The 4-Hour Body

This book has definitely had a huge impact on my life.

 

The first diet that I ever went on in my life came from this book, and the results have been spectacular. I’m down 30 pounds from my all-time high weight, I weigh approximately what I did in college (at the time of writing this I am 30), and I have more muscle definition and a smaller waist size than I did in college. Not only that but all of my biomarkers have improved and my risk of chronic disease has improved greatly. There is zero doubt in my mind or the mind of anyone who knows me that I’m in better shape at age 30 than I was at age 20.

 

But more on that a little later, first let’s talk about the book.

 

The book is huge, which can be intimidating when you first look at it. Tim actually recommends that you treat it more like a reference book than one that you would read cover-to-cover, sort of a choose your own adventure for improving your body.

 

I read the whole thing all the way through from start to finish because that’s just what I do. It was a very entertaining read. Tim constantly is testing things out on himself and this book is more or less told through the lens of  his constant experimentation.

 

Essentially what Tim does is he comes up with a goal, such as putting on 30 pounds of lean muscle, consults the experts, and then tries to find the approach that maximizes results while minimizing effort. Then he shares what works in the book. It’s like the minimalist’s guide to achieving the body you want.

 

The book runs the gamut, if you want to lose weight, gain muscle, get faster, run marathons, have better sex (there are two chapters on sex including one called “the 15 minute female orgasm” –this is not a book you want to leave lying around if there are children in your house), or learn how to hit a baseball for power, you’ll find something useful.

 

For me the most impact thing was the diet, which Tim calls the Slow-Carb diet. Here’s the gist of it:

 

• Strive to eat 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up
• Try to eat 20 grams of protein at lunch and dinner
• No sugar, or white, starchy things like rice, bread, and potatoes
• No milk
• Try to incorporate legumes (things like beans or lentils) into your meals  to help them feel more filling
• Take one unrestricted cheat day per week where you eat whatever you darn well please (Saturday works best for most people)

 

I liked this diet for a number of reasons. First of all, there’s no calorie counting and no calorie restriction. Calorie restriction is the absolute worst thing a diet could ever do because if you get hungry, you’re out of luck. You’ll just have to starve yourself. Hunger is the biggest diet killer I could ever imagine. Plus counting calories doesn’t sound like fun. It sounds like a lot of extra work.

 

Second of all, there’s an unrestricted cheat day. I once read a book where someone tried to ridicule low carb diets because they restricted people’s favorite foods like donuts and ice cream and cookies. Diets won’t work if people feel deprived (I imagine feeling deprived is the second biggest diet killer besides hunger). He makes a good point, but with this diet you can eat as much of your favorite foods as you want –as long as you wait until Saturday. Not only does this mean you don’t need to deprive yourself, it means that you get to grow in the virtuous practice of delayed gratification.

 

And trust me, delayed gratification is a game changer in life in general.

 

This diet works for two reasons, one biological and one psychological:

 

Biological:  This diet keeps your insulin (the fat-storage hormone) low for six days out of the week. In the presence of elevated insulin, fat is actively stored and not released to be used as energy. With this diet your body literally shifts into fat burning mode six days a week

Psychological: There are two ways you can feel deprived on a diet, either you don’t get enough to eat, or you don’t get what you want to eat. This diet is the perfect balance. Calories are never restricted, and you’re allowed to east fattening foods on the weekends. This is the kind of diet that you could stick with over the long haul (though you’d probably want to makes some tweaks such as letting fruit back in once you hit your target weight).

 

That’s not to say that the diet is without it’s weaknesses. There’s added sugar in most of the food sold in the store and you really need to come up with a good game plan for avoiding it.

 

One of the best ways to make the diet work is to find meals that you don’t mind repeating and have them as often as possible (One way I’ve done this is to eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day. See the bottom of this post where you can get the recipes for the breakfast and lunch that have kept me on auto-pilot since I’ve been on this diet).

 

Th book helps give you tips for tricky situations like eating out. Essentially, in those situations you want to order a main course that’s mostly protein like chicken or steak, and then ask for extra vegetables instead of whatever starch usually comes as a side.

 

For me, I usually try to only eat out on cheat day. Our family’s only non-cheat meal usually comes at either Chipotle or Moe’s (I LOVE Chipotle, my wife likes to go to Moe’s sometimes for variety). Mexican food is pretty easy to adapt to this diet. The main rules are no tortilla, rice, or beverage.

 

Besides the diet, the most interesting thing to me was the discussion of a minimalist approach to working out. If you don’t have a lot of time to spend in the gym and are looking for a workout program that can help you lose weight and gain you a “perfect posterior,” the answer is surprisingly simple: kettlebell swings. The protocol is a workout of 70 swings (in as many sets as you need to get there), two or three days a week. Men should start with a 24kg bell (~53lbs) and women should start with a 16kg bell (~35lbs). 70 swings two or three times a week. That’s very doable for almost anyone.

 

Anyway, there was a lot of cool information in this book. So much in fact that it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to apply it all to your life (that would be really hard considering that some of the advice is geared toward opposing goals. He’ll talk for a while about losing weight and then there will be a chapter on how to gain weight and build muscle). Nevertheless, I was extremely interested throughout the whole book. Some of that is probably just the fact that I find the subject of the body very interesting, but I think some of it is the fact that the book is written in a pretty entertaining way.

 

This is definitely a book that I highly recommend, although keep in mind that I am biased because it sparked a very real and very positive change in my life.

 

I read the print edition of this book. I’m not sure if there is an audio version, but even if there is I don’t recommend it. It’s easier to skip around and revisit interesting passages in a physical book and I think that most people will be best served taking Tim’s advice and treating it like a choose your own adventure book.