4 hour Body Diet Update

I am changing my weigh-in to Friday, this would better reflect the weeks loss (or gain, hope not) but I will post here and change my data on my spreadsheet. After reading the book I had some questions and yesterday Tim Ferris posted a blog post that answered several questions I had. I will summ up the blog post here but reading the whole thing is recommended..

The most shocking thing I noticed was that Tim was thinking about starting a forum, with a cost of $9.95/mo... REALLY... That is insane. I read several forums and they are all free. Even then forum for paleo by Robb Wolf is free. Is he going to give people the golden key to life, I do not think so. I am sure there will be those that will pay and this is a muse to generate income off the work of others, as described in his prior book "The Four Hour Work Week." Trust me, I am not hating Tim for this, I looking for my muse but I am not paying to be part of a forum..

The book is a bit confusing in the layout (Tim, who edited this thing?) so here are some clarifications on what not eat (except for cheat days):

• Yams
• Sweet potatoes
• Quinoa
• Dairy (this includes cheese and yogurt of all kinds)

Little more on dairy..

"I mention cottage cheese at one point as a last resort. It is low in lactose, which is what you need to avoid. Ghee and cream (for coffee) should contain little or no lactose, hence you can use them. The same goes for effectively lactose-free, unflavored whey protein, etc..

[Note for the PubMed readers: It's true that whey is partially (or wholly) responsible for the insulinemic response of most dairy, but avoiding lactose seems to be more directly correlated to faster fat-loss in the diet subjects I've tracked. Needless to say, avoiding all dairy is the simplest solution.]"

I have been on the diet for 3 weeks and it is starting to get a bit trying. My wife is continuing to eat her normal diet and watching her eat bread with dipping oils is driving me crazy. But I must persevere. It is important that I give the diet time and here is the direct text from the blog update about timing:

"On the critical 4-6 week window:
For people over 40 and women (especially after two kids), it’s quite common that the most dramatic fat-loss and weight change comes after 4-6 weeks on the diet. I have no explanation for this. Needless to say, if you haven’t done the diet for AT LEAST four weeks, please don’t post a comment about plateauing and panicking. I can’t give you meaningful advice without a ton of other supporting data (blood tests, etc.), and it’s physically impossible for me to respond to each person.

To reiterate: The entire goal of 4HB is to make you a self-sufficient self-experimenter within safe boundaries. Track yourself, follow the rules, and track the changes if you break or bend the rules. Simple as that. That’s what I did to arrive at my conclusions, and that’s what you will do — with a huge head start with the 4HB — to arrive at yours.

Do it for 4 weeks and then troubleshoot if you’re plateauing."

There really is a wealth of information contained in the blog post mentioned in the opening so I highly recommend reading it. Will see what happens on Friday.

Trying to drop the Fat Ass!

Well, after listening to the NPR Pop Culture from the Monkey See group, Stephen Thompson commented that he was happy 2010 was over and all the attachments to it. Well I have the same sentiment and I will be taking 2011 on with some vigor. What will my vigor be directed towards? Same as many others I would assume but here is my list:

1. improve my fitness
2. drop some weight
3. attain more climbing goals ice, rock, 14ers, alpine and skiing
4. be a better husband, friend, brother, son - person!
5. TRAVEL

The first two go hand in hand with dropping some pounds being the subject of this post and what steps I am taking to drop some bacon. The fitness part is purposefully vague. I like to climb (ice, alpine, rock), bicycle (road, cross, mountain), run, hike; basically anything outside. Being a 250lb body builder would be a detriment. I am a firefighter so being a 110lb marathoner would also have an impact on my life. Besides I do not have the frame to be a 110lb marathoner. With that said my goal is functional strength and flexibility.

The one activity that I have kept my whole life is cycling. 'Back in the day' this led me to centuries and then to triathlons and adventure racing. I had some pretty respectable finishes in tris and adventure races but I became pretty burned out on training. Our belief was more is better and my recreation turned into work.. Sorry, focus, needless to say I curbed my recreation and have not been 'out there' like I used to be. This caused my 175lb fit frame to balloon to my current state of 196lb..

A friend and his wife own Pikes Peak CrossFit and they have been very tolerant of all my questions related to diet and fitness. They have also introduced me into the world of the Paleo Diet and the Paleo Solution podcast. A recent guest on the Paleo podcast was Tim Ferris and he was discussing his book "The Four Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman". With a title like that how could I not become interested? I want to be slimmer and posses superhuman powers. The sex thing is optional because I am already incredible! Well maybe a some pointers could come in handy..

The book details all of the experiments that Tim performed on himself in trying to loose weight, become stronger and in recovering from injuries. I am not going to get into detail about the book but I will say that it hit just about all the areas I have been reading about in various other books, magazines and blogs i.e. barefoot running, stretching, diet and focused intense workouts. The book warns against reading from cover to cover and directs the reader to focus on their goals and read only those sections to reach those goals. Well I read the 549 page tomb cover to cover in 3 days and decided on my own 'experiment' taking the information from this book, "The Time Crunched Cyclist", and those other sources for guidance.

Here are the basics of the Slo-carb diet:

1. Start day with high protein (at least 30g) breakfast within the first hour of waking.
2. Meals should be lean protein (grass fed beef is preferred)
3. Augment meals with legumes for some caloric density
4. Each meal should also contain non-starchy vegetables
5. Eat 4 meals a day
6. NO BEER (ugh!) but red wine is ok..

You can look at my diet document in my fitness folder on google docs for a more detailed explanation or buy the book. This diet is not meat to be fun, it is meant to work. You follow this diet for 6 days then on the 7th day you get to binge, not cheat binge! This is also covered in my doc and book. If you go to the Paleo podcast you can also get a slo-carb cookbook in the show notes..

For my experiment I will be following the diet only for the first 3 weeks, add suppliments the next 3 weeks and then cold therapy the last 3 weeks. I suffered through 3+ months of trying to become a vegetarian so I should be able to survive a few months of eating meat and vegetables..

I have been on the diet for 2 weeks now and here are my results so far, I started weighing 196lb..

Wk1 Wk2

Weight 191.8 188.3

Weight Loss 4.2 3.5

Tot Inches 154.5 150.0

Inch Lost 3.25 1.5

My total weight loss for 2 weeks is 7.7lbs with 4.5 inches lost. I have done minimal exercising this past two weeks, only a couple of 30 min barefoot runs and walks. I had shoulder surgery last week and have been hopped up on percocet for pain. Needless to say all I did last week was basically lie on the couch and do rom exercises on CPM machine. The other side effect of the the percocet was slowing of my intestines. This means I have gone several days without a bm so my weight today may be a little full of shit!

In the coming weeks I will be adding some ab workouts, more runs and then kettleball workouts (when the surgeons oks it).. So I will be updating weekly on my progress and what I am up to. I am also going to post up some evaluations on some gear I have purchased this past year from GoLite, Black Diamond, Exped and many others... Please ask if you have any questions or want to join me in my quest(s)...