The 4-Hour Body

There is a whole other thread talking about the unrealistic and unhealthy portrayal of weight loss on 'Biggest Loser'. Using that as validation as the speed of your weight loss is a bit off don't you think? You are comparing to a show with drastic weight loss methods that actually don't stay long term (most people on that show regained their weight and more) because they don't learn actual life changes.

I'm not shooting down your weight loss. You cut your calories. That is how you lose weight. Counting or not, it's still a cut in your intake.

and pretty sure more than 95% of the world doesn't know me so pretty sure they would go with a doctor..doesn't mean they are right. Doesn't mean I'm right either. Facts don't change with popularity.
 
well that's a mental problem and food addiction for most of the people on the show so like a drug addict they probably are going to relapse. The point is i'm sure almost all the stuff is on the internet somewhere. It's just a matter of finding it and for most people they don't have the time and patience or knowledge to research such things. People want effective weight loss. This book helps you achieve that. I'll see more in a month and see where i'm at but as of now it seems like a great purchase for 25 bucks. It gives me information that most people would forget over time and a very interesting read for the rest of my life. Until you read it, you cant hate it too much. i'm sure you know what your talking about more than i do, but that's why the book is a great help, because most people won't and can't research the things you yourself may research.
 
as for the book. i don't give two (language) if anyone buys it lol most people will think it's not worth the money before they buy it, but for someone serious about making a change and don't exactly understand where to look, this book is a major help , but only time will tell, so i personallly don't know yet. i wish i was gettin paid for this but i'm not.
 
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Actually, most of the time, the relapse is because instead slowly losing weight and learning to change their habits, they go for quick fix ideas and scam weight loss plans.

Yeah, I'm sure it is fine for people who needs that extra edge or a 'totem' to hold onto like a crutch for extra strength. The information inside is a bit dubious but the core is still very much 'calories in vs calories out'.

Maybe there is a better way to go about this discussion with you..

Hi, welcome to the forum. How about you tell us about yourself and why you are here? There is a great journal area you can post thoughts and keep track of things to aid in your weight loss. I mean, there is a real reason for you to join our site right? You want support and guidance?



But my opinion? You aren't here for that. You are here to push this stupid book.
 
I'll leave this as your last warning. Please read the forum rules located under the newcomer thread..the part about insulting members might help.
 
4 hour body

Been on the slo carb diet as outlined in the book. Found it useful, but may not go by it verbatim. Had already lost 17 lbs by snacking on protein. I do like the slo carb thing, but found that if I eat all I really want I will put some weight back on. So for me I have to stay around 1500 cal a day except on cheat day to stay where I want to be.
 
spaden11 said:
you ever see the biggest loser? they lose about 30 pounds a week. I'm not that big but i'm not starving myself and im not exercising too much that's for sure so you really should quit acting like you know everything. If i had to bet my life on tim ferris and 120 doctors or you and your google. I'd have to go with tim ferris. I'm sure 95% of people would to
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You'd bet your life on someone who swallows 25 pills at once?



Hmm, looks like an awful lot of wine there in the background. Let's see: Pops pills? Avid wine drinker? No medical credentials? No professional training and/or experience in health or medicine? And, - MTV breakdancer in Taiwan? Wired Magazine's "Greatest Self Promoter of 2008?" One of Fast Company's "Most Innovative Business People of 2007?"

Yeah, he's not out to make money. He's not out to boost his ego (and his wallet). He's not out promoting his book for business reasons. He's definitely in this because he knows what he's talking about, not because he's just a really good salesman.

Clearly this is someone to bet your life on when it comes to losing weight.

(insert world's largest eye roll here)
 
Busabuck said:
Been on the slo carb diet as outlined in the book. Found it useful, but may not go by it verbatim. Had already lost 17 lbs by snacking on protein. I do like the slo carb thing, but found that if I eat all I really want I will put some weight back on. So for me I have to stay around 1500 cal a day except on cheat day to stay where I want to be.
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Thanks for the feedback! I have the same problem :/ I have to watch quantity or weight creeps up. I envy people who can just get to their dream weight while eating as much as they want!
 
I'm new to this site, but I am having results with the 4 Hour Body diet & workout plan. I'm not here to debate the motives of the author - I'm sure he's out to make money, but I don't really care what his motives are as long as his methods are working for me.

Here's some background on me - I'm 34 years old, female, 5'9". My goal weight is 148. My body type is hourglass - very similar to a tall Kim Kardashian. At my smallest weight (pre-kids) I was 133 (I was taking ephedra when it was still legal), and at my largest I was 168 (not including pregnancy weight). I had my second baby 8 months ago at age 33, and was plateaud at 167 for two months before starting the 4 Hour Body this week.

