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4 Effort-Free Weight-Loss Tips from the 4-Hour Body

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4 Tips for 4-Hour Body Buddies!

(See my first post on The 4-Hour Body here to get caught up quickly as to what this is all about)

From my experience with The 4-Hour Body, here are my four favorite tips I’ve implemented that each help you lose a little weight with no effort:

  1. Add cinnamon to your coffee or tea (or any food you’re eating that it works with). Don’t be paranoid, but try never to consume more than a teaspoon of cinnamon daily as it can be bad for you in quantities over 4 grams. A little-less than a teaspoon serving of cinnamon should be way more than you’d typically use in a day anyway so the quantity shouldn’t be a problem.Tip:

    Toss your cinnamon that you’ve had in the cupboard for months or years. It has zero effect, is completely stale, and is probably basically rancid. Fresh ground is best, but who has time? Organic if possible, but get either Saigon cinnamon (best) or Ceylon cinnamon (very good). Wal-Mart actually sells Saigon cinnamon if you look carefully. The first time you use one of these fresher-than-your-cupboard-default-cinnamon, you will be amazed at how rich the cinnamon taste can be. Plus, Saigon and Ceylon are said to have the best effect on your body’s calorie-lowering ability and your blood sugar. (A minor warning is in order. Ceylon is the only one of the three types that is not toxic in doses of more than a teaspoon and a half or so. Typically, you will eat far less than a teaspoon and a half on any day even if you love the stuff as much as I do; I changed to an organic Ceylon only, however, just to be sure. Since Indus no longer carries it, this is the “good stuff” we’ll buy next.

  2. Squeeze fresh lemon on anything and everything you eat that you can. Obviously, if you are eating fried eggs, lemon might not be so great. But anything such as salad, meat, chicken, whatever. Fresh lemon juice reduces the glycemic index of the food you are eating. This is just an instant and free weight reducer. Why wouldn’t you?Tip: Ask for extra lemon with your iced tea or water when you eat out. You’ll have enough then for your food when it comes.
  3. If you can stand it (my lovely bride Jayne could never do this), place a cold ice pack, wrapped in a towel, over the back of your neck when you read or watch TV for 30 minutes or so. Daily if you think of it. I have only began doing this the past two weeks ONCE A WEEK on a Friday night (before my weigh day the next morning). I am such a lazy slug, I figure I’d be a pound or two lighter if I’d been doing this 3-4 times a week this whole time.
  4. Drink 3-4 large glasses of ice water every day. (I actually first heard of this technique long before Tim Ferriss; drinking ice water is a cool tip taught by the trainer Ellington Darden, the designer of the Bowflex.)

The 4-Hour Body – and Me!

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Taking Me Away One Pound at a Time

 

Tim Ferriss has turned the publishing world upside down with his book, The 4-Hour Body. It was released last December and is still #1 in its Amazon category.

I have been following the The 4-Hour Body plan to the letter since the third week of December. My bride Jayne wisely doesn’t like me speaking about things such as dieting. Generally she is correct as it can be… haughty I suppose… and then if I fail later, I look like a loser. But I’ve been working with some friends who finally started the The 4-Hour Body plan last Monday and the emails we’ve been trading are like gold for anyone considering this so I wanted to start discussing it some here.

Let me stress that the book is written from a secular standpoint.

A Little About It

The Four-Hour Body is an eating plan, not really a diet. It’s been blogged about to death already but here you’ll read and learn all sorts of unique aspects of it you never heard of before. And if you’re new to it all, I can tell you how it’s worked and how I’ve gone about addressing some of Tim’s more fragmented advice that didn’t always make sense in the book (few and far between but still present).

Tim wrote the book as a result of a 2-year study where he turned himself into a guinea pig for all of us. He had electrodes surgically implanted and wore them constantly to monitor his blood sugar. He would carry a bag with all his equipment to each and every meal. He talks about a date where he pulled out a pair of scales, looked at the girl whom he was having a first date with, and as he began taking his food off his plate and weighing it, he said, “I hope you don’t think I’m weird.” (He implied there was no second date…)

He offers tremendous advice, but does it work?

I have followed his eating plan now since late December. As of about the last week in December, I have cheated TWO TIMES, both times with extremely small cheats. So I can tell you the results from someone who has stuck with it. And I tell you the good, bad, and the ugly here in these posts which fall under the category Greg’s Gut (see the box at the right).

My Bottom Line (literally!)

I have not one week gained one ounce since I began this. I weigh weekly, every Saturday morning, and unlike ANY eating plan I’ve ever been on, this has NOT had the typical, routine ups and downs with more downs than up… rather, it has only been down with the exception of 3 (or possibly 4) weeks of staying exactly the same.

As of this morning, I am down 33 pounds. As of this morning, I feel f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c.

I was sure I had not lost this past week. I have felt bloated all week, probably still leftover from last Saturday where I overdid it. See, on Saturdays you can eat anything and as much as you want. And I do. Man, do I. The rest of the week, I stick EXACTLY to the 4-Hour Body eating plan by primarily eating eggs for breakfast and Mexican food most of the other times. (With a few Pei Wei meals thrown in here and there as we’re in town to enjoy them.) If you don’t like eggs, there are tons of other things, eggs are just what I choose. (Free-range, hormone-free, which we try to get the majority from our neighbors we trust and not from the store.)

So knowing this morning I was not going to like what I saw given how much I overdid last Saturday, once again The 4-Hour Body didn’t fail:

  • I was not up for the first week since I began as I expected…
  • I was not the same weight as last week…
  • I had not lost my typical half-pound as I’ve been doing for several of the past weeks…
  • Nope,  I was down 1.5 pounds! WHOA! I did not expect that this time even though I know The 4-Hour Body works and works well.

If you need to lose weight, if you need to gain weight, or if you want to eat better, would you stay with me for a few of these posts and hear about my experience? I think you will be shocked and then well-rewarded when you begin The 4-Hour Body… and you will, you will before I’m through with you, get and follow The 4-Hour Body.

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