
NYT Review of ‘The 4-Hour Body’ - tysone
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07book.html
======
pchristensen
I'm the rare defender of Tim Ferriss on HN. A lot of what he says is common
sense, a lot of it is crazy, a lot of it is probably wrong, but here's why I
think he doesn't deserve the scorn given to him:

Everything he says is backed up by this premise: "Don't just accept this - try
it! I'm only recommending it because I found it to work."

I've done his slow-carb diet before and am doing it again now. I lost 25
pounds in two months the first time, and I've lost 5 pounds this week since I
restarted it. These results, which are on par with what he claimed, make me
hesitant to flatly deny anything else he recommends.

~~~
SwellJoe
I basically agree with you. The 4 Hour Body _is_ chock full of a bunch of
stuff that isn't scientifically proven, which I'm always suspicious of. But,
the science is solid on a lot of the stuff he really pushes hard.

The slow-carb diet _is_ an excellent diet for weight loss and does avoid some
of the problems of other rapid weight loss diets; it controls calorie intake
without forcing you to count calories. I counted calories for the first week
or so I was on it (in vegetarian form, which is a little bit of a challenge,
to get enough protein without resorting to soy and wheat gluten products), and
found I was eating about 200-300 below my resting metabolic rate every day,
while eating enough to never feel hungry or get snacky. There's no way I could
avoid losing weight if I'm eating significantly fewer calories than what I
burn just sitting at my desk, and there is pretty solid science that the
ingredients in the diet encourage loss of fat rather than loss of
muscle...you're getting plenty of the stuff you need to maintain muscle mass,
and adding some things to increase burning of fat for fuel.

As an aside, I've found the easily testable bits (particularly the "boost
testosterone and libido" chapter) to have very evident results. That may be
just because I was deficient in a few of the vital nutrients, and returning to
nominal made things better, but I definitely saw a change. I plan to keep
Brazil nuts in the house at all times, henceforth, regardless.

~~~
alinajaf
I have to second the brazil nut recommendation. I've been chomping through
three before sleep and three on waking and the difference in appetite is...
pronounced. That plus the butter fat/fermented cod liver oil and extra
kimchee.

~~~
jokull
Does he explicitly recommend _fermented_ cod liver oil or just any cod liver
oil?

~~~
alinajaf
Yes, he hit me with this one as well. It's a specific supplment, fermented cod
liver oil with added butter fat (from cows who have grazed on rapidly growing
grass). Its an actual thing that exists:

[http://www.greenpasture.org/retail/?t=products&a=display...](http://www.greenpasture.org/retail/?t=products&a=display&i=1100)

------
AlexC04
I've read 4 Hour Body and think it was terrible. Self indlugent, misleading
(at best) and dangerous (at worst).

There were numerous 1 star reviews on Amazon.com that summed up my thoughts
pretty well, so I'll not drone on here about it... I do however wonder about
all the legions of 5 star reviews that are in there.

I wonder if Tim tore a page out of 4 hour work week and outsourced an indian
marketing firm (brickwork?) to write a large number of 4 and 5 star reviews.

~~~
revorad
Did you try any of the stuff in the book?

~~~
salemh
I've "tried" similar methods through my own experimentation throughout my life
(pre-Ferris anything) with great results.

Slow carb (ish, as I said, it was my own experiments): 60 lbs in 7 months, 80
lbs in 2 years and looking more lean.

1 set to failure: 8 lbs lean gain (though I had muscle memory from a previous
larger structure) in a month.

Etc.

I'm going to try the 5/5 cadence (which I have never done, though feel
fantastic doing so during and post WO) for some more lean gains.

Ferris' non-bullshit approach and simplistic, non-fluffed (this and the 4 Hour
Work Week) put people off.

Find an item. Ship it 20 times yourself. Develop a process, ship 100..etc.

He gets more hate then he deserves :)

~~~
AlexC04
Honestly, I really quite like 4HWW - it changed my point of view on a lot of
things. I felt really ripped off by 4HB and still think there is a dangerous
'signal to noise' ratio in there.

With just over a week to have calmed down though - I can admit that there are
_some_ good bits in there.

------
edw519
If nothing else, the staying power of this shit is a testament to the power of
marketing.

Now imagine what you can accomplish when you combine that with something that
actually offers value to others. Hack away!