I started at 167 on Monday, and today (Thursday) I'm at 163 - a 4 pound weight loss in 3 days is considerable for me, especially because I have two endocrine conditions that make it nearly impossible for me to lose weight - Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. The PCOS especially makes you insulin resistant, but even eating low-carb I was not continuing to lose weight. I saw my doctors & they said that my medication levels were fine, but people with Hashimoto's just basically have to eat half as much & work out twice as hard to lose weight. Even though I easily lost the baby weight after I had my first baby when I was 30, I had plateaud for months after this one & was afraid I would never lose the last 20 pounds.

I have always been a runner, and I was plateaud even though I was running 12-15 miles a week - no weight loss. Over the years, I have tried many diets - vegan, The Zone, Atkins, The South Beach Diet, and Weight Watchers. After this particular pregnancy, I did WW, Aktins & South Beach, and the weight did not come off (maybe one pound everry two weeks).

I think that the reason that this diet is working for me is that for the first time I am not eating dairy while also going low-carb (the only other time I gave up dairy was when I was vegan 10 years ago but at that time I was eating loads of refined carbs, so I didn't lose any weight). This week (as prescribed by the diet) I have given up dairy, bread, cereal, rice, pasta, potatoes, fruit and sugar. What I AM eating is lots of veggies, beans, meats, fish and almonds (also tomatoes & avocadoes), and drinking coffee, green tea, red wine, and tons of water. Because I've gone low-carb before with not-great results, I'm thinking it's the combo of low carbs & no dairy in this diet that broke my plateau.

Also, I haven't done any cardio this week - only free weights. I usually run 30 minutes 4-5 days per week, but this week I have only done a couple of 20 minute free weight sessions. I have read before that doing a lot of cardio can increase your appetite, and I think that after my runs I was snacking more - an extra apple, another string cheese, a taste of peanut butter, etc. Now I am really not snacking at all - just eating 4 meals a day (breakfast, "early" lunch, "late" lunch, and dinner). I can't believe that I'm losing weight doing no cardio, only free weights, but it's working.

Anyway, it's just my first week on the diet - I'll post back on Saturday at the end of the week. Saturday is scheduled to be my cheat day, and at first I was excited about it, but now I'm worried that I'll go nuts & gain the weight back. Maybe I'll just do a cheat meal instead - I'll let you know how it goes ...
 
congrats on your weight loss but it's not surprising. Many people lose weight without exercise. As long as you cut calories (and you have) you will lose weight. I wish you continued success in your change of lifestyle.
 
Holy Cowzers! I had forgot about this post until yesterday and I come back to find someone's been (most likely) kicked out of the whole debate! I'm hope I'm not under suspicion for introducing the book to the forum in the first place!

I would like to say, though, that after reading all of the back and forth, I think it's important to realize that:

1. Anyone who writes a book is out to make money, and Ferriss is a brilliant salesman and marketer. That aside, if you believe what he says, 4HB is really more of a biography than anything else. He's advocating the strategies that he's tried that actually work - something we all do on this forum. So while white wine may work better than red, he drank red so he knows about red.

2. Of course everything he says has been said elsewhere first, but that doesn't mean that it's not good info, and it doesn't mean that he's a d*ck for trying to put it all together in one spot to make it easy for people to get started. Buying the book isn't paying for new information, it's paying for pertinent, organized information.

3. Calories in vs. calories out will never go away. It's based on Newton's Laws of Energy. I think what we should all be arguing is the accuracy of online calculators that claim to be able to tell you how many calories you burn.
The only thing I've seen that's come close to accurately detailing my calorie burn was 24 Hour Fitness's Body Bugg (now marketed under another name). After wearing it all day on your arm, you could plug it into a PC and find out how many calories you burned, organized and divided in groups of a few minutes at a time. What I learned from wearing that device was that your calorie burn fluctuates constantly (except when you're asleep), sometimes adding between 1 and 2 calories burned per minute. Which leads me to...

4. I think it's funny that when you introduce an idea like standing instead of sitting, people nod and say, "sure it's a small difference, but it adds up!" But when you discuss something like drinking caffeine to speed up metabolism, or staying away from carbs to decrease insulin spikes, people will still say that "it might make a little difference, but not enough to lose any significant weight."

Finally, I'd say that the subtext of the book describes it all: "An Uncommon Guide to Weight Loss...", or whatever it is. While it might be CIvCO in disguise, it should open you up to new ways of thinking about how to cut calories or increase expenditure.
 
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It occurs to me that everyone attributes weight loss through changes in diet to the "calories in" part of CIvCO. Isn't it feasible to think that changes in diet can also affect calories out?
 
yes..very little though..as you said, every little bit helps if it actually is proven to help and not just mental.
 
