Tim Ferriss and The 4 Hour Body - a rational critique

I say "rational" because many people I've observed in the blogosphere are very irrational when it comes to  understanding Timothy Ferriss. I was too at one point, in that I dismissed him initially thinking that I would not benefit from his work. This is because he's a businessman, who cares more about making money so many people think he's a prick. (From youtube videos he seems like a cool dude and speaks rationally so I give him a check +, and I don't often do that, I've also watched one of his lectures and his prose impressed me). When I was younger I thought to myself, I would NEVER own a business related to health products and services because I'd have to lose some morality to do so by emphasizing 'selling.' Well I think that's fine now. Unless you're rich to begin with, if you want to make yourself heard in a hedonistic nation, you will benefit from those attention grabbing blanket statements at times, like the title of this book, which is not representative of everything in the book. But that's what sells. If it doesn't work, it's bullshit and a scam. But if it works, it's not at all and can help more people than if not sold with catchy phrases because it would remain in obscurity. Timothy Ferriss enjoys living life, while at the same time understanding how the world works, whether it's business, telecommunications, languages, fat loss, or longevity.

So here is a brief rating:

Content: 8

Organization: 10

Readability: 9

These are very very high ratings. He only got an 8 from me on content due to lack of references. You cannot say SHIT without references if you're interested in science. But for the layman, it works better! And that's why Tim succeeds. So although I'm mulling over putting references in everything I write, even if it's on an internet forum, Tim realizes that 

a. many things work

b. you don't need to know the details in order to succeed

c. people need to follow a PROGRAM rather than understand the biochemistry of fat loss...

And so that's what I need to work on in order to help people. Unfortunately once you ask me about diet it's hard to turn my brain off and get it to shut the f**** up. 

So yeah he took his revolutionary business ideas, applied them to the book, and has helped way more people than I have yet, in losing weight that is. But I haven't been working as a personal trainer for that long anyway nor is helping people my main priority. My main priority is knowledge and that's what we are going to discuss about his book, well and other things too but that will help you INDIRECTLY YAY!

I will go through many of the ideas sequentially that are either important, or controversial. IN SHORT, IT WAS AN EXCELLENT BOOK. One of the BEST DIET BOOKS OUT THERE, because it gives you, the overweight layman reading this right now, EXACTLY what you need and NO MORE, but NOT because it had the most scientifically sound advice, it's all in the organization, not the content AND THERE ARE TONS AND TONS OF REFERENCES AT THE END OF EACH CHAPTER (by references not scientific journal articles, just resources for more information, testing locations, tools). He tells you how to analyze nutritional science, he tells you what to eat and what not to eat, how to think about losing weight, and so much more. He PURPOSELY stops his brain from saying too much, because he knows he will have more success without it. Seriously though, thanks for the links and tools because it allows the reader to figure out what you have by taking us to the source.

I also took all his advice for GRANTED until I started gathering my thoughts for this post. Only then did I realize that people I WORK WITH and previous PROFESSORS, and people with DEGREES AND CREDENTIALS still believe in "calories in- calories out" or that we need to "exercise more" or "limit saturated fat" and do "cardio" in order to BURN FAT.  FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

So Tim, you've figured it out. You're the man. 

Ok ABOUT THE BOOK:

It's huge. I thought it was tiny, but it's over 500 pages long, BUT, it's a guide. He specifically said not to read it start to finish (BUT I DID ANYWAY HAHAHAHAHAHAH YOU CAN'T STOP ME LMFAO), and choose the sections you liked. There is a chapter on fat loss, on building muscle, on getting stronger, on giving women orgasms faster, on hitting baseballs further. HE IS A RENAISSANCE MAN! I was impressed because at the end, he said there were many other chapters he wanted to put in the book but didn't have space for. I like that because it shows me he is interested in a lot of different things, and is looking at life from many different angles without becoming too overwhelmed with one aspect like diet. He takes the minimum effective dose (MED), the 2.5% that gives 95% of the results. So yeah, you can spend 3 hours in the gym to lose weight, but you will get the same benefit in 30 minutes, or hell 7 minutes. Losing weight can be extremely easy if you follow just a few rules. Some people do lose weight while wasting a lot of time on exercises they don't like because they think they have to. 

Also, (I'll get more detailed in the next segment), Tim believes in tracking things a lot. This is what he prefers to do, but if you're even lazier than him (hey he admitted he was lazy in the book and wakes up at 11AM on average), then I ASSURE YOU you can lose a lot of weight without really tracking anything! A lot of people like knowing how many inches they've lost from their arms and thighs, and how much body fat they've lost, but none of it is necessary (especially once you realize how hard it is to measure bodyfat accurately and how irrelevant it is for your health). Many people would become stressed out from trying to track all these variables and would rather just follow some diet, add more vegetables in there, some green tea, some turmeric, some high intensity exercise, and see the results in the mirror bit by bit. 

