Housecleaning and Clarifications: Blog Content, 4HB Corrections, Competition Winners, Slow-Carb Mistakes, and More

(Photo: Felipe Morin)

Holy crap. The 4-Hour Body (4HB) has ended up producing an avalanche of questions.

There are definitely a few gems hidden amongst the rubble, and more than a few typos were unearthed in the process.

This post — mostly how-to with a few bits of entertainment — is purely for tying up loose ends. I hope it helps.

Covered in this post:

The blog moving forward: 4HB content vs. 4HWW content vs. random topics

4HB Bonus Materials – If You Missed It

4HB Tools and Tricks – All Online!

Contest winners

Slow-carb clarifications

4-Hour Body – common questions and Q&As

Audiobook PDF downloads

4HB reader-generated goodies: desktop wallpaper, etc.

Media samples

4HB corrections and typos…

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The blog moving forward: 4HB content vs. 4HWW content vs. random topics

Some readers have expressed interest in more business-related posts, instead of physical-focused posts. Not to worry — there will continue to be both on this blog. In simplest terms, I write about what I’m most interested in (or passionate about) at the time. If you don’t find a post interesting, skip out for a bit and then check back in. I don’t expect anyone to read all of my posts.

4HB Bonus Materials – If You Missed It

The 4-Hour Body bonus materials have been up for a while now. If you missed them, all can be found here. Enjoy!

There are a number of forums and message boards for 4HB, including this blog and the reader-generated 4HBTalk.

For those interested, I’ll be experimenting with a private, paid forum (probably $9.95/month to start, but not sure) for 4HB. I’m going to test it with 100 people first. If you have any interest in being one of the 100 for $9.95/month, please fill out this form. My hope is that this forum can be a central troll-free and spam-free gathering point for people who are willing to test, gather data, and contribute to each other. I don’t want participants who ask others to Google simple questions for them. The price is a simple mechanism to separate out those who are most serious.

Regardless, information wants to be free. There are a ton of free resources and communities online, not to mention a 600-page book, that should be enough for anyone to make exceptional progress.

4HB Tools and Tricks — all online!

Ever wished all of links in the 4-Hour Body “Tools and Tricks” were online? You asked and I heard you — all of the resources links are now online here. Enjoy!

Contest winners!

CONTEST #1

Blog post: Have a Good Eye for Ads? Try the (Lucrative) 4-Hour Body Experiment…

Date: October 13

Winner: Salman Sajid (Congratulations!)

Prize(s): North Face Prophet 65 Trekking Pack (Retail: $319), A round-trip anywhere in the world Star Alliance airlines fly (or $1,000 cash), All 4-Hour Body revenue via ads on my site for two weeks (potentially every post ever written), using your Amazon affiliate code.

Notes: Here is Salman’s winning ad (he also won the smaller banner), based on click-through rate. I’ll be doing a longer analysis in a future blog post. The genius “Eat Like Santa, Look Like Jesus” ads, which I also used to great effect, was designed (visual and copy) by Conway Anderson. Amusingly, he and I randomly met on the Embarcadero sidewalk on the SF waterfront. He gave me his card “just in case” and here we are.

CONTEST #2

Blog post: “The Land Rush: 48 Hours to Claim $4,000,000 in Prizes” + “The 4-Hour Body is NOW OUT – Live Q&A Today, New Trailer, Free Books, and Much More”

Date: December 2010 (sadly, there were some great submissions who posted too late, like David Batchelor)

Winner: Camille. Runner-up: Roger P.

Prize(s): Free trip to the person who promotes The 4-Hour Body best this week. If you are the best promoter, judged by me and a panel of friends, you get to pick one trip of a lifetime… for free. I will almost definitely be in attendance: 8-Day Argentina Snow Adventure in Patagonia, or 10-Day Private Tour of India, including Miss India. Includes roundtrip economy airfare from and back to the U.S. Addendum: I’ll give the runner-up a round-trip anywhere in the world that Continental flies (or StarAlliance). Camille, you can also take this, if you prefer. No expiration date.

Slow-Carb Clarifications

I’m currently getting at least 500-1,000 questions a day via the blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. about the slow-carb diet. Let me clarify a few things:

Do not eat the following, except for cheat days:

Yams

Sweet potatoes

Quinoa

Dairy (this includes cheese and yogurt of all kinds)

I mention cottage cheese at one point as a last resort. It is low in lactose, which is what you need to avoid. Ghee and cream (for coffee) should contain little or no lactose, hence you can use them. The same goes for effectively lactose-free, unflavored whey protein, etc..

