A bit curious about the 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferris?

[Nature's Protector]

Note: I'm NOT promoting this book, I'm simply trying to see what others think about it. That's all.

I've been lurking on the forums since my last post (yay new job with campers!), and on my subway rides to and fro work, I've been reading Tim Ferris' book, The 4-hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman and I was wondering if anyone here has heard of it, or has done anything he's suggested. While I do understand most of the science, I'm a bit curious if anyone else has done it (e.g., Occam's Protocol I and II, Geek to Freak, etc) and what it was like. If not, just curious what others persons' takes are on the book.

For those that haven't read the book, here's a summary from the lovely Amazon:

Thinner, bigger, faster, stronger... which 150 pages will you read?

Is it possible to:

Reach your genetic potential in 6 months?

Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours?

Lose more fat than a marathoner by bingeing?

Indeed, and much more. This is not just another diet and fitness book.

The 4-Hour Body is the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than a decade, to hack the human body. It contains the collective wisdom of hundreds of elite athletes, dozens of MDs, and thousands of hours of jaw-dropping personal experimentation. From Olympic training centers to black-market laboratories, from Silicon Valley to South Africa, Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, fixated on one life-changing question:

For all things physical, what are the tiniest changes that produce the biggest results?

Thousands of tests later, this book contains the answers for both men and women. From the gym to the bedroom, it’s all here, and it all works.

You Will Learn (in less than 30 minutes each):

* How to lose those last 5-10 pounds (or 100+ pounds) with odd combinations of food and safe chemical cocktails.

* How to prevent fat gain while bingeing (X-mas, holidays, weekends)

* How to increase fat-loss 300% with a few bags of ice

* How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in four hours of total gym time

* How to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested

* How to produce 15-minute female orgasms

* How to triple testosterone and double sperm count

* How to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks

* How to reverse “permanent†injuries

* How to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months

* How to pay for a beach vacation with one hospital visit

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are more than 50 topics covered, all with real-world experiments, many including more than 200 test subjects.

You don't need better genetics or more discipline. You need immediate results that compel you to continue.

That’s exactly what The 4-Hour Body delivers.

[dragonlyre]

Saw this on /r/fitness the other day. Consensus is that it is bunk.

[bigm141414]

I do own the book and have read certain portions of it. I like his writing style. Don't know about his results. It seems to aim more for short term benefits rather than long term sustainable life styles.

[Kahuna]

Occams Protocol works (1 month 4kg/8.8 poounds more with massiv strength increase). Slow Carb Diet Works (about 1kg/week). Increasing Testosteron subjectivly worked (can just say about the feel, no bloodtest). Fatloss with temperature, works(making it mostly 1.1-1.2 kg lost per wekk). The Rest, i wasn`t able to test. For me, it is a bible, worth reading and doing it.

[Mad Rocker]

I find it hard to put much faith in anyone who tells you how you can live a perfect life...for just a monthly subscription of $10!

Or: 'I made all this money by doing nothing, buy my book and you can too.' Well yeah, if lots of people buy your book for your 'secret', you will make money. THAT is your secret.

Too many self-help sites/blogs are like that. NerdFitness is one of the great exceptions.

[Corbab]

I think it's a great storybook. The accounts of various "superhuman" feats are quite interesting, but the book isn't especially useful as a practical training tool, IMO. It's a good primer if you're really interested in any of the people featured—he essentially retells others' successes with training methodology that they spent years developing. Still, reading the table of contents and googling the people will probably yield as good, if not better, results. All of his own "scientific" results are either n=1 (him) or poll results from his subscription members.

I tried the slow-carb diet with limited success, but most of the other stuff wasn't really of interest to me. I wouldn't mind trying out the super low-rep mid-training lifting plan he covered, but as I said before, more info could be found elsewhere.

[Nature's Protector]

...It seems to aim more for short term benefits rather than long term sustainable life styles.

This is true and I didn't really think of that until just now. I would love to see the people he describes (e.g., the NASA scientist who used cold-water immersion to stimulate fat-loss) now, after they've done the routines, especially the Occam's Protocols and GtF...

Occams Protocol works (1 month 4kg/8.8 poounds more with massiv strength increase). Slow Carb Diet Works (about 1kg/week). Increasing Testosteron subjectivly worked (can just say about the feel, no bloodtest). Fatloss with temperature, works(making it mostly 1.1-1.2 kg lost per wekk). The Rest, i wasn`t able to test. For me, it is a bible, worth reading and doing it.