~~~
zackattack
getting a nice body - looking beautiful - is probably one of the most valuable
benefits you could offer to someone. rule of marketing - human drives. 4HB
appeals to drive to bond, drive to defend, drive to acquire.

~~~
philwelch
Plus--as far as the "four hour" promise goes--the desire not to work very hard
or very long for it.

~~~
jared314
Having read some of his stuff, you are incorrect about not working hard.

~~~
InfinityX0
The ridiculousness of this stuff is not the content, it's the linkbait
hyperbole he uses to market it. He draws people in with shit like "The 4 Hour
Workweek", even though his content doesn't say that's _actually_ going to be
the case - at least not until deep into the process. And it pervades
everything he does - shady marketing tactics that cover up content that's
actually pretty decent.

~~~
jordanmessina
Are they shady tactics if they actually work and the content is decent as you
say? The point of marketing is to get the eyeballs, if your content is garbage
then that's a whole other issue. Maybe you can go into more detail about
what's shady about his tactics?

~~~
billjings
What does the shadiness of the tactics have to do with their effectiveness and
their aim? If they're shady, they're shady.

------
teye
4HB reads like a hacker's book, and that's why I loved it.

Conventional wisdom says you kill yourself at the gym to bulk up. But a muscle
isn't strengthened by fatigue -- it's strengthened by the body's response to
that fatigue. So shouldn't your goal be triggering the response?

 _That_ makes for an exciting read. The book is full of it -- tracking down
the extraordinarily successful in a given field, taking their advice himself,
and sharing the results.

~~~
hyperbovine
Working four hours a week is revolutionary. Working _out_ four hours a week is
... average. If you spend four hours a week doing _any_ sort of strength
training in a semi-competent manner, you are going to look good after a period
of months. (And you won't even need to weigh your feces!)

I fail to see why we need 571 pages of rebelling against conventional wisdom
here.

~~~
ipince
Indeed, he claims he achieved his results by working out 4 hours in 28 days.

Even so, working out 4 hours per week without changing your diet or just
working out in a "semi-competent" manner will probably not bring you the
results he claims to have gotten.

You should at least familiarize yourself with the claims before denying them.

~~~
Swannie
The problem is how it's measured.

Is that measured as door to door at the gym? Weight room door to weight room
door? Or time on the iron?

If you measure time on the iron, it is very short. The reality is a lot of
your time is spent between sets, recovering, and then showering and changing
afterwards.

Same as his "4 hour work week" measurement...

~~~
SwellJoe
A 20-30 minute workout a few times a month is much less than anyone expects to
spend on exercise for dramatic gains, no matter how you slice up the time and
how much ancillary stuff you include in the "time at gym" equation. All of the
classes at my gym are ~60 minutes. I'm doing Occam's Protocol from the book,
and I get in, do my lifts, shower, and get back out, long before those classes
finish their workout. And, I go much less frequently than I thought was
necessary: a couple times a week. I haven't been doing it long enough to know
what the results will be, but the science is solid.

------
lionhearted
You know what's missing from this review?

It doesn't have any "I tried this and it worked" or "I tried this and it
didn't work" or "This goes against XYZ scientific study, so I'm hesitant to
try it."

In fact, I don't see any substance at all really, aside from gathering that
the guy doesn't like Tim Ferriss.

~~~
jorgeortiz85
It's a book review, not a peer review.

------
phren0logy
Wow.

>Here’s a better analogy: “The 4-Hour Body” reads as if The New England
Journal of Medicine had been hijacked by the editors of the SkyMall catalog.
Some of this junk might actually work, but you’re going to be embarrassed
doing it or admitting to your friends that you’re trying it. This is a man
who, after all, weighs his own feces, likes bloodletting as a life-extension
strategy and aims a Philips goLite at his body in place of ingesting caffeine.

