The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [11]
The MED not only delivers the most dramatic results, but it does so in the least time possible. Jones’s words should echo in your head: “REMEMBER: it is impossible to evaluate, or even understand, anything that you cannot measure.”
80 secs. of 20 lbs.
10:00 mins. of 54°F water
200 mg of allicin extract before bed
These are the types of prescriptions you should seek, and these are the types of prescriptions I will offer.
End of Chapter Notes
1. Credit is due to Dr. Doug McGuff, who’s written extensively on this and who will reappear later.
2. In fancier and more accurate terms, neuroendocrine.
RULES THAT CHANGE THE RULES
Everything Popular Is Wrong
Everything popular is wrong.
—Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.
—Dalai Lama XIV
“This is clearly a lie. Gaining 34 lb in 28 days requires a caloric surplus of 4300 calories per day, so for a guy his size, he must have eaten 7000 calories a day. He expects me to believe that he dropped 4% in bodyfat as a result of eating 7000 calories? …”
I took a big swig of Malbec and read the blog comment again. Ah, the Internet. How far we haven’t come.
It was amusing, and one of hundreds of similar comments on this particular blog post, but the fact remained: I had gained 34 pounds of muscle, lost 4 pounds of fat, and decreased my total cholesterol from 222 to 147, all in 28 days, without anabolics or statins like Lipitor.
The entire experiment had been recorded by Dr. Peggy Plato, director of the Sport and Fitness Evaluation Program at San Jose State University, who used hydrostatic weighing tanks, medical scales, and a tape measure to track everything from waist circumference to bodyfat percentage. My total time in the gym over four weeks?
Four hours.3 Eight 30-minute workouts.
The data didn’t lie.
But isn’t weight loss or gain as simple as calories in and calories out?
It’s attractive in its simplicity, yes, but so is cold fusion. It doesn’t work quite as advertised.
German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe had the right perspective: “Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.” To do the impossible (sail around the world, break the four-minute mile, reach the moon), you need to ignore the popular.
Charles Munger, right-hand adviser to Warren Buffett, the richest man on the planet, is known for his unparalleled clear thinking and near-failure-proof track record. How did he refine his thinking to help build a $3 trillion business in Berkshire Hathaway?
The answer is “mental models,” or analytical rules-of-thumb4 pulled from disciplines outside of investing, ranging from physics to evolutionary biology.
Eighty to 90 models have helped Charles Munger develop, in Warren Buffett’s words, “the best 30-second mind in the world. He goes from A to Z in one move. He sees the essence of everything before you even finish the sentence.”
Charles Munger likes to quote Charles Darwin:
Even people who aren’t geniuses can outthink the rest of mankind if they develop certain thinking habits.
In the 4HB, the following mental models, pulled from a variety of disciplines, are what will separate your results from the rest of mankind.
New Rules for Rapid Redesign
NO EXERCISE BURNS MANY CALORIES.
Did you eat half an Oreo cookie? No problem. If you’re a 220-pound male, you just need to climb 27 flights of stairs to burn it off.
(Remember: skip the “GA” boxes if you don’t like the dense stuff.)
Put another way, moving 100 kilograms (220 pounds) 100 meters (about 27 flights of stairs) requires 100 kilojoules of energy, or 23.9 calories (known to scientists as kilocalories [kcal]). A pound of fat contains 4,082 calories. How many calories might running a marathon burn? 2,600 or so.
The caloric argument for exercise gets even more depressing. Remember those 107 calories you burned during that kick-ass hour-long Stairmaster™ session? Don’t forget to subtract your basal metabolic rate (BMR), what you would have burned had you been sitting on the couch watching The