[Note for the PubMed readers: It’s true that whey is partially (or wholly) responsible for the insulinemic response of most dairy, but avoiding lactose seems to be more directly correlated to faster fat-loss in the diet subjects I’ve tracked. Needless to say, avoiding all dairy is the simplest solution.]

SUPPLEMENTS: There is NO need for supplements on the slow-carb diet, besides magnesium, potassium, etc. in “Slow-Carb II.” PAGG is NOT necessary, so if you find it confusing, just omit it.

Post-workout carbs – If your goal is fat loss, and assuming you are not training for endurance competition:

– If you male and not 12% bodyfat or less, no post-workout carbs.

– If you are female and not 20% bodyfat or less, no post-workout carbs.

In the end, the point of 4HB is intelligent and responsible SELF-EXPERIMENTATION. I will not answer all of your questions, precisely because I want you to think for yourselves and figure it out. Hundreds of you have already done so. It’s not that hard.

The following will address 99%+ of confusion:

– If you have to ask, don’t eat it.

– If you haven’t had blood tests done, I don’t want to hear that the diet doesn’t work.

– If you aren’t measuring inches or haven’t measured bodyfat % with an accurate tool (BodPod, etc. and NOT bodyfat scales), I don’t want to hear that the diet doesn’t work.

– If you’re a woman and taking measurements within 10 days prior to menstruation (which I advise against in the book), I don’t want to hear about the lack of progress.

– On the critical 4-6 week window:

For people over 40 and women (especially after two kids), it’s quite common that the most dramatic fat-loss and weight change comes after 4-6 weeks on the diet. I have no explanation for this. Needless to say, if you haven’t done the diet for AT LEAST four weeks, please don’t post a comment about plateauing and panicking. I can’t give you meaningful advice without a ton of other supporting data (blood tests, etc.), and it’s physically impossible for me to respond to each person.

To reiterate: The entire goal of 4HB is to make you a self-sufficient self-experimenter within safe boundaries. Track yourself, follow the rules, and track the changes if you break or bend the rules. Simple as that. That’s what I did to arrive at my conclusions, and that’s what you will do — with a huge head start with the 4HB — to arrive at yours.

Do it for 4 weeks and then troubleshoot if you’re plateauing.

If you post a plea for help anywhere, include at least two FULL days of your meals and snacks so people can actually help you.

Most of those saying they’re “following the diet to the letter” are doing nothing of the sort. Reread “Slow-Carb II” in 4HB.

Last, I’ll repeat the basic approach to the unknown: If you have to ask, don’t eat it.

4-Hour Body – common questions and Q&As

Most of the questions you could possibly ask about 4HB or slow-carb have been answered, whether related to carb-loading for endurance, orgasms, or other. I’ve done a few Q&As over the last few weeks, and I encourage you to check them out — lots of good questions:

4HB Presentation and extended Q&A at Twitter Headquarters [VIDEO]

4HB Presentation and extended Q&A at Twitter Headquarters [AUDIO] (after clicking the link, just wait 45 seconds to download the file for free)

Borders Books Q&A [TEXT]

Presentation and Q&A at Google Headquarters (the preso is the same as Twitter, but the Q&A is different and starts at 18:00)

Audiobook PDF downloads

The PDFs that accompany audiobook downloads (which I have nothing to do with) are apparently really hard to find. Please note: on Audible and elsewhere, there should be a small download link on your purchase confirmation for downloading the PDFs.

4HB reader-generated goodies: desktop wallpaper, etc.

Just for the fun of it, here is some desktop wallpaper created by Cole Morgan.

Media Samples

If you’d like to see how you must compress your sound bites for television, here is a brief clip of me from The View. I REALLY want to get Barbara Walters huge on creatine. She’d look amazing with killer forearms:

I will also be on Dr. Oz this Monday (Jan 24), and it should be a much longer segment and worth seeing. Find your local times here. I’ve been on his radio show twice, and we’ve always had a good time digging into the details. He doesn’t hesitate to challenge.

4HB corrections and typos

Through the editing process, which included more than six passes of the manuscript and a team of copyeditors, typos inevitably ended up in 4HB. I’m thankful to you, my readers, for pointing most of them out. Here are those we’ve found so far. These are my notes sent to the publisher, so forgive the odd formatting, and most bolding has been removed:

1) HUPERZINE DOSE TYPO, PG. 280

“As I double-checked pg.280 of your 4-Hour Body book, I see that you indeed recommend 200 milligrams of the extract, however, the reader suggested that … it should, in fact, be 200 MICROgrams.”

