When I picked this book up, I was very skeptical about the contents.
There are quick fix diets and all kinds of other garbage on the market that push - do nothing and lose 100 pounds.
Needless to say, this book is NOT one of them.
I have great respect for the way Tim thinks.
He is probably the best at "Smart Working".
The initial thought about the book was this guy is probably lazy - far from it.
What Tim strives for in this book and his other excellent book, 4-Hour Work Week, is to pack action and knowledge into a small amount of time to maximize results.
Depending on your health goals, this book is a must read.
What makes it so good is Tim himself is the human test dummy.
He does not recommend anything he does not try.
You "gotta" respect that especially when you see what he try's.
You need to read this book.
Why is this important to me? I thought about this because when I heard about this book, I really did not give it a second thought.
I read the 4-hour work week and then had to read this book because that one was so good.
This book is important to you because Tim cuts through the crap and all the misconceptions out there and provides real results to fat loss, muscle gain, strength training and nutrition.
The best part is the interview with Nina Hartley.
Since I need to keep this somewhat G rated, I will let you read it and see what I mean.
1.
80/20 Rule - Most of you don't know me but I am kind of a numbers geek.
Pareto was an Italian mathematician and this is his rule.
Basically it translates to 80 percent of the results comes from 20% of the work.
If you combine being efficient and effective than the 80/20 rule has compound effects.
The one weakness here is that you can become very efficient at in-effective work thus you need to evaluate what is in-effective and stop doing it.
There is nobody better than that then Tim Ferriss.
2.
Parkinson's Law - This is outstanding because I have not heard it before reading Tim's books.
Basically it says that a task will swell in "Perceived" difficulty as the time allotted lengthens.
In a nutshell, you can get a term paper done in one night or all term.
The difficulty of the project only seems more difficult by name - i.
e.
Term Paper.
To use this law effectively you need to focus on good and NOT perfection.
Thus you can get 95% effectiveness in say 1 month opposed to 100% effectiveness in 5 years.
This is where this law has real value.
The 4-hour Body is packed with 600 pages of great material.
Since I don't want to make a 10 hour video that nobody will watch, I will profile three core concepts on fat loss in the book.
1.
Subtracting Fat - I picked this one based on sheer popularity.
With the growing obesity issues in this country, I figured let's start with the most popular.
Contrary to popular belief, cutting out fat does not make you lose weight.
Tim profiles his "Slow Carb Diet" which does work.
You can melt fat away by eating protein and vegetables the way he outlines it.
In Tim Ferris fashion, he takes it to the extreme and profiles other ways to ignite fat burning.
The hormonal responses to carbs, protein and fat are different.
The real key here is three things: 1.
1,000 calories at 90% fat = weight loss of .
9lbs per day 2.
1,000 calories at 90% protein = weight loss of .
6lbs per day 3.
1,000 calories at 90% carbohydrate = weight gain of .
24 lbs.
per day.
Thus different sources of calories equal different results.
Note: He does not promote "No carbs".
This is a bad idea as the Atkins Diet of old shows.
When people cut out all carbs, they lose weight but once they go back, they tend to put more on.
2.
Consistent Tracking - This is really simple but very effective.
People suck at creating new beneficial habits.
That is why every diet fad always becomes a best seller because most people will not stick with one thing.
To get around this, people need to see measurable results fast.
The only way to do this is to track it.
Start tracking progress and cutting yourself some slack and you will see measurable gains that are long lasting.
3.
Thermal Load - I have never considered this concept but putting the numbers to it makes good sense.
If you run a marathon you burn roughly 2,600 calories.
A marathon is roughly 4 hours of running.
Remember Michael Phelps? When training for the Olympics, he at 12,000 calories per day.
This means that he would have to work 16 hours or the equivalent to 4 marathons every day.
How come he did not balloon up and gain weight? The concept here is thermal load.
Running a marathon gives you a burn of 2600 calories while working out in an 82 degree pool for the same 4 hours will burn an EXTRA 4000 calories.
I guess we just kicked up the pool membership dollars..
..
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I realize this summary does not scratch the surface on how good this book is but for the sake of time, I need to keep it short.
Some other great topics covered in the book if you are interested are: 1.
Gaining muscle mass and losing body fat.
2.
Increasing strength by working out LESS.
3.
Six minute abs 4.
How to gain 34 pounds in 28 days without Steroids 5.
Reversing Permanent Injuries I hope you have found this short video summary useful.
The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit.
Habits form in as little as 21 days.
One thing you can take away from this book is having a minimalist approach.
One thing that shines throughout the book is the minimal amount of exercise that is required for extraordinary results.
This is counter-intuitive and goes against the grain.
This does not mean that the exercises are easy.
That is the difference.
Most strength and size work requires negatives and failure training.
I have used several of these methods in the past and can say they do work.
Depending on your goals, you can pick what to work on.