Tim Ferriss Wants to Hack Your Body

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/mf_qa_ferriss

by Mithrandir • 16 years ago

24 32 16 years ago

It isn't an experiment without a control. There aren't any mentioned in the article - are they in the book?

notahacker• 16 years ago

The hair trim, lighting changes and Photoshop on the pictures in this related blog entry will give you an idea of how scientific the content is likely to be:

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to...

ojbyrne2• 16 years ago

Not to mention the weird scaling.

chrisduesing• 16 years ago

I am deeply skeptical that anything in this book will be even remotely healthy, but it should at least be good for entertainment value.

WillyF• 16 years ago

I tried the diet that he outlines here: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/06/how-to-lose-...

I only did it for a few weeks before I went on vacation, but it worked really well. Not sure that I lost 20 lbs of fat, but I definitely lost some weight.

Now, his ideas weren't all that earth shattering, but I wonder how the intricacies of his diet generate different results from straight up Atkins. I'll never know for sure, but it worked for me.

jessriedel2• 16 years ago

> How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days… Without Doing Any Exercise

A pound of fat has 3500 calories. A 170 lbs. man needs something like 2500 calories per day if he doesn't exercise. (I think roughly 2000 for truly sedentary, 3000 for moderate activity.) That means that if you go without any food whatsoever for a month, you just barely lose 20 lbs. (And if you do this, you'll probably become so weak and lethargic that you'll start burning less than 2000/day.)

There's just no reasonable way to lose 20 lbs. in 30 days without drugs, starving yourself, and/or a very strenuous exercise regime. If you ran 10 miles per day (at 125 calories/mile) you'd still only be able to eat a very meager 1200 calories per day. You'd have to run almost a marathon every day in order to afford a normal calorie intake.

joelhaus2• 16 years ago

If you ran 10 miles per day (at 125 calories/mile) you'd still only be able to eat a very meager 1200 calories per day.

Unless your metabolism remained elevated after your run.

kareemm• 16 years ago

You can lower caloric intake significantly by getting your carbs from fruits and vegetables and avoiding grains, breads, and refined sugars. The fat slides right off as your body enters a ketogenic state and burns fat instead of carbs for energy.

That said, I'm not sure if it'll result in 20lbs of fat loss in a month.

xiaoma• 16 years ago

I've personally lost that much twice. The second time was due to illness while traveling, but the first time was when returning to serious distance running training after a multi-year layoff. Not only did I lost 20lbs in a month, it was a total of 55 lbs over three months. I went from struggling to do an easy one hour run to running over 150km/week.

I'm almost positive your math is off on the calorie burning. As an overweight guy, you should be burning over a 100 calories per km, not mile. Also, there's more to it than just what you burn while running. After a certain tipping point (about an hour a day for me), it seems my body just doesn't want to store fat. I'm not sure if it was a factor, but like most successful distance runners, I stuck to a low-protein mostly plant-based diet while training.

The other factor to consider is that someone approaching running from being a sedentary programmer (as opposed to a bodybuilder), you'll be building up muscle and even some bone mass as well as losing the fat. This is the case for pretty much any weight-bearing activity (eg, skiing, snowshoeing, etc)

desigooner2• 16 years ago

anything suggesting a weight loss of over 5-8 lbs a month is not healthy and you'd yo-yo right back to it after getting off the regimen, diet or exercise.

codexon• 16 years ago

Isn't anyone else here skeptical of Tim Ferriss?

Sure he's rich now, but he graduated from Princeton and self-admittedly worked 7 days a week in order to get his dietary supplement company BrainQuicken up and running. All this flies in the face of his 4-hour workweek book.

brianmwang• 16 years ago

Above all else, Tim is a master self-marketer.

I've always found it interesting that I'd never heard of BrainQuicken until he got his fame from 4-Hour Workweek. Granted, that fact alone doesn't mean the company wasn't successful when Tim was running it, but it is curious.

IMHO, he comes across very much as a "famous for being famous" type of person and for that, I've never really liked the guy. Some of his ideas are interesting, but it's hard to take him seriously when he's practically Aleksey Vayner.

joshklein2• 16 years ago

He addresses this in his book - creating the original "muse" is something that requires huge amounts of work and time. But the objective is to only develop the kind of business you can later automate, thereby reducing yourself to only 4-hours of busywork eventually - not total "work", mind you - so you can focus on the things you care about. In Tim's case, that "stuff you care about" appears to be creating a personal brand as a sort of life coach / marketing guru.

Like all business and self-helpy books, you have to take the 4HWW's subject matter as a skeptic, but there are some great nuggets in the book.

adriand• 16 years ago

> there are some great nuggets in the book.

I typically detest self-help books but a small number of ideas from the book were enough to change my life: not checking email first thing in the morning; checking email at scheduled, limited times during the day; setting critical goals for each day and prioritizing them; and setting short limits on the amount of time I set aside for particular tasks.

I don't really care what criticism anyone might want to level at 4HWW (and I'm sure there's plenty), but for me, these simple ideas increased my work enjoyment and productivity tenfold.

ojbyrne2• 16 years ago

I think the correct question is "is anyone else here not skeptical of Tim Ferriss?"

hugh32• 16 years ago

I think the real question is why does Tim Ferris have any credibility around here at all, when anyone else trying to sell "dietary supplements" and making "I gained 34 pounds of muscle in one month" claims would be confined to the medium of posters on telegraph poles.

Even to the extent that any of his claims are true, didn't his mother ever teach him that it's impolite to brag?

salemh2• 16 years ago

..He has not been in the dietary supplement business for years. "Brag" vs spreading knowledge?

groby_b• 16 years ago

Personally, I've bookmarked him as sleazeball. His "easy wins" usually come about because he exploits weaknesses in the system. Yes, completely legal, but - IMNSHO - completely unethical.