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So, one of the pluses is that studies have shown that the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) - essentially the calories you burn while digesting the food - is highest for protein, and lowest for fat. The study I recall basically had two 2000 calorie diets - controlled eating,not self reported - one with 100g of protein, and one with 200g of protein. Those on the 200g of protein lost more weight (not sure if they actually measured calories burned) simply from the extra protein. I believe it was estimated to be an extra 100 calories worth. So obviously some does add up.

As to the caffeine vs. standing - .1 extra calories an hour doesn't add up to much. 75+ calories an hour adds up to more, so I imagine on that front it's a matter of scale. There's the idea of 'lost in the noise' and something that burns an extra 17 calories a day is lost in the noise compared to an extra 200. Every little bit helps, but some have a bigger bang for buck - and there are tons of studies that show the advantage (as well as health risks, women who sit for more than 3 hours a day are at a much higher risk for heart disease than women who don't) to standing. Not so many on the health benefits of caffeine.
 
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For the most part, what I've read in this forum is pointless debate...unless you have read the book you can't sum up the author's methods. Also, the diet and methods used in the book to lose weight do not simply equate to cal. in vs. cal. out. I've been using the methods in the book for almost two months now and have lost significant body fat and weight and I have increased my calorie intake from where it was at previous to the diet and decreased calorie output. I train and compete in mixed martial arts on a regular basis but injured my neck and shoulder a few months ago and have not been working out since starting the diet. As well, I've started eating meat again on the diet and increased my portion sizes and frequency of meals (increasing my cal. intake.)

Obviously we can all agree that yes, the author wants to make money. But before you sum up his motivations to making people pay for the same information on losing weight, read the book. If you don't have a few bucks to spend on it than you should get off the forums and do something more productive anyway. The book doesn't just cover weight loss, which it actually covers in pretty good detail and gives legitimate data for all results illustrated, it covers a range of things from fat loo to muscle gain to running longer distances to raising testosterone. It is, like was already said, a sort of autobiography...if an autobiography included data explaining how and why things happened.
 
Welcome to the forum. It's always interesting to see a brand new member simply jump into a discussion like this. Would you like to introduce yourself in the Newcomer thread? We are glad to have new members.

That being said..how sure are you that you actually increased your calorie intake and lowered calorie output compared from before? Sorry but the science doesn't fit weight loss if you are doing Calories Out < Calories In. That goes against Newton's Law of Energy as pointed out.
 
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@Jericho, I was linked here from a web search and read through the posts so I thought I'd give my two cents. I just posted in the newcomer thread.

You're right, I should rephrase what I said. When I said I decreased cal. output I meant physical output. I went from 1 or 2 2-3 hour high intensity workouts 5-6 days a week to a couple minutes of air squats a day and a couple very light workouts (mostly standing around) per week. I know that I have increased my caloric intake because I know the calories of my meals. The reason I say it isn't simply just calories in vs. calories out is that most people count calories by watching what they eat and monitoring bmr. Calories in and calories out (as exercise dependant) are not what is important to monitor. One more reason I suggest reading "The 4-Hour Body." While the slow carb diet is the focus of the book's weight loss component, there is a lot more to it.
 
Jericho said:
Welcome to the forum. It's always interesting to see a brand new member simply jump into a discussion like this. Would you like to introduce yourself in the Newcomer thread? We are glad to have new members.

That being said..how sure are you that you actually increased your calorie intake and lowered calorie output compared from before? Sorry but the science doesn't fit weight loss if you are doing Calories Out < Calories In. That goes against Newton's Law of Energy as pointed out.
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I just wanted to mention that I agree with Perillomma. I have also decreased the amount of time and intensity of my workouts while eating more calories than I usually do this week, and have lost 4 pounds so far in 5 days. I really think for me it has to do with cutting out the non-fat & low-fat dairy that I was eating. Maybe I was lactose intolerant or something and didn't know it, but the combo of cutting out fruit & dairy & adding beans has made a huge difference - I have already lost 2.5 inches off my body as well. I was already eating no carbs/starches so those were the only changes I made. Since I am insulin resistant because of my two endocrine disorders, my doctor has told me before to avoid processed sugars & carbs, but I think avoiding the fructose & lactose must be helping my body lose weight as well. I don't know yet if what I'm losing is water weight or fat, but either way, my clothes are fitting better.

I'm doubting that calories in/calories out is the only thing that affects weight loss, because before I was burning an average of 1500 calories a week running, and now I'm not doing aerobic exercize, only weights (burning about 500 cal per week in exercise), yet losing pounds & inches (1 inch off waist, 1/2 inch off hips, 1/2 inch off each thigh).

Thanks for "welcoming" me to the forum - I'll post on the newcomer board if I feel like it. What's so interesting about new members jumping into threads? Isn't that where all new members come from? The reason that I started posting on here is because this was the first forum I found discussing this diet, & since I don't know anyone else who has tried it in real life yet, I wanted to find out what other people's results were.
 
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