Just... wow. The book sounds ridiculous, and the review is fantastic.

~~~
SwellJoe
Ferriss is a hacker...but the system he works on is his own body. I respect
him for the experiments he does, and his willingness to share the results and
the mistakes and embarrassing stuff, even if his science isn't always
complete. To be fair, he generally admits when he's not discussing actual
science and just correlation or limited data.

I'd no more insult him for doing what he does than I would for someone
releasing a new product in its minimal viable product form. Yeah, it's a bit
on the hyperbolic side, as such things go...but, honestly, I think we as
entrepreneurs could probably learn a thing or two about marketing from
watching him.

~~~
ericd
That's exactly the same impression I got, and with that mindset, it is a great
read. He's doing something that I've always wanted to do, but haven't had the
motivation or money to do systematically.

------
fooandbarify
Hahaha okay, awesome review. Still (and I've said something similar on HN
before) for all Tim's giddy arrogance I _still_ think he brings something
valuable to the table. Yeah, he thinks his shit don't stink and yeah, he sort
of sounds like a walking infomercial but guess what? So does almost every
wildly successful person I have ever heard of. (Exceptions might include the
likes of Bill Gates.) Tim is out there _getting things done_ (commercially
successful author, entrepreneur, etc) while a bunch of bloggers sit around
making fun of him for having confidence and for maybe being a bit of an ass.

~~~
dotBen
Excellent comment.

I like Tim, I consider him a personal friend _(take that as a disclosure of
bias)_ , but for me the take-away is that success is rarely found on merit
alone.

There are a ton of diet books that give the same suggestions as Tim's book,
but his will sell because he's out there pimping it and creating buzz. I think
that's the bit many on HN don't like but it's how things work.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

~~~
mkramlich
no you can dislike the player too. nobody forced the so-called player to do
that.

------
judegomila
I lost 15 pounds in 4 hours after buying the book. This was uk currency
though.

\- it's an entertaining read.

------
DanielRibeiro
The author's comment on this[1]:

 _NY Times - Dwight Garner's snarky review of The 4-Hour
Body:<http://su.pr/16Eh4w> For 100% ad hominem, it's pretty funny._

[1] <http://twitter.com/#!/tferriss/status/23166933377486848>

~~~
kareemm
Reminds me of PT Barnum's line: "I don't care what they write about me as long
as they spell my name right."

------
DanielBMarkham
One of the things I've noticed from my earliest days on the net is the degree
that folks seem willing to be humbled and belittled by what they think of as
celebrity. Geesh, I remember some YC application deadlines that the sucking up
got so bad I was afraid I might get pulled into the screen of my laptop.

Ferriss seems to be capitalizing on this. He's the guy that had the new book
over on Amazon with something like a thousand positive reviews. A thousand!
Something has gone wrong somewhere.

This was a great review. I am reminded of the beer commercial with "with most
interesting man in the world". Sounds like Ferriss could have been a model for
this idea.

Obligatory link for those outside the states who haven't seen "The most
interesting man in the world" beer commercials and don't know what I am
talking about: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bc0WjTT0Ps>

~~~
wazoox
Ferris made no mystery that he likes to use shortcuts and exploit loopholes
whenever possible, like when he basically cheated to win the chinese
kickboxing championship.

~~~
Swannie
Yep, he certainly worked hard to game the NYT best seller list... just like
everyone else who wants to be #1 in their section!

------
doyoulikeworms
I'll just leave this here:

[http://www.amazon.com/How-Good-bye-Depression-Constrict-
Ever...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Good-bye-Depression-Constrict-
Everyday/dp/0595094724/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1294354115&sr=8-16)

~~~
AlexC04
oh my. I just had a very long, body shaking, completely unable to function,
tears and snot, laugh attack off of that link.

Thank you so very much.

~~~
marcinw
It was funny, but not _that_ funny...

------
keeptrying
The part of the book that you MUST take seriously is the part about the
methods of rehabilitating your body after an injury.

Most of you will be sitting for in a chair for a good chunk of the next 10
years, so bad backs and bad knees are a given. So understanding why this
happens and on how to fix it is huge.

Getting all that info in one place took me 2 years of learning as only leading
strength coaches know this stuff. Your doc probably won't.

------
tgrass
a friend recommended to me the 4-hour workweek. After the first few pages, I
bound the entire book in duct tape. I didn't want to be responsible for anyone
else reading it.

