The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [42]
I love refried beans, too, but try to diversify once you have the hang of the diet.
WHAT IF I’M TRAVELING AND EATING IN AIRPORTS?
If you’re airport-hopping and cannot find a Mexican restaurant or grill, grab a bag of raw almonds or walnuts at a kiosk and commit to consuming no starch for the remainder of your travel time. There are enough calories in that single bag to give you two to three small “meals” and get you through a full 12 hours. Most airports also have chicken salads (omit dressings besides olive oil or vinegar) that you can combine with the nuts.
If it comes down to it, choose mild hunger instead of deviation. If you always eat on the clock, perhaps it’s been a few years since you’ve felt real hunger.
Having followed this diet in 30+ countries, I can state without exception that travel is not a legitimate excuse for breaking the rules.
Speaking as a cooking-inept bachelor, and as someone who has eaten out an average of twice a day for the last five years, the slow-carb solution in restaurants is eight words:
“I’ll just have more vegetables instead of [starch].”
For most places, it’s a simple matter of substituting more vegetables—spinach or whatever is available—for the standard rice, bread, or potato that comes with the meal. “No substitutions” on the menu? No problem. Add a few more words and it’s abracadabra done:
“I’ll just have more vegetables instead of the [starch]. If I have to pay a bit extra, that’s fine.”
If that fails, gird your loins and just order a separate veggie or legume side while omitting the starch. In total, this substituting will average out to less than $3 extra per meal, and it’s often free. Consider this your nominal flat stomach tax. If you’re eating out to begin with, you can afford an extra $3, so don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish. If you can’t afford it, skip a latte or newspaper so you can.
The most cost-effective cuisines I’ve found for the Slow-Carb Diet are Thai5 and Mexican, the latter of which leads us to the wonderfully simple example of Eric Foster and his Chipotle® Diet.
Eric lost 91 pounds and went from 44% to 23.8% bodyfat in less than 10 months adhering to the following menu:
BREAKFAST: One cup of coffee and an egg (scrambled or hard-boiled) [I believe he would have lost significantly more fat by adding even one extra egg each day.]
LUNCH: Fajita bol (peppers, onions, steak, tomato salsa, green tomatillo salsa, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, romaine lettuce)
DINNER: Fajita bol (peppers, onions, steak, tomato salsa, green tomatillo salsa, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, romaine lettuce)
This diet totals about 1,480 calories and 29 grams of nonfiber carbohydrates daily. Brent, another follower of the Chipotle Diet, lost 120 pounds in 11 months, bringing him from 300 to 180 pounds bodyweight.
But doesn’t it get boring? Eric suspected it would:
I honestly thought I might get bored of the burritos after a couple months, but it hasn’t happened yet. Thank God! Before I started dieting, Chipotle was my favorite place to eat. I made adjustments to the menu items to make it low-carb, and it tasted just as good as if I hadn’t made any changes at all.
Losing fat doesn’t need to be punishment. It doesn’t even need to be inconvenient.
Go slow-carb for a week and you won’t go back.
WHAT ABOUT FAT-LOSS DRUGS?
I could recommend several hard-core thermogenics, but the potential for addiction, organ damage, and lesser-known chronic problems (sinusitis, for example) just isn’t worth it.
The most effective, side-effect-minimal “stack” I’ve found is PAGG, and it’s detailed in the chapter entitled “The Four Horsemen.”
ISN’T HIGHER PROTEIN HARD ON THE KIDNEYS? WHAT IF I HAVE GOUT?
First, I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on the Internet. If you have medical conditions of any type, consult a physician. Now, on to my interpretation of the data:
If you don’t have a serious preexisting medical condition, the amount of protein I prescribe should not hurt you. There is no compelling evidence to support the protein-hurts-your-kidneys