Toss 90% of Your Diet and Fitness Books into the Trash Can

What??  Am I exaggerating here?  Toss 90% of your diet and fitness books into the trash can?  

Let's be honest, a hefty percentage contain outdated, partial or skewed information anyway, so there's no great loss.  For the rest, you may find they add more confusion than clarity to your life and have led to "paralysis by analysis" for you.


Enter, The 4 Hour Body.  Goodbye, paralysis!

It Started With a Very Long Road Trip

Last week I spent 18 hours on the highways of southern Ontario in a 55 hour period and 12 hours of that were solo, so I really needed something to listen to.  My cousin, a true renaissance man with a fanatical interest in human resilience (and most other things!) had suggested the audio book version of Timothy Ferriss' recent bestseller, The 4 Hour Body.  


Well, the audio book was great, but abridged, so the first thing I did when I got home was to grab the book itself - double the revenue going from my pocket to Mr. Ferriss ;-)


If you've read his previous magnum opus, The 4 Hour Work Week, you know Tim is a divergent thinker and a very entertaining and thought-provoking writer.  Better that that, he always tests his theories and gives you advice you can easily put into practice in your own life.  And this is where The 4 Hour Body delivers in spades.


At first I thought the title was contrived; just a take-off of the previous book's.  Not the case, however; it turns out that a total of 4 hours of exercise is all the exercise you need in a whole month to do a total body makeover.  And Tim's right on - most people vastly overestimate the "gym time" needed to build sculpted and functional muscles, reduce body fat and get you looking and feeling your best. 

Diving Into the Book 


Tim effectively breaks down the artificial mental silos we use to separate weight loss, diet, nutrition, fitness, body image and performance, and then pulls it all together for you in a series of usable programs you can apply to yourself.  And you don't have to read all of this 550+ page monster.  Just select what's most important to you.  Want to lose weight?  Read pages 44-156.  Want to gain weight?  Try pages 157-224.  Want to get stronger?  Then pages 404-432 are for you.


And there's plenty of science in the book to back it all up.  Fortunately, Tim keeps all but a minimum of that out of your way while he explains the programs to follow, and then lets you peruse the scientific research at your leisure.  

Important scientific note here: Tim is a meticulous data cruncher, as he says, and measures everything!  This alone should shift your thinking about how you approach life in general.  My own resilience work is built on the same premise: if you can't measure it, you can't prove it.  (This, by the way, was the same scientific logic ancient spiritual traditions built their practices on.  Then we invented "religion".  God help us all!)


At first sight, the book's a bit eclectic, covering an interesting spread of topics:

• Weight loss
• Weight gain
• Building muscle and strength
• Improving sex, including the female orgasm
• Perfecting sleep
• Reversing injuries
• Running faster and farther
• Swimming and Swinging (swinging as in baseball)
• Longevity

But then, Tim's an eclectic kind of guy, so the whole thing hangs together quite well.





Here's a fun video trailer for the book...

Afterthoughts

All this is not to suggest that I have no issues with the book.  Tim's mention of microwaving his food makes me cringe and more attention paid to the living, enzymatic quality of food as opposed to the simple categories of proteins / fats / carbs would have been helpful.  That said, if you follow his "Slow Carb" dietary suggestions, I can almost guarantee you'll send your health and fitness into the stratosphere.


His longevity chapter is, paradoxically, the shortest in the book and could have done with some more research, including investigations into the world's premier longevity tradition, i.e., Taoism.  


And I could go on.  However, the fact remains that if you read this book and put its programs into action - whichever ones apply to you personally, of course - you'll be a lot better off for it.  So grab yourself a copy and enjoy!


~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

DEEEEP SLEEEEP... and How to Get it

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The Power of Qi: Using EFT and Qi Gong to Clear Your Energy Patterns

February 24-26 in Jersey City, NJ

Early Bird Special expires on Friday January 21

http://www.attractingabundance.com/eft/The-Power-of-Qi/

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Getting a good night's sleep, i.e., a long, deep and satisfying sleep from which you wake up refreshed, is vital to your health, immunity and overall resilience.

And women are about twice as likely as men to have trouble doing this.  Often it seems to be psychological - women have more trouble tuning out the noise, worries and frustrations of the day than men do.  But there's more to it than that...


Your sleep disturbances may come from any number of sources and most of them are under your control.  Some of those involve falling into other bad lifestyle habits that are sabotaging your nightly slumber.  Or sometimes it's as simple as flipping your mattress!

Here's a very well done video that goes over the basics for you:

The Importance of Darkness

The hours of darkness were highly prized by the authentic spiritual traditions of the ancient world, including the original Christian tradition, because they all knew from experience that your brain functions at a much different level during those hours, whether you're asleep or awake.


So naturally, the medical traditions that grew up in these cultures emphasize the need for real darkness as a facilitator of deep sleep.  On the basis of modern scientific research, we now know they were absolutely correct.  

Consider the following:

• Darkness changes your body chemistry and affects the pineal, pituitary, thalamus and hypothalamus glands - four vital glands at the center of your brain
  
• Darkness converts the neurotransmitter serotonin into the regulatory hormone melatonin, which begins to slow down organ function in preparation for sleep
  
• The pineal gland generates certain inhibatory reactions, allowing you to enter into the various stages of sleep
  
• The hypothalamus monitors your metabolism to maintain all autonomic functions in the normal range
  
• Your reticular activation system (RAS) monitors your optic nerve and auditory functions to wake you should anything out of the ordinary occur.  The good news is this protects you from danger.  The bad news is that if your sleep environment lets in lots of light, your RAS may get a bit confused ;-)

The bottom line here is that making sure your bedroom is quite dark at night is a prerequisite to a consistently good, sound sleep for most of us.  And if you live in the city, that's harder than you may think, given all the ambient light from street lights, neighbors' lights, the city lights reflection in the atmosphere and, of course, the moon.  


When it comes to your own sleep disturbances, you have to be a bit of a detective to figure them out.  But with the help of today's video, you'll be back on track in no time ;-)


~ Dr. Symeon Rodger


**The contents of this blog post are not to be considered as medical advice.  Always consult a physician before beginning / modifying a fitness program or before undertaking lifestyle modifications that could impact your health.**