The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [49]
It takes some practice.
In China, I was taught a rhyming proverb: Fàn hòu bǎi bù zǒu, néng huó dào jiǔ shí jiǔ []. If you take 100 steps after each meal, you can live to be 99 years old.
Could it be that the Chinese identified the effect of GLUT-4 translocation hundreds, even thousands, of years before scientists formalized the mechanism? It’s possible. More likely: they just liked rhyming.
In all cases, if you do 60–90 seconds of contraction after each meal (and a bit before, ideally), you might live to see your abs.
Don’t forget the air squats.
I aim for 30–50 repetitions of each of the following:
Cissus quadrangularis (CQ) is an indigenous medicinal plant of India.
It is a newcomer in mainstream supplementation, usually prescribed for joint repair. In July 2009, I experimented with high-dose CQ following elbow surgery due to a staph infection. Unexpectedly, used in combination with PAGG, it seemed to have synergistic anti-obesity and anabolic (muscle growth) effects. Upon performing a second literature review of its use in Ayurvedic medicine and fracture repair, it became clear that there were implications for preventing fat gain during overfeeding.
Rural China, where I continued experimentation with CQ, provided high-volume rice meals combined with sweets at mandatory sit-down meals, 3–5 times per day. It was the perfect fat-gaining environment.
CQ preserved my abs. I saw measurable fat-loss and anabolic effects once I reached 2.4 grams (2,400 milligrams), three times per day 30 minutes prior to meals, for a total of 7.2 grams per day. Is that the magic dose? I had approximately 160 pounds (72.7 kilograms) of lean bodymass, so there might be a trigger at 45 milligrams per pound lean bodymass, or it could be an absolute effective dose regardless of bodyweight. Until long-term side-effect studies are done at these higher doses, I don’t suggest exceeding 7.2 grams per day.
In Beijing, after three weeks of eating like a Peking pig.
For those who can afford it, I believe CQ is very effective for minimizing unwanted fat gain while overfeeding. Until more human studies are done, I don’t plan on continuous use, but I will use it during 8–12 week growth cycles, on “off” days, or after joint sprains.
Kevin Rose, one of my traveling companions during our three-week trip, lamented, “Glenn and I were getting fatter and fatter, while this f*cker was getting ripped. What the hell?!”
One friend, a serial CTO, referred to cissus quadrangularis as the “morning-after pill” for diet after seeing me chase peanut butter ice cream and brownies with it.
CQ works.
Why is obesity so much more common today than it was even a few decades ago?
Researchers are starting to find bacterial clues that may point to an answer. There has been a profound shift in our populations of gut bacteria—the little creatures that live in our digestive tracts—and studies show the changes as correlated with increased fatness.
There are actually 10 times more bacterial cells in your body than human cells: 100 trillion of them to 10 trillion of you. For the most part, these bugs help us, improving our immune system, providing vitamins, and preventing other harmful bacteria from infecting us. These bacteria also regulate how well we harvest energy from our food.
So far, two primary strains of bacteria have been found to influence fat absorption, almost regardless of diet: Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. Lean people have more Bacteroidetes and fewer Firmicutes; obese people have more Firmicutes and fewer Bacteroidetes. As obese people lose weight, the ratio of bacteria in their gut swings confidently over to more Bacteroidetes.
This finding has significant enough implications for national health that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched the multi-year Human Microbiome Project in late 2007. It is like a Human Genome Project for bacteria and intended to explore how some of the 40,000+ species of micro-friends (and fiends) are affecting our health and how we might modify them to help us