~~~
StavrosK
I've been reading it and it's nowhere near that bad. I can summarise it in two
sentences, but he has a point in that most people seem content to just live
the same routine day in and day out, too lazy/fearful/inert to seek some
excitement.

~~~
brown9-2
_I can summarise it in two sentences_

mind doing so then, for those of us who haven't read it?

~~~
StavrosK
1\. Seek excitement.

2\. Don't be afraid to try new things, they're easier than you think.

Those two sentences seem to be the entirety of the book (I've read 20% so
far). The rest are just anecdotes and stories that illustrate this, but
there's nothing else I can recall right now.

------
runjake
I've scoffed at his claims of 5K to 50K in 12 weeks, in the past. I went from
couch potato to runner. I've run several marathons and ultras and have done
quite a bit of experimenting on my body over the years. I managed to borrow a
copy of this book tonight and pounded through quite a bit of it.

From what I read, it's actually 4 weeks of bone/muscle/ligament conditioning,
followed by 12 weeks of running training -- IF you can run a 5K at an 8:00
pace or faster. If you can't, then yep, you guessed it, more training time.

This is doable and pretty much falls in line with conventional training
(though Tim reorganizes it a little bit, and throws in the all important and
generally under-emphasized benefits of cross-training), but it isn't "in 12
weeks" at all.

I've done quite a bit of iterative experimenting with cross-training
(especially cycling and swimming) and it unilaterally improved my running
speeds and my long run recovery times.

His graphs and charts seem rather superfluous to me. Meant to intimidate
rather than inform.

I'm not so concerned about permanent damage because of the initial 4 week
conditioning process. If you're not already a seasoned runner, this program
will take you as long or longer as Galloway or Joe Henderson's training plans.

His advice and data are solid, but don't meet his "in 12 weeks" mark. As far
as I know, he still hasn't actually run 50K. The book links to
<http://www.fourhourbody.com/ultra> for his results, but its still a dead
page.

------
jsmcgd
Personally I thought this review wasn't funny and quite shallow. I got the
impression the author had only read the introduction and one or two other
chapters.

------
SandB0x
This book sounds like it was written by Ron Burgundy.

~~~
chrisaycock
Or Alfred Lawson. From Wikipedia:

> In the 1920s, he promoted health practices including vegetarianism and
> claimed to have found the secret of living to 200. He also developed his own
> highly unusual theories of physics, according to which such concepts as
> "penetrability", "suction and pressure" and "zig-zag-and-swirl" were
> discoveries on par with Einstein's Theory of Relativity. He published
> numerous books on these concepts, all set in a distinctive typography.
> Lawson repeatedly predicted the worldwide adoption of Lawsonian principles
> by the year 2000.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Lawson>

------
mhd
The only interesting thing that I got out of the 4-Hour Work Week was the idea
of traveling somewhere long-time to learn a new skill. Hardly groundbreaking,
but a new idea to me.

The rest of the book varied between obvious, sleazy and cheating. So I'm not
surprised that the new one is pretty much the same, only this time with health
risks instead of financial ones.

Not that this is particularly new. It's basically Charles Atlas in the age of
twitter and ADHD. The review is pretty fantastic, though.

~~~
27182818284
I have to admit I did get one thing from the 4-Hour that has worked for me: It
is OK to email the CEO or other high person of a company. I was surprised at
how quickly I would get responses (although generally short ones) from CEOs of
billion-dollar, global companies.

------
_pius
One of the most intellectually lazy book reviews I've ever read. All snark, no
substance.

~~~
forkrulassail
Possibly just a marketing tactic for starting more conversations on the book.

------
tchock23
I read it as well and thought that deep down it was really just a rip off of
other studies and advice, just done in a quirky (and sometimes downright
crazy) way.

For example, his "diet" is really nothing more than a suggestion to cut carbs
and "anything white," eat a few square meals a day and take a day off once a
week to convince your body you are not on a diet. I've read that same advice
hundreds of times before. Disappointing (not that I had high expectations
going into it).

