You are on page 1of 25

VISUAL BOOK SUMMARY

Who has time to go to the gym, create elaborate meal plans and get enough sleep so that you dont feel like you got hit by a Mac truck in the morning? If you are like the majority of the population, probably not you. Of course, your physical health doesnt just impact your body, it impacts your mind and spirit as well. I used to think it was impossible, until I picked up the 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferris.

Go on, just look at me. Im gorgeous again. You could BBQ on my six-pack.

Through the course of this summary youll learn how to gain the maximum results so you can shed those unwanted pounds, replace them with muscle, and get a good nights sleep, every single day. If you follow this plan, youll feel more energetic, youll look better, and youll wake up feeling like a million bucks in the morning. You are smart enough to understand how this wont just make you feel better, but how it will make you perform better as well.

The Fundamentals Mindset The rst mindset is that you dont need to focus on the most you can do, but you need to focus on the least that you can do the minimal eective dose (MED). The MED is the smallest dose that will produce the desired eect. For instance water boils at 212 degrees F. Adding any more heat to the equation does nothing to make the water more boiled. So, 212 degrees F is the MED for boiling water. So, this entire program is designed to get dramatic results with the least amount of work possible. This is counterintuitive, but extremely eective.

The second mindset you need is youll need to have your Harajuku moment the moment where you nally decide that you can no longer go on living the way you are. Harajuku comes from the story of Chad Fowler, who while in Tokyo shopping with friends, realized that he couldnt buy clothes at any of the stores that his friends were shopping at. Its when the pain of living the way you are nally outstrips the pain of change. If you havent had this moment yet, sit down and really think about how your life will play out if you dont make the change today.

One of the best ways to manufacture your Harajuku moment is to take the infamous before/ after photos. So, get in your beach garb (for guys its shorts, for gals its a bikini), and take your picture. Most people are horried at the thought of this, and thats exactly the point. This imagery helps make the game you are about to embark on a conscious one, and youll vow that youll never want to look like that again. Now we are ready.

Losing Weight Strategy

#1:

The Slow Carb Diet

Unless this is the rst time youve ever considered a diet (unlikely), youll be familiar with some of whats involved in the slow-carb diet. Heres how you can lose 20 pounds in 30 days without doing a lick of exercise.

20 30
POUNDS DAYS

There are 5 simple rules to follow in the diet.

Rule #1: Avoid white carbohydrates


This includes any carbohydrate that is white, or that ever was white. It includes all breads, pastas, rice and breading for fried foods.

WHITE BREAD IS TOAST

Rule #2: Eat the same few meals

Youll probably think that eating the same meals over and over would drive you crazy. However, this is one of the parts of the diet that has more to do with your psychology than your physiology. Eggs, chicken, beef and sh will be your proteins, legumes (beans, lentils, etc) will give your needed carbs, and nally youll complete your meals o with a healthy dose of vegetables (spinach, peas, broccoli, etc). You can mix and match from this list, but keeping it simple and repeating the same meals over and over will prevent you from having to expend any energy on what to make for your next meal.

This means that your morning glass of juice, or full calorie soft drink in the afternoon is out. Replace those things with water, coee, and if you need to diet soft drinks throughout the day. If you used to take cream with your coee, try replacing it with a dash of cinnamon instead. As a bonus, you are allowed to have up to 2 glasses of red wine per day on the diet, as red wine has been shown to have no negative eects on the rapid fat loss. Beer or white wine should be avoided.

Rule #3: Dont drink calories

Rule #4: Dont eat fruit


This will contradict everything youve ever heard about how to be healthy, but dont fret youll be just ne without it. People have lived for thousands of years without fruit in the winter, and so can you. Plus, youll only be limiting yourself six days of the week, which leads us very nicely into the fth rule

Yes, youll have one binge day a week where you can eat whatever you want, with no limitations. Want dessert after breakfast? No problem. This is part psychological for the rest of the week while you are restricting what you eat, youll be looking forward to what you can eat on your cheat day. It is also part physiological this weekly spike in calories will ensure that your body doesnt go into hibernation mode and slow down your metabolism. Two incredible reasons to eat like a maniac one day per week!

Rule #5: Take one day o per week

Losing Weight Strategy #2: Mastering Temperature

Michael Phelps consumes 12,000 calories a day. A normal person eats approximately 2,000 calories a day. If you think that its the hours that he spends each day in the pool exercising that keeps his physique looking svelte, youd be wrong. Roy Cronise, a scientist at NASA who was trying to lose weight at the time did the math Phelps would have to do the buttery swim at competitive speeds for over 10 hours a day to burn that many calories an impossible feat. People who climb Mount Everest also report losing Much more weight than their exercise expenditure would account for sometimes up to 25 pounds in a single climb.

