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Are you looking for tips from Tim Ferriss? What are the top Tim Ferriss tips from The 4-Hour Body?
The 4-Hour Body is about the recomposition of your body with the right strategies that work for you. The tips from Tim Ferriss include advice about diet, exercise, supplements, and temperature manipulation.
Read more about Tim Ferriss, tips for body recomp, and The 4-Hour Body.
Tim Ferriss: Tips and Overview of Body Recomp
Body composition is a measure of how much of the body is made up of fat vs. muscle. To change your body composition, known as “recomp,” you need to lose fat, gain muscle, or both. You’ll achieve this using diet, exercise, supplements, and temperature manipulation.
Diet: The Slow-Carb Diet
The first recomp factor is diet. The Slow-Carb Diet was developed by the author through self-experimentation and works for almost everyone who follows it properly. On this diet, the author lost 20 pounds of fat within a month.
To follow the Slow-Carb Diet:
- Stop eating white-colored carbohydrates, or any carbohydrates that come in white-colored varieties (like rice).
- Repeat the same 3-4 meals regularly. This allows you to avoid foods that will make you gain fat and ensure you get enough protein (at least 20 grams per meal). Each meal should contain one item from each of the following categories:
- Protein: eggs (especially whites), beef, fish, pork, chicken thigh or breast
- Legumes: lentils, soybeans, pinto beans, red beans, black beans
- Vegetables: any vegetables you like
- Eat two to three times what you used to. Slow-carb foods have a low calorie-to-volume ratio.
- Eat breakfast within an hour of waking up and eat four meals a day, four hours apart.
- Drink lots of water and as many low- or no-calorie drinks as you like. Don’t drink juice, milk, or soda. Optionally drink fewer than 16 ounces of diet soda or two glasses of dry red wine a day.
- Avoid fruit, except for tomatoes and avocados in moderation. Fruit contains the sugar fructose, which will make you fat.
- Don’t eat dairy, except for cottage cheese. Dairy produces a large insulin release, which will make your body store fat.
- Follow this diet only six days per week. On the seventh day, eat and drink whatever you want, all the no-nos above included. This “cheat day” won’t only keep you happy; it’ll maintain your metabolism, which slows when you restrict calories. Your metabolism is what makes you lose weight, so it’s important to keep it going strong.
Exercise Tips From Tim Ferriss
The second recomp factor is exercise. There are three highly effective exercises for fat loss and recomp:
Exercise #1: The Russian Kettlebell Swing
The Russian kettlebell swing works the posterior chain, which includes your calves, hamstrings, glutes, and back muscles. To do a kettlebell swing:
- Choose an appropriate bell. Men should start with a 20-24-kg bell and women with a 16-20-kg bell.
- Place your feet half a foot to a foot wider than shoulder-width and put the kettlebell between them. Turn both feet 30 degrees outward.
- Keep your shoulders in the locked position, which means pulling your shoulder blades down and back, as if you were trying to put them in your opposite back pockets. This will protect your shoulders from injury. Don’t round your back.
- Pick up the kettlebell and sit back (not squat), and swing the kettlebell through your legs. It should end up behind your legs near your bum. Then, swing it forwards.
Exercise #2: The Myotatic Crunch
The myotatic crunch activates multiple abdominal muscles, including those that make up a six-pack. To do the crunch:
- Place your back on a BOSU ball, swiss ball, or pile of cushions. Your bum should be no higher than half a foot off the ground.
- Stretch your arms over your head like you’re about to dive into a pool.
- Lower your upper back slowly for 4 seconds. Maintain that diving position and push your hands away from the ball.
- When your hands touch the floor, hold for 2 seconds.
- Lift your back slowly until your arms are perpendicular to the ground. Hold this position for 2 seconds.
Exercise #3: Cat Vomit Exercise
The cat vomit exercise is designed to pull your abs in and work your waist muscles. To do the exercise:
- Get into a crawling position and put your back and neck in a neutral position (look at the ground or slightly ahead).
- Exhale through your mouth until you have no air left in your lungs. This will contract your abs.
- Suck in your stomach (belly button towards spine) for 8-12 seconds.
- Breathe in through your nose.
- Breathe out and in, and then repeat the exercise.
Supplements: PAGG
The third recomp factor is supplements. The author recommends taking a combination of supplements with the acronym PAGG to aid fat loss:
- Policosanol is a plant wax extract. It increases the effectiveness of the other three supplements below.
- Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) encourages the body to store carbs in muscles or the liver, rather than in fat.
- Epigallocatechin gallate, which is found in green tea. Like ALA, it encourages carb storage in muscles. Additionally, it inhibits storage in fat cells and kills off mature fat cells.
- Garlic extract, which inhibits fat regain.
You should take PAGG six days a week and take a full week off every 60 days. Make sure to take lots of B-complex vitamins while taking the supplements.
Tim Ferriss: Tips for Temperature Manipulation
The final one of the tips from Tim Ferriss is temperature manipulation. Cooling your body stimulates your body to burn calories as heat. There are four ways to harness this phenomenon:
- Ice the back of your neck or upper back for 20-30 minutes.
- Drink at least half a liter of ice water as soon as you wake up.
- Take cold showers. Use hot water for the first 1-2 minutes, then turn it to cold. Take cold showers before bed and/or before breakfast.
- Take 20-minute ice baths that are cold enough to make you shiver. If you’re a beginner, immerse only your lower body for the first five minutes. Keep your hands out of the water when fully immersed.
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