This is week 4 of my experiment with the Tim Ferriss 4 Hour Body Diet. If you want to read more about the diet, feel free to check out part 1 of this series of just buy Tim’s excellent book, The 4-Hour Body.
This week hasn’t been so good. I keep failing at holding myself to this diet which means one of three possibilities:
- The diet is unrealistic. It may work but it’s not sustainable as a lifestyle which means it’s pointless.
- The diet is realistic but takes some getting used to. Overtime, I will crave things less