On an impulse, I bought Tim Ferris's new book, "The Four-Hour Body," which is supposed to be a latest-and-greatest thinking about hacking your biochemistry, a "nerd's diet and workout for peak performance, long life and great sex!" workbook. It was half-off at Border's.
By now, I'm sure you're exhausted of those nauseating "One weird tip" web ads for weight loss, muscle gain, or whatever else you care to mention.
Ferris's book is exactly that: an incessant stream of "one weird tip" moments. Some of them are really weird, but there are hundreds of them, and some of them are simple. For example:
Photograph every meal you eat, six days a week. The premise is that this will make you aware of what you eat. You don't have to post the pictures on Facebook. Hell, you don't have to look at them yourself after you've taken them. Just being aware of what you eat is the important step.
Don't eat anything white, six days a week.. The American diet is one of the unhealthiest in the world, and the main reason for that is because too many of our calories come from processed carbohydrates. By eliminating flour, rice, and potatoes, you'll eliminate most of the "bad" carbs. Ferris points out that if you do this, you'll have to eat more food at every meal: a cup of cooked rice has 120 calories, a cup of spinach only 15. But 120 calories of spinach is processed differently than 120 calories of rice; if you ate the spinach, you'd still lose weight.
Both of these are "six day a week" things because you deserve a day off, a "go crazy and eat what you want" day. It's the relief valve.
When you sit down to watch TV or read tonight, put an ice pack against the back of your neck and down between your shoulders for 30 minutes. This is a slightly weird one; the premise is that cold in this region will activate brown adipose tissue, the stuff that helps you shiver, and jacks up your metabolism.
(The truly outré ones include weighing what you eat versus weighing your, er, output to determine which foods your GI tract processes least efficiently (eat more of those), and getting a subdermal glucose monitor implanted.)
That's it: that's the basis of the book. There's more, of course: each chapter is a long narrative on all the things you could do to lose weight or gain muscle mass or increase testosterone production or whatever body hack you're after. Ferris provides extensive links to various research backing him up, but for all I know each one is BS.
I'm especially suspicious of his supplementation recommendations; I know his fat-burning cocktail contains an ingredient that gives me serious acid reflux. On the other hand, he's very blatant that "supplementation is taking drugs. A drug is a drug, whether you get it from a doctor, over the counter, or at a supplement store." Good for him.
But the bulk of the book is a pounding mantra: Just do One Thing, That One Small Thing Today, to change what you eat, how you act, what you know about your body. He begs you not to be like him, not do too much at once. Just One Small Thing Today.
Not a bad basis at all.
By now, I'm sure you're exhausted of those nauseating "One weird tip" web ads for weight loss, muscle gain, or whatever else you care to mention.
Ferris's book is exactly that: an incessant stream of "one weird tip" moments. Some of them are really weird, but there are hundreds of them, and some of them are simple. For example:
Photograph every meal you eat, six days a week. The premise is that this will make you aware of what you eat. You don't have to post the pictures on Facebook. Hell, you don't have to look at them yourself after you've taken them. Just being aware of what you eat is the important step.
Don't eat anything white, six days a week.. The American diet is one of the unhealthiest in the world, and the main reason for that is because too many of our calories come from processed carbohydrates. By eliminating flour, rice, and potatoes, you'll eliminate most of the "bad" carbs. Ferris points out that if you do this, you'll have to eat more food at every meal: a cup of cooked rice has 120 calories, a cup of spinach only 15. But 120 calories of spinach is processed differently than 120 calories of rice; if you ate the spinach, you'd still lose weight.
Both of these are "six day a week" things because you deserve a day off, a "go crazy and eat what you want" day. It's the relief valve.
When you sit down to watch TV or read tonight, put an ice pack against the back of your neck and down between your shoulders for 30 minutes. This is a slightly weird one; the premise is that cold in this region will activate brown adipose tissue, the stuff that helps you shiver, and jacks up your metabolism.
(The truly outré ones include weighing what you eat versus weighing your, er, output to determine which foods your GI tract processes least efficiently (eat more of those), and getting a subdermal glucose monitor implanted.)
That's it: that's the basis of the book. There's more, of course: each chapter is a long narrative on all the things you could do to lose weight or gain muscle mass or increase testosterone production or whatever body hack you're after. Ferris provides extensive links to various research backing him up, but for all I know each one is BS.
I'm especially suspicious of his supplementation recommendations; I know his fat-burning cocktail contains an ingredient that gives me serious acid reflux. On the other hand, he's very blatant that "supplementation is taking drugs. A drug is a drug, whether you get it from a doctor, over the counter, or at a supplement store." Good for him.
But the bulk of the book is a pounding mantra: Just do One Thing, That One Small Thing Today, to change what you eat, how you act, what you know about your body. He begs you not to be like him, not do too much at once. Just One Small Thing Today.
Not a bad basis at all.
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