The secret, Cronise gured out, was

THERMODYNAMICS
Phelps burned that many calories simply because he was in water all day. Without getting into the scientic details here, through some self-experimentation he found that he could mimic these results by using cold temperatures to his advantage. He tried everything from drinking ice water in the mornings, to walking outside in the freezing cold in a t-shirt, even sleeping without sheets. The results were remarkable he lost a remarkable 27 pounds in 6 weeks, where in the previous 12 weeks he had lost 21 pounds. He essentially doubled his rate of fat loss by making himself cold.

Here are a few ways you can do this yourself: - put an ice pack on your neck for 20-30 minutes at night while you are watching TV or catching up on your email. - consume at least 500 ml of ice water on an empty stomach right after you wake up. - take 5-10 minute cold showers in place of your daily showers. Gradually make the temperature colder and colder throughout your shower. - lastly, and only for the hardcore, take ice baths that induce shivering.

Adding Muscle
ture.

era temp body ng your re looki and uth, in, we a o ur m . Aga n yo e put i uscl you d m rt. ad hat e to of eo nly w m t ing o regi the amoun hang c to ht by se in nimal weig erci mi lose d ex the w to o ad ho et om know s tim ts fr l it you esu Now Now mr u axim m for

(not to scale, although it damn well feels like it)

First, we will focus on the only device and only exercise youll need in order to get maximum results: the kettlebell swing. The kettlebell looks like a cannonball with a handle on it, and you can get them in varying weights, like free weights. The swing is a simple exercise that activates all of the major muscle groups in the body. You stand with your feet shoulder width apart, holding the kettlebell with both hands between your legs. NOTE: search for a Youtube video of the proper performance of the swing to get the entire picture. Then you swing the kettlebell up until your arms are parallel with the oor, and bring the kettlebell back between your legs. This counts as one rep.

Second, well turn our attention to the, ahem, abdominal region. Remember all of those sets of situps and crunches you are used to doing? Well, you can forget about those. There are two specic moves that Ferris has found that work incredibly well with minimum output.

The rst is the myostatic crunch, that is done on a Swiss ball. With your lower back on the ball, you put your hands directly above your head as if you were going to make a dive. Then you extend backwards until your hands touch the ground pause there for 2 seconds. Then, bring yourself up in a controlled motion until your arms are perpendicular to the ground hold that position for another two seconds to maximize the eect. Thats one rep of the myostatic crunch. Repeat this for a total of 10 reps and you are nished one set. As you get stronger, add weight in your hands so that your reps stay at 10.
NOTE: Flashdance legwork preferably optional...unless you are Jennifer Beals, or a welder needing to blow off some steam.

The second exercise is the cat vomit. Uh huh.

If youve ever seen a cat vomit, youll know exactly what it was given this name after you do one rep. Start by getting on all fours, making sure to keep your back straight. Next, forcefully exhale all of the air from your lungs if you dont feel it in your abs you havent done this correctly. Next, bring your belly button up to your Spine and hold your breathe for 8-12 seconds. Now, inhale fully through your nose after the 8-12 second hold. Take one or two normal breaths and start again.

When Ferris was at one of the ttest points of his life, here was his workout schedule: Monday: One set of kettlebell swings One set of myostatic crunches Wednesday: Dumbell incline bench press Bent over rows for 3 sets of 5 reps Reverse drag curls for 2 sets of 6 reps Friday: One set of kettlebell swings One set of myostatic crunches. Thats it! This is a great example of the minimal eective dose.

Getting your sleep Finally, getting a good nights sleep is something you need in order to function on a high level every day. Getting the right kind of sleep can also help you learn much quicker, as your brain assimilates everything youve learned from the day before if its in the right state. Many people would tell you that its the amount of REM sleep you get that makes the biggest dierence. However, this is only part of the story...

How you wake up in the morning depends on where in your sleep cycle you wake up. Counter-intuitively, waking up earlier can sometimes leave you feeling better than if you had an extra 30 minutes of sleep. Waking up during your deepest sleep phases can leave you feeling like crap. So, one of the easiest things you can do is to get a monitor that wakes you up at the optimal time based on when you set your alarm if it senses that your 6am alarm is going to coincide with another deep sleep cycle, it will wake you up a few minutes earlier. One such monitor is the Sleep Cycle app you can get on your iPhone.

Next, if getting to sleep is an issue for you and counting sheep doesnt work very well anymore, try using a tool like the Nightwave Pulse Light that gently guides you into a restful sleep by emitting a slow pulsing blue light that is intended to correspond with your breathing pattern. Less than 10 minutes of this and youll be fast asheep.

So there you have it. Some simple ways to hack your way to the best body youve ever had, and at the same time leaving you feeling rested, energized and ready to take on life. Good luck, and well see you at the beach!
For more Information about this book and our other great book summaries, visit: www.readitfor.me

You might also like