<story><title>NYT Review of ‘The 4-Hour Body’</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07book.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pchristensen</author><text>I&apos;m the rare defender of Tim Ferriss on HN.  A lot of what he says is common sense, a lot of it is crazy, a lot of it is probably wrong, but here&apos;s why I think he doesn&apos;t deserve the scorn given to him:&lt;p&gt;Everything he says is backed up by this premise:  &quot;Don&apos;t just accept this - try it!  I&apos;m only recommending it because I found it to work.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve done his slow-carb diet before and am doing it again now.  I lost 25 pounds in two months the first time, and I&apos;ve lost 5 pounds this week since I restarted it.  These results, which are on par with what he claimed, make me hesitant to flatly deny anything else he recommends.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SwellJoe</author><text>I basically agree with you. The 4 Hour Body &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; chock full of a bunch of stuff that isn&apos;t scientifically proven, which I&apos;m always suspicious of. But, the science is solid on a lot of the stuff he really pushes hard.&lt;p&gt;The slow-carb diet &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; an excellent diet for weight loss and does avoid some of the problems of other rapid weight loss diets; it controls calorie intake without forcing you to count calories. I counted calories for the first week or so I was on it (in vegetarian form, which is a little bit of a challenge, to get enough protein without resorting to soy and wheat gluten products), and found I was eating about 200-300 below my resting metabolic rate every day, while eating enough to never feel hungry or get snacky. There&apos;s no way I could avoid losing weight if I&apos;m eating significantly fewer calories than what I burn just sitting at my desk, and there is pretty solid science that the ingredients in the diet encourage loss of fat rather than loss of muscle...you&apos;re getting plenty of the stuff you need to maintain muscle mass, and adding some things to increase burning of fat for fuel.&lt;p&gt;As an aside, I&apos;ve found the easily testable bits (particularly the &quot;boost testosterone and libido&quot; chapter) to have very evident results. That may be just because I was deficient in a few of the vital nutrients, and returning to nominal made things better, but I definitely saw a change. I plan to keep Brazil nuts in the house at all times, henceforth, regardless.</text></comment>
<story><title>NYT Review of ‘The 4-Hour Body’</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07book.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pchristensen</author><text>I&apos;m the rare defender of Tim Ferriss on HN.  A lot of what he says is common sense, a lot of it is crazy, a lot of it is probably wrong, but here&apos;s why I think he doesn&apos;t deserve the scorn given to him:&lt;p&gt;Everything he says is backed up by this premise:  &quot;Don&apos;t just accept this - try it!  I&apos;m only recommending it because I found it to work.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve done his slow-carb diet before and am doing it again now.  I lost 25 pounds in two months the first time, and I&apos;ve lost 5 pounds this week since I restarted it.  These results, which are on par with what he claimed, make me hesitant to flatly deny anything else he recommends.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>symesc</author><text>I read it . . . loved parts of it . . . and simultaneously thought it was most random book ever.&lt;p&gt;He does give a disclaimer at the beginning, where he says the book is not meant to be read from beginning to end. When looked at that way, the work is somewhat more coherent.&lt;p&gt;I bought the Kindle version, and when reading on the iPad, this work really comes into its own: it&apos;s more of a collection of linked content than a book proper. The chapter notes are important, and the links to YouTube and content on his website are useful. One the iPad, I can access that content quickly and then return to where I was reading.&lt;p&gt;I will say that whatever the flaws in this work, Tim Ferris has changed two important aspects of my life forever with his two books: how I work, and now how I eat.</text></comment>