I used to love tracking things until I realized I couldn't afford blood tests all the time and was a broke college student, so I saved that for the future and put it in the back of my mind BUT IT FELL OUT so  reading this book TRULY inspired me to track things again and become a little more focused in terms of my health, all in an excited, loving life sort of manner. That's what I love about books, they really do make you go like WOAH THAT'S SO COOL. Once I can afford it I will get blood tests.  I started experimenting with a "mind over matter" lackadaisical approach over the past 6 months and I definitely did not experience optimal vitality. I was not high everyday like I am while writing this. (the higher I am the more caps lock I use). But having a strong stress tolerance helps no matter what. (I will address a key point where I differ with him vehemently and strongly in the next segment). 

Does it really take 4 hours?

Ok I'm going to give it away here unfortunately, but yes and no. It's honestly a fancy title that is not completely true, and not every chapter in the book is about building the best body, some of them are yes about female orgasms (clitoral ones at least which still many women have not had the pleasure to experience, I'd recommend strengthening the PC muscle), about maximizing hormones, about longevity, and hitting a baseball further. 

In his book, the 4 hours referred to his experiments building muscle. After some genetic tests, he concluded that he had the worst possible genetics for building strength and muscle, AND endurance. That was funny. So he used a one set to failure protocol (Arnold Jones) and claims to have built 34lbs of muscle in 28 days. He performed eight 30 minute workouts, for a total of 4 hours.

The fat loss though doesn't necessarily take exactly 4 hours per month. It's irrelevant though. All of his recommendations will prevent you from WASTING TIME LIKE EVERYONE ELSE IN THE GYM. 

Here are the pros and cons of his 4 hour muscle building experiment:

Pros: Congrats. I am enamored by this guy's relentless experimenting. He poses a question and answers it. It clearly worked. He looks great in the after picture (no homo). 

Cons: 

He experienced noob gains. He started off extremely skinny. How much would he have gained in another month? I doubt he would gain as much in one more month because he would plateau soon but I'm not entirely sure. Nevertheless, most noobs can't even gain 5lbs of muscle in a month because they are never consistent and don't know how to train. Following this protocol can work for noobs, but if you have more time I'd do a few more things just for fun. He also uses a lot of machines, that's fine. But free weights are better for overall health imo. Machines can hit certain muscles more but won't transfer to activities of daily living as well.

He did not include rest times, not only in this chapter but many others. If you're in the gym for thirty minutes, you're in the gym for thirty minutes. The point of quicker workouts is to reduce wasted time in the gym and free up time to do other things. If your total "work" time was 10 minutes, but there were 20 minutes of rest, your workout took 30 minutes.

Also he's not natural enough for me. I like eating as naturally as possible because I'm weird but he used supplements like NO-Explode - a shitty over-marketed BS supplement that doesn't usually work. The whole concept of NO supplements are stupid. I actually just despise most things about bodybuilding that's another reason why I loathe most of the supplements.

Therefore I shun him. LOL jk. DON'T JUDGE PEOPLE FOR WHAT THEY EAT. I think I'm still guilty of this though so in this regard you can call me a hypocrite. Whatever.

LASTLY, he used hydrostatic weighing (HW) to determine his bodyfat. HW uses a two compartment model for estimating body composition, fat mass and fat free mass. This is retarded imo because not everyone's fat free mass (organs, bones, water, muscle..brain..) weighs the same DUH. Muscles themselves contain a lot of water. Those who train for sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and do a lot of reps will have watery muscle versus those who train for strength and will have lighter but stronger muscles because of less water mass. Therefore it will seem as if they have less fat-free mass at the same bodyweight. Bodyfat percentage is actually a very stupid thing to measure because it's very difficult to measure fat everywhere in the body. You can't measure the amount of fat in your brain easily, but of course the differences in brain fat content aren't too high compared to visceral or abdominal or subcutaneous but it could make a difference in your health. The saturation of lipids in your cell membranes can make a difference in your metabolism, and potential to lose fat therefore, but cannot be measured with these tests. Fat cells also hold water so it's another reason why HW is flawed. Anyway, he did gain a lot of muscle in a short amount of time and you can too.

Ok this post is too long already. Next post I will go into topics in the book that I liked and disliked, separately and simultaneously. In this one I hoped to have given an overview of Tim's idea, and just a brief outline of the book sort of, and not ramble too much. Anyway, 

STRENGTH OUT!

-AS