~~~
yeahsure
So what? I hadn't read that advice before. I found it on his blog and lost 20
pounds in a month. Following exactly his advice. I wouldn't call that a rip
off.

------
micaelwidell
The big question here is: is Tim Ferriss that self-righteous naturally, or
does he do it on purpose to gain more attention?

Few people can deny that being so self-righteous that other people get
provoked is one hell of a personal marketing strategy. I just keep wondering
if the people who succeed in personal branding have thought this out and
planned their self-righteousness strategically, or if they just are that way
naturally and got lucky.

~~~
Alex3917
"Tim Ferriss that self-righteous naturally, or does he do it on purpose to
gain more attention?"

Your personality is just a strategy that was devised by your two-year-old self
in order to keep you safe and get attention: <http://vimeo.com/16260822>

That said, once you're an adult and you no longer rely on others for safety,
you get to start over and make whatever changes you want. Obviously if you
want to be famous then you need to choose live a life and adopt a personality
that will make you famous. The whole package isn't especially natural or fun
for anyone, but some people naturally have bits and pieces of their private
persona that also work well in public if you ham them up a bit.

It's like Richard Branson. Do you think that Richard Branson wants to fly to
tahiti to go rock climbing every weekend? Of course not. Some weekends he'd
much rather curl up with a pot of tea and read the newspaper. But he can't,
because he's Richard Branson and that's not what Richard Branson would do.
Does he enjoy being Richard Branson? I'm sure there are things he likes about
it, but most likely his personality was only really developed after he made a
bunch of money to spend on personal coaching and stuff.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
That's really ridiculous, actually. Why wouldn't a billionaire just do
whatever the fuck they want? Do they think that everyone is going to notice
that Sir Richard isn't rock climbing this weekend and never fly virgin again?
Does this go for all billionaires or just the more extreme ones? Would bill
gates and Warren buffet rather be climbing everest and running marathons on
the great wall of china than playing bridge online, but can't because of the
shackles of their personal-coach-inspired fake personalities?

~~~
Alex3917
"Would bill gates and Warren buffet rather be climbing everest..."

Different people have different schtick. Why do you think that Bill Gates has
a 12-year-old autistic kid do his powerpoints instead of hiring Nancy Duarte
or whoever?

There are a lot of forces that influence what personalities will resonate with
people, but one of them is that people tend to like stuff that's masturbatory.
That is, things that make themselves feel like they could be successful doing
what they're already doing. That's why for every life choice you could
conceivably make, no matter how stupid, there is some incredibly successful
person who has made it. There has to be, the market demands it, and if there
wasn't then the market would anoint someone. Hence cheech & chong, william s.
burroughs, ann coulter, etc.

------
Aaronontheweb
Is it just me, or does every self-appointed culture snob find the need to make
the gratuitous digs on Dan Brown's work? The man's an amazing storyteller.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I think you could take the manuscript for a Tom Clancy novel, replace each
instance of "Jack Ryan" with "Robert Langdon", "CIA" with "Harvard", and
"Kremlin" with "Vatican", and you'd be 80% done with the next Dan Brown novel.

How, exactly, an Italian, crypto-Opus Dei-member, 747 pilot crashing a plane
into Harvard's Tercentenary Theatre during Freshman Convocation would result
in Langdon becoming the next President of Harvard, though, would indeed
require an amazing storyteller. That one doesn't quite write itself.

~~~
jacques_chester
Langdon would be the only survivor of the senior faculty and would be
automatically elevated to the post. He, and a sexy bimbo who is ostensibly an
aerospace engineer, would engage in a whirlwind tour of the world, including

* Finding 14th century patterns in the flight paths of major airlines

* A gripping episode at the Boeing High Technology Escapades Centre near Seattle, Washington (warning: location may not exist)

* 50 pages of hastily cribbed history notes about ancient greece

* The discovery that the descendants of the Cult of Pythagoras and the the Eleusinian Mysteries have been secretly at war for thousands of years and that this explains all historical events up to and including Facebook.

edited for typos and misspellings.

------
Eliezer
I'm amazed by the similarity between the way some people seem personally
offended by the existence of Timothy Ferriss and the way some people seem
offended by Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. I wonder if they're the same
people.

