Book: 4 Hour Body

I have mixed feelings about Tim Ferriss. I read 4 Hour Work Week, and now 4 Hour Body (both Amazon), and it’s like, yes, good point, but it’s hard for me to imagine having that much control over my time. Penelope Trunk wrote something interesting, about how he works insanely hard but defines it all as not work. She was complaining about 4HWW, but maybe the same thing applies here.

I read the entire book consecutively, which is not the way he recommends it. It is overwhelming as a result, although I read it pretty slowly. The slow carb thing is interesting, I try to limit carbs and continually fail as my reaction to stress is “bread!”, and the answer to “can’t find appropriate food” is a handful of almonds, which being allergic is not a viable option for me.

That being said, I’ve started eating hummus, am being diligent of eating breakfast within 30 minutes of waking, and I’ve cut out fruit.

There are a lot of exercises there, I’ll probably try some of the weights programs, although for now I’m focusing on kettle bell swings and swimming.

It’s like, the first half of the book is a book about getting in shape, through some minimal amount of exercise (focusing on some key exercises, mainly kettle bell swings) and the slow carb. And the second half is a weird collection of things, two chapters on sex, a chapter on sleep, some on running and power lifting, and oddly, a chapter on baseball. There are some interesting insights, but it doesn’t exactly flow. Many of them, particularly the swimming chapter, are like a summary that will maybe give you reason to read an entire other book and following a whole other program.

All in all… worth a read if you’re into that kind of thing.