Did you find any difficulties in implementing any of his methods? I'm very curious about supplements, and how the Nerd Fitness community views them.

I think it's a great storybook. The accounts of various "superhuman" feats are quite interesting, but the book isn't especially useful as a practical training tool, IMO. It's a good primer if you're really interested in any of the people featured—he essentially retells others' successes with training methodology that they spent years developing. Still, reading the table of contents and googling the people will probably yield as good, if not better, results. All of his own "scientific" results are either n=1 (him) or poll results from his subscription members.

True - as a scientist (or at least, a person with training in science, i.e., biology) I should have known better...

Right now, I'm doing the Adv. Bodyweight workout and then I'll probably switch to the Angry Birds workout to push myself further. However, after reading his book (or at least parts of it), I'm wondering if I should incorporate a few things he mentions - like the supplements or the cold showers - to speed up the process?? I'm unsure now :/

[Raincloak]

Sounds like so much snake oil to me, promising miracles. I suspect Mr. "4-hour workweek" decided to make his 4-hour week more profitable by selling more 4-hour books.

I haven't read the book, but if that "sleep 2 hours a day" thing is what's called "polyphasic sleep," I have already heard of it, and I know it does not really work. (If it did, the military, NASA, emergency responders, 24-hour call centers, and factories would all use it. And you can bet they've tried.) There has never been a rigorous controlled group study pitting polyphasic sleep against regular, much less a study proving that they have equal effects on performance.

The stuff about sperm and orgasms just made me laugh. That sounds like a late-night TV infomercial on the kinds of channels no one admits to watching. (Not that I'd know; I don't own a TV. There's an extra 4 hours in my week right there.)

[Mr. Decay]

I sense much chicanery in this tome...

[Kahuna]

Here is a Video of the "loose weight with temperature guy" aka Ray Cronise from 2010 at the TED conference:

I did occams, and it`s quit easy and fast, you just need one time a little longer to find your weight, i didn`t use any supplements at this time. What kind of diffuculty should there be? Find your weight, make as much repition as you can with 5 sec uo 5 sec down, till nothing goes, really nothing, and you drop the weight. And eat enough Protein* every day!

My comparsion was "standart" muscle building routine, for the whole body which i did over a year which much less sucess in muscle gains (was loosing weight also).

Slow Carb isn`t hard to do either, the hardest was forcing to eat 1 hour (3 eggs)after waking up because i have alot of sleep problems, the rest was easy, but i lost alot of wiegth with low carb before that, though both had the same effectivness, slow carb is somewhat easier to maintain, little more power.

Testosterin increase? Just eat a few brasil nuts, get some cod liver oil (capsulse better, the taste ewwww) and use Kerrygold butter and of course enough Vit D.

*it could be that the muscle gain was from the protein and my standart training would have the same effect, at least something of it works, i would say both do work though.

Why don`t you try yourself you lose 5 weeks where you don`t get the standart effect you have now, but definitly you will get some, and if you win, you have 4+ kg muscle more. Holding still for 1 week is the hardest thing.

@Snakeoil Arguments: Read the book, burrow it if you don`t want to buy it, google it topics, which since the release of the book, many people sharing this information for free now. He dosn`t force your a subscription, and he never said "i found it out all alone". He searched for ways, tested them, wrote down his expierence and shares them, sometimes he adds something of his own. That what you buy, his expierence, and this knowledge in this condense form is pretty unique. Polyphasic sleep dosn`t work? Mhh so everyone is a lier who has done that? Steve Pavlina for example? Do you know what the drawback is of polyphasic sleep maybe that is the reason the military don`t like it, with 2 hours wake time, is not much for big things in a group.

[Shukar]

I tried Occams for a while and saw steady improvements in strength and some added muscle, though I was coming from a pretty limited resistance background. I've also tried the cold to reduce body fat and that I got better results on than the periods before and after my test window on roughly the same diet. While I have not tried the Slow Carb Diet personally my sister has and had decent success with it, though she is notorious for not sticking to things so the ability to stay on it long term is not something easily tested with her. I've yet to try any of the other protocols in the book but some of them are on my list.

So to summarize:

Occams: Worked but with caveats

Cold: Burned body fat faster than controls in my limited testing

SCD: Worked over the short term, no long term data