~~~
kragen
What is the similarity? Is it just that both groups of people dislike a person
(albeit, in one case, a fictional person)? Because there are an awful lot of
people who have people who dislike them.

------
treeface
I greatly dislike how the NYT hijacks my browser's text selection. I'd much
rather be able to right click the selected text and search for it on Google
than have that silly word lookup hover.

------
100k
"Some of this junk might actually work, but you’re going to be embarrassed
doing it or admitting to your friends that you’re trying it."

Truer words, never spoken.

~~~
SwellJoe
One of my New Years resolutions is "Be more ridiculous more of the time." As I
get older, I realize that being embarrassed of the things you want to do, or
the experiments you want to try, is one of the most damaging aspects of human
behavior.

There's an interesting idea in, I think, _Next: The Future Just Happened_ by
Michael Lewis, that part of the reason the Internet is such a huge phenomenon
is because people can try on a new "self" just by creating a new account on
some website. So, I thought, "Why can't I do that in real life, too?" There's
no reason I can't wake up one day, and decide, "I'm going to be a really
healthy person, and if it takes doing some odd things and causing friends and
family to be a little baffled by my behavior now and then, that's OK. It's a
worthy endeavor and a price worth paying to have the body and overall health I
want."

In short, yes, my friends think my new diet is odd, and wonder why I'm not
having pizza or beer with them (except on Saturday, my chosen "binge day").
And, yeah, some of the exercises look a little strange when I do them at the
gym. But, so what? I just explain to my friends what I'm experimenting with,
and why, and whether it's working or not (it seems to be, two weeks in). And
I'm only at the gym for 20 minutes a couple times a week, following the
protocol to the letter, so it's a small price to pay. I'm not touching on any
of the extreme stuff that I can't back up with reliable science, but the diet
and the muscle building regime are both well-backed and entirely fit with
pretty conventional thinking. I could have constructed both from existing
research on my own, had I taken the time to do so, the book just made it easy
to follow (I have the book with me on my phone whenever I buy groceries or go
to the gym, so I know I'm doing the right things).

~~~
justin
Can't agree more. Doing something ridiculous led to us creating the largest
live video site. I try to do ridiculous shit all the time for the hell of it,
just to practice thinking unconventionally. Last month I ran through a carwash
with my clothes on.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
This month you should run through one with your clothes off.

------
brianmwang
The one thing that absolutely drives me up the wall is the recent touting of
"Tim Ferriss's 'Slow-Carb' Diet" as if this was some sort of revelation
previously withheld from the masses. Every time I hear somebody saying they're
following it from 4HB I think, "These principles have been freely available
and many times presented through a variety of media channels for years. Why is
this news now and why is it being credited to Tim Ferriss?"

I won't downplay Tim's mastery of self-marketing, but seeing this kind of
thing makes me go bonkers.

~~~
me2i81
What I find tiresome are entire books dedicated to a diet that can be
described in a few pages. In Ferriss's book, this diet described in a few
pages, with the usual self-help testimonials to fill it out to a whole
chapter. He put out the same diet in a blog post a few years ago:
[http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/06/how-to-
lose-...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/06/how-to-lose-20-lbs-
of-fat-in-30-days-without-doing-any-exercise/) so at this point I don't
begrudge him putting it in a book chapter.

His first book was kind of ridiculous IMHO, but I liked this one. You can
cherry pick silly bits out of it like the reviewer did, but a lot of it is
pretty reasonable and does motivate people to actually try stuff.

------
pohl
Dwight Garner: if you can hear me, I just want you to know that this review
was all kinds of awesome.

------
omeega
I find that aggregate amazon reviews are fairly accurate. Im surprised by the
high reviews. [http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Body-Uncommon-Incredible-
Superh...](http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Body-Uncommon-Incredible-
Superhuman/dp/030746363X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294364545&sr=8-1)

------
timsco
I've read most of the book and it's an entertaining read at worst and full of
fitness tips you may use at best.

You just have to glance around America to see that whatever the media spews at
us about health isn't working. I say, good for him for trying to hack away at
the medical / weight loss / media / diet establishment.

