins, his weekly have been $31.70. He repmeals:

BREAKFAST: Egg whiteegg, mixed vegetables, ch

breast Mixed vegetablesspinach (salad)LUNCH: Mixed vegetablspinach (salad)SECOND LUNCH: Chick

black beans, mixed vegtDINNER: Beef (or pork)pinto beans

His exact shopping list wsimplicity itself. The pricper line totals:

1x Eggs (12 pack) $1.204x Mixed vegetables (1-l1x Chicken breast $21x Organic peas (2-lb ba2x Spinach (3-lb bags) $3x Chicken thigh $92x Grass-fed organic beecuts) $42x Pork (1-lb cuts) $3

2x Asparagus bundles $


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1x Pinto beans (1-lb bag) $1.501x Black beans (1-lb bag) $1

Getting these prices didn't require adegree in negotiation or dozens ofhours of searching. Andrew lookedfor discounted items near expirationdate and shopped at smaller stores,including a Mexican grocery store,

where he bought all of his driedbeans.Just to restate an important point:

Andrew is an active 6'5", 245-pound,26-year-old male, and he exercisedthree times a week during his Slow-Carb Diet experiment. He's not asmall organism to feed. He's also notunique in his experience.Though you might not get to $1.34per meal, his two-week experimentshows what thousands of others have

been surprised to learn about theSlow-Carb Diet: it's damn cheap. Themyth that eating right is expensive isexactly that: a myth.

THE FORBIDDENFRUIT: FRUCTOSE

Can fruit juice really screw up fat-loss?Oh, yes. And it screws up muchmore. Not to speculate, I tested theeffect of fructose in two tests, the

first during a no-fructose diet (nojuice, no fruit) and the second afterone week of consuming 14 ounces-about 1.5 large glasses-of pulp-freeorange juice upon waking and before

bed. The orange juice was the onlything distinguishing diets A and B.The changes were incredible.

Before (10/16, no fructose) and after(10/23, orange juice):Cholesterol: 203 -> 243 (out of"healthy" range)LDL: 127 -> 165 (also out of range)

There were two other values thatshot up unexpectedly:

Albumin: 4.3 -> 4.9 (out of range)Iron: 71 -> 191 (!) (out of range akainto the stratosphere)

Albumin binds to testosterone andrenders it inert, much like SHBG(discussed in "Sex Machine") but

weaker. I don't want either to be out-of-range high. Bad for the manlyarts. If you said "Holy sh*t!" when

you saw the iron jump, we're in thesame boat. This result wascompletely out of the blue and is notgood, especially in men. It mightcome as a surprise, but men don'tmenstruate. This means that men

lack a good method for clearing out

excessive iron, which can be toxic.The increase in iron was far morealarming to me than the changes incholesterol.Here is just one of severalexplanations from the researchliterature:

In addition to contributing tometabolic abnormalities, theconsumption of fructose has beenreported to affect homeostasis ofnumerous trace elements. Fructosehas been shown to increase ironabsorption in humans andexperimental animals. Fructoseintake [also] decreases the activity ofthe copper enzyme superoxidedismutase (SOD) and reduces theconcentration of serum and hepaticcopper.

The moral of the story? Don't drinkfruit juice, and absolutely avoid ahigh-fructose diet. It doesn't do the

body good.

TOOLS AND TRICKS

The Three-Minute Slow-CarbBreakfast(www.fourhourbody.com/breakfast)Breakfast is a hassle. In this video,I'll show you how to make a high-

protein slow-carb breakfast in three

minutes that is perfect foand starting the day at a

Still Tasty (www.stilltassure if it's safe to eat thothose Thai leftovers? Tir

your mom to ask? This syou to search the shelf lithousands of cooked andfoods.

Food Porn Daily(http://www.foodporndNeed some inspiration fday? FoodPorn Daily provides a deartery-blocking cornuco(but tasty) eating. Save iSaturday.

Gout: The Missing Chap

(http://www.fourhourbt) Concerned about protand gout? Read this misfrom Good Calories, Badgraciously provided by sscience writer Gary Taubchange your mind.

We believe the body is aHere's how to hack it.
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TimothyFerriss, nominated as one of FastCompany's "Most Innovative

Business People of 2007," is anangel investor (StumbleUpon, Digg,Twitter, etc.) and author of the#1

New York Times, Wall StreetJournal, and BusinessWeekbestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek,which has been sold into 35languages. Tim has been featuredby more than 100 media outletsincluding The New York Times, The

Economist, TIME, Forbes, Fortune,CNN, and CBSand has been a

popular guest lecturer at PrincetonUniversity since 2003, where he

presents entrepreneurship as a toolfor ideal lifestyle design and worldchange.
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