TIM: I’m not sure how this happened, but he’s right. It should be “micrograms (mcg)” NOT milligrams. Please change to “micrograms (mcg)”

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2) IODINE TYPO and add to biotin, PG 524

“Hello,??I noticed two typos on page 524:??* Iodine does not have a USRDA value of 1,500 mcg…it is actually 150 mcg.”

TIM: This is correct. Please change to 150 mcg. I don’t know how this happened, as it was accurate at manuscript stage. Needs to be “150 mcg”

“?* Biotin does not have a USRDA value of 30 mcg…it is actually 300 mcg.”

TIM: He is incorrect here, I believe, but we should still update, as Biotin does not have an USRDA. Put “(no USRDA)” next to biotin like a few others.??

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3) CINNAMON TYPO, PG. 101

“Under DAMAGE CONTROL you state that during your binge you consumed 1 tbsp cinnamon in your coffee. However under THE GLUCOSE SWITCH, when explaining types and quantities of cinnamon you stressed the importance of not exceeding 1.5 teaspoons a day. Which would mean you had consumed double that “safe” amount during your binge. Can you please clarify?”

TIM: “1 tbsp cinnamon” on pg. 101 (under “12:45pm”) is a typo and should be “1 tsp cinnamon”

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4) PG. 26

“That is, if you’re a critical intervention patient, such as a morbidly

obese type 1 diabetic.”

Should be changed to “type 2”:

“That is, if you’re a critical intervention patient, such as a morbidly

obese type 2 diabetic.”

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5) PG. 116, PAGG

The end result was PAGG.

Policosanol: 20–25 mg

Alpha- lipoic acid: 100–300 mg (I take 300 mg with each meal, but some

people experience acid refl ux symptoms with more than 100 mg)

Green tea fl avanols (decaffeinated with at least 325 mg EGCG):

325 mg

Garlic extract: 200 mg

Daily PAGG intake is timed before meals and bed, which produces a

schedule like this:

Prior to breakfast: AGG

Prior to lunch: AGG

Prior to dinner: AGG

Prior to bed: PAGG

Should be changed to (changes in bold):

The end result was PAGG.

Policosanol: 20–25 mg

Alpha- lipoic acid: 100–300 mg (I take 300 mg with each meal, but some

people experience acid reflux symptoms with even 100 mg)

Green tea flavanols (decaffeinated with at least 325 mg EGCG):

325 mg

Garlic extract: at least 200 mg (I routinely use 650+ mg)

Daily PAGG intake is timed before meals and bed, which produces a

schedule like this:

Prior to breakfast: AGG

Prior to lunch: AGG

Prior to dinner: AGG

Prior to bed: PAG (omit the green tea extract)

6) PG. 120, PAGG PARAGRAPH AND TOOLS AND TRICKS

[SECOND PARAG]

“Until further research concludes otherwise, I suggest using an

aged-garlic extract (AGE) with high allicin potential that includes all constituent parts, including S-Allyl cysteine.”

Should be changed to [changes bolded]:

“Until further research concludes otherwise, I suggest using an

aged-garlic extract (AGE) with high allicin potential that includes all constituent parts, including S-Allyl cysteine. If AGE isn’t available, unaged garlic extract appears to work at slightly higher doses.”

[CHANGES IN TOOLS AND TRICKS]

I currently use the following products. I have no financial interest in any of them:

Vitamin Shoppe— Allicin 6000 Garlic, 650 mg, 100 caplets (www.fourhourbody.com/garlic)

Mega Green Tea Extract (decaffeinated), 725 mg, 100 capsules (www.fourhourbody.com/greentea)

Vitamin Shoppe— Alpha- Lipoic Acid, 300 mg, 60 capsules (www.fourhourbody.com/ala)

Nature’s Life— Policosanol, 60 tablets (www.fourhourbody.com/policosanol)

Should be changed to (please just copy and paste the below):

I used the following products for my testing, but I’ll update links based on availability and reader feedback. I have no financial interest in any of them:

Allicin 6000 Garlic—650 mg, 100 caplets (www.fourhourbody.com/garlic)

Mega Green Tea Extract— 325+ mg EGCG, 100 capsules (www.fourhourbody.com/greentea)

Vitamin Shoppe—Alpha-Lipoic Acid, 100 mg, 60 capsules (www.fourhourbody.com/ala)

Nature’s Life— Policosanol, 60 tablets (www.fourhourbody.com/policosanol)

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7) CHANGE “Heinrich” to “Henrik” on pg. 256, parag 3

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8) PG. 15 — “500 scientific citations” needs to be changed to “300 scientific citations”

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