I’ve been reading a few fitness, nutrition, and diet books lately…as I often do. One book in particular has struck a nerve and caused a lot of discussion on the Internet: Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Body.
Today I am not here to weigh in on whether or not I like Tim Ferriss, find him to be a total shill, or if I think he is a genius, I am here to talk about a few things that I think you can use no matter if you think the book is bullshit or not.
1. Measure your results: In the book Tim talks about measuring and using data to find out whether or not something is working. As someone with a marketing degree that makes perfect sense. Hell, in school we spent numerous semesters learning how to analyze data for things far less important than our bodies.
So measure things in your diet and exercise plan. This doesn’t mean you need to be obsessive about every scrap of food you put into your mouth, unless you want to be, then go right ahead. But start with something simple, like taking a tape measure and measuring your waist at the spot just above your belly button. If you are exercising and dieting and trying to lose weight, the number should go down. If the number goes up, something is working so you need to look at what you are doing.
Its that simple.
2. Cut out the processed crap in your diet: In college, I studied a good bit of nutrition and since I’ve been an adult and realized I can’t eat Twinkies and Ho-Hos all day every day and expect to live very long, I’ve continued this study. Consistently, the thing that seems to bring most people’s diets to a screeching halt is their inability to avoid processed carbohydrates.
If you were to take all of your diet books on any book shelf in America and take out one idea that you can find in any of these books, that would be it.
Currently, I don’t eat bread, pasta, or almost any other carbohydrate that doesn’t come from a bean, nut, or vegetable Sunday-Friday. Saturday, I go a little nuts. That’s me. You could get a lot of benefit from just cutting out bread and pasta.
(P.S. Just so you don’t think I am screwing with you, I do drink a little wine or beer a few nights a week. This makes up most of my non-bean, vegetable, nut carbs.)
3. Drink more water: I think I have mentioned this a lot here recently and its because its one of the most effective things you can do to help regulate your metabolism and shed fat.
I could go into a few of the mechanics, but that would be boring. Just think about this, if you don’t drink enough water to make your pee clear to light yellow, the body is going to have a hard time getting the fat out of your body and it is going to stick inside you. (That should turn a stomach or two.)
I could go a little more in depth on the weight training and some of the other stuff, but that wouldn’t appeal to everyone and I need to save stuff to write about later. But, if you just do these 3 things, I think you will begin to feel like you see some results and gain motivation to continue.