So, while it might work for him, I want nothing to do with it. Made the mistake of reading his book and felt dirty for it.

bobbin_cygna• 16 years ago

> he packed on 34 pounds of muscle while dropping 3 pounds of fat in 28 days

sure.

petercooper• 16 years ago

In any sport where power, speed, or endurance is a determining factor, everyone is using drugs.

I suspect he'll get a lot of "feedback" on that point. I'm no pro-sportsman, but that seems like quite the hot potato to throw out there.

nostromo• 16 years ago

In perhaps the most extreme undertaking, he packed on 34 pounds of muscle while dropping 3 pounds of fat in 28 days.

I could probably gain 31 pounds in 28 days if I wanted to too... In all seriousness, I'd like to see how he measured fat vs. muscle here. These self-aggrandizing lifestyle / diet gurus tend to make a lot of claims that fall flat when subjected to any sort of peer review.

... to compete in the kickboxing nationals... I weighed in at 165, and the next day I stepped onto the platform at 193.

So in this instance, he gained over a pound an hour... Is that really possible, even if it's all water?

joshklein2• 16 years ago

Not to defend his actual results, as I am unaware of them, but this can be tracked by measuring your mass and volume (through water displacement), since fat and muscle have different and known densities.

You can also use a body fat caliper for more of an eyeballing of body fat percentage.

hugh32• 16 years ago

Sounds rather error-prone. If I wanted to fool myself into thinking that I'd swapped a lot of fat for a lot of muscle, what could I do? I'd try to increase density from one volume measurement to the other -- I could breathe in a lot of air during one measurement, and eat a lot of.. I dunno, fruit cake before the other.

naner• 16 years ago

Here's the post if you are curious:

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to...

icegreentea• 16 years ago

I use to wrestle (highschool level, and trained with university level). I've heard of people who've dropped and gained 10-15% of their pre-cutting body mass like that. His claim is definately on the top end of things. The rehydration process is every bit as dangerous as the dehydration. You don't do it right, you just end up puking all over the place, which is no good when you're already dehydrated.

I'm REALLY suspect one pound of muscle per day. If you want an idea of what that means... look at a 1 pound steak. You're adding that much to your body every day.

I'll give him that there are probably genetic freaks of nature out there who can pull this stuff off (maybe he is one), but it's simply not a realistic goal.

salemh2• 16 years ago

Most persons undergoing first-time heavy weight training, or re-training (after a long layoff and losing that muscle mass) have muscle memory kick in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory#Retention "Whether strength or endurance related, it is plausible that the majority of motor movements would require a skilled moving task of some form, whether it be maintaining proper form when paddling a canoe, or bench pressing a heavier weight." http://www.syfit.com/articles05.html

http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/70/2/631 "These data suggest that rapid muscular adaptations occur as a result of strength training in previously trained as well as non-previously trained women."

I believe he achieved this potential lb's due to previously having those gains in muscle mass.

My own personal experience (and training in an amateur / non professional fashion friends and family) were massive gains with proper nutrition and intense weight training, compound movements at the initial onset of training (myself, 30 lbs in 3 months, the first time I ever did weights on a consistent basis, lean muscle though my frame is skinny).

However, with a 1-2 month ramp up I can typically add 5-10 lbs in a more lazy fashion (whereas my previous ~30 lbs of mass I was extremely regimented and ate / trained basically full-time), which is muscle memory.

This "extreme" undertaking is probably better explained in his book (only because the article does not take the claim to task) and probably involved him slimming down over the years, and revamping an intensive training protocol.

Body types will also influence Weight vs Appearance. Tim had a previous article which was much dissected pre-his even stating he was coming out with a fitness book.

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to... http://www.healthynewage.com/blog/bull-strong/ “He could just be a freak of nature, but even the most genetically gifted body builders have NEVER gained this amount of muscle in such a short period.

” This could be another factor on top of all else. I find Tim’s writing refreshing. He does not fluff or sugar coat his “step by steps” and this leads to (another discussion perhaps) arguments over the simplistic validity of his systems.

Edit: Note "weight cutting" for professional sports probably relates to his large gains. (MMA Fighters frequently cut between 15-20 lbs, sometimes more, I am not sure how relevant this is to the discussion, so only a Google link :D)

http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie...

desigooner2• 16 years ago

I'm really skeptical of what this book talks about (adding muscle mass in x days, weight loss by this, extend orgasms by that and what not) and sounds like a whole bunch of miracle cure type bullshit.

His diet outlines etc. are nothing but mashups of good nutrition advice out there and cherry picking some points about certain diets .. it almost seems like he spent a whole lot of time on messageboards and compiled what he read into a book ..

Blindly following the advice in the book could well be a recipe for disaster .. there's nothing like one-size-fits-all for the stuff he talks about in the book ...

btw .. have you ever seen those fat loss pill ads (hydroxycut and what not) where they show a reasonably inshape guy/gal in the before picture and an extremely ripped version of that person in the post picture? it's someone who's already well chiseled from the get go (fitness models basically) who don't workout for a few days and put on some fat by eating certain types of food .. then they go back to their nutrition and workout regimen to get back in the shape they were already in ..

e.g. the VPX Meltdown model had some sort of a genetic makeup that made him put on muscles very easily while losing fat (or appearing to do so) .. read that on a fitness board.

jonhendry• 16 years ago

When will we start seeing links to Kevin Trudeau on HN?

rysmit• 16 years ago

I am really surprised the by the reception here on HackerNews. Tim has a few hacks for the human body and knows how to market it well. That is all.

Tim Ferriss Wants to Hack Your Body

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