The 4-hour body

At NEXT11, best-selling author Tim Ferriss gave an overview of his book The 4-Hour Body, which is intriguingly subtitled An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman. He describes how to reach these goals with a minimum of effort by adopting the right diet and respecting some simple rules. These include:

Make it conscious: People who track their eating habits and take ‘before photos’ are more successful in losing weight than those who don’t.

Make it a game: Whatever exercise you do, make sure you record your daily progress, tracking this from week to week. For instance, measuring your performance makes you aware of what effect your training is having. i.e. track your daily jogs and then aim for 25 miles in a week.

Make it competitive: Tell your friends about your goals or share and compare your efforts with online communities like RunKeeper. Make it small and temporary: Don’t start with an inflexible, month-long training schedule. Try a two-week trial first. Include a manageable amount of exercise and feasible changes to your eating habits.

Keep improvement relative: Don’t compare yourself with a marathon runner if you only run two or three times a week – be honest with yourself. What makes this book so extremely valuable is that Tim Ferriss shows how outstanding results can be achieved by defying conventional thinking; by throwing away the rule book and doing things differently.

His credo is nicely encapsulated in a quote from Mark Twain, which is included in the book: “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.”