~~~
philwelch
Well, the part of the media that's filled with Coca-Cola and McDonald's
commercials needs to be taken down a notch, but I don't think "orthodox health
techniques don't work" are an adequate explanation for why people are in bad
shape. After all, not many people are good at following any kind of health
technique at all.

~~~
timsco
Yes, I completely agree but it's kind of like kids reading comic books over
literature. At least they are reading.

Having a health book at the top of New York Times bestseller list is never a
bad thing (unless it's something unhealthy like Atkins).

It's a good read and it's not as unorthodox as you think. There is some over
the top stuff that he doesn't suggest that you do in there but it's mostly
just good living tips that would help almost anyone.

------
ojbyrne
The funny thing is, the scathing review almost makes me want to read the book.
Almost.

~~~
vessenes
That wasn't scathing, it was fawning. Ferriss dreamed of that review. I'll bet
money he has it framed somewhere in his house.. What more could he have wanted
someone to write?

~~~
whatusername
Case in Point: <http://twitter.com/#!/tferriss/status/23166933377486848>

------
thinkdifferent
I have developed an interest in health and longevity and I read this book.
Full of many interesting ideas, but I was left a bit lost. I'm going to try
his Occam mass gaining protocol, which is entirely taken from Doug McGuff
'Body by Science'.

I'm still a bit skeptical because I think that if something really
works,sooner or later it will be adopted by the professional in the field.

But bodybuilder (even natural ones) are still trainig in the classical way...

~~~
stipes
Bodybuilders would tend to go for the 100% method, not the 80/20. Although
reading through some responses to the book on bodybuilding forums is an
entertaining way to spend an hour.

------
kylecordes
If the book is half as entertaining as this review, it'd be a great buy.

"Timothy Ferriss .... is an unusually beguiling humanlike specimen.

:-)

~~~
lincolnq
Indeed, the book is incredibly entertaining. Seems like people here seem to
put it down, but it's a real hackers' book -- lots of practical, effective
recipes for getting results. I'd definitely recommend it.

~~~
jonhendry
"lots of practical, effective recipes for getting results."

Lots of CLAIMS that the recipes get results. CLAIMS.

~~~
jarin
I'm willing to give it a shot with an open mind, since it doesn't seem
completely unreasonable and I sure as hell am not taking good care of my body
right now.

~~~
Swannie
And there we go.

Taking a short-cut when the well established long route is clearly more
sustainable, more likely to produce results and going to be cheaper.

Hacks are just that, hacks. Used short term to solve a problem, not fix the
cause. Tim's studies are short term, and the long term effects of his hacks is
not really known.

------
catshirt
imho, it's equally negligent to deny it entirely as it is to accept it
entirely.

------
protez
Loved both the book and the review. Tim is damn crazy and his lunacy, but
practical one is what makes 4HB distinct from the other average books claiming
nothing new, nothing to make fun of.

------
nir
It says a lot about where our industry is in right now that Ferris is
celebrity for us. There's a lot in common between the 4 hour body and the 50
billion dollar Facebook.

------
zavulon
> Mr. Ferriss used a hormone-slash-drug called human chorionic gonadotropin
> and more than tripled his semen volume. “Happy days,” he writes.

This is where I lost it.

------
awongh
tl; dr: _“The 4-Hour Body” reads as if The New England Journal of Medicine had
been hijacked by the editors of the SkyMall catalog._

------
yters
The only body hack I want is infinite will power for all practical purposes.
Everything else is just a footnote.

------
oldstrangers
I'm curious if he has a 4-Hour hack for curing his male pattern baldness.

~~~
gkelly
This was a reader question he answered in an interview I saw. He said he's
accepted his hair loss ("going Jason Statham") and that existing solutions
have too many negative side-effects.

------
alecco
And don't miss his upcoming book "The 4-hour hair-loss"!

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I can guarantee you 100% hair-loss in 4 minutes:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VVT94G?ie=UTF8&link...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VVT94G?ie=UTF8&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000VVT94G&tag=ryanwaggonerc-20)

~~~
getsat
Thanks for reminding me that I'm part of Amazon's affiliate program. :)

------
jschuur
They had me at 'beguiling'.

------
zackattack
The worst part about the 4-hour body is how inconsistent Ferriss is. Are you
support to take PAGG 3x a day? Why does he only take it once or twice when he
details his hour-by-hour schedule?

The second worst part about the 4-hour body is how much bullshit he fills the
pages with. His section on jumping higher (for me, a major selling point of
the book) is totally worthless and difficult-to-follow. (A few black and white
diagrams did not do it for me... I would have preferred a workout routine.)
Mostly he just spends the pages waxing poetic about some sexy ex-NFL gym
trainer, and then he talks about how he set the one-day record at his gym for
improving vertical leap.

The third is that it's just very difficult to distill any practical
information from the book. Man, I just want ONE workout plan, ONE meal plan,
and they don't want to think about the rest of it. In order to properly
synthesize the 4HB you'd have to do a lot of research, bring a healthy sense
of skepticism, and basically spend a lot of time. I don't want to think! I
want someone trustworthy to tell me SAFE things I can do that will more or
less bring me results.

But it motivated me to buy a caliper, and measure regularly, so I guess that's
pretty good. And maybe I'll start stocking up on Brazil nuts.

P.S. I am vegan.

~~~
SHOwnsYou
The _one day_ record for vertical leap improvement?

Not a metric _anyone_ keeps track of. Maybe he beat it because one was never
set prior to that. Or perhaps he gamed the system. But most importantly, there
are virtually no long term gains you can realize in a day that will increase
your vertical leap.

I hate to rag on the guy, but this just sounds ridiculous.

~~~
lsc
>there are virtually no long term gains you can realize in a day that will
increase your vertical leap.

Eh, I'd bet you five bucks that if you measured my leap now, then had someone
who knew what the hell they were doing show me proper form, maybe walk me
through it a few times, you'd see a pretty radical improvement within the
hour. Not, of course, due to any sort of muscular growth, but instead because
I imagine my current vertical leap form is horrible, and you can usually get
pretty good gains out of that sort of thing just by doing it correctly.

~~~
SHOwnsYou
I'll take the bet, though it ultimately proves nothing.

Just because you learn whatever proper technique is needed (if any) for
vertical jump and can kind of emulate it the same day does not mean you've
realized long term gains. It only means you've memorized some technical
points. Will you actually internalize those techniques? If you were randomly
tested later would you still have those gains?

Not only that, it also has nothing to do with my point --

The vertical leap parts of the book aren't him telling people to learn proper
technique; They are based around strength gains. And I stand by my point that
he didn't "bulk up" in the morning and then jump higher that afternoon, as the
book would imply.

~~~
lsc
>Just because you learn whatever proper technique is needed (if any) for
vertical jump and can kind of emulate it the same day does not mean you've
realized long term gains. It only means you've memorized some technical
points.

If you are trying to jump higher and not become more generally fit, I
disagree. Memorizing some technical points /can/ bring long term gains to
various physical activities. Learning to squat properly, for example,
massively decreases the chance of injury long-term.

>The vertical leap parts of the book aren't him telling people to learn proper
technique; They are based around strength gains. And I stand by my point that
he didn't "bulk up" in the morning and then jump higher that afternoon, as the
book would imply.

this, I agree with completely.

My only point was that even short periods of time spent learning the proper
form can greatly improve performance and results. Those technical points,
quite often, mean significantly better performance and a significant decrease
in injury.

You are of course right that you aren't going to work out one day and end up
significantly stronger the same day.

I don't know anything about training for the vertical leap; perhaps form is
completely intuitive, and training brings no same-day gains. But, for example,
cross country skiing? a few hours of lessons can massively boost performance
of someone who is completely untrained, not because it makes you stronger, but
because there is a skill to moving efficiently on Skis.

------
mkramlich
I'm going to write a book with two pages in it. Page one will say "Eat Right!"
in a big bold font. Page two will have "Exercise!" on it. A few years later
I'll release revised versions with extra chapters, er, I mean, pages, with
statements like "Sleep Well!" and "Relax, Don't Worry!", etc. I mean, all I
have to do is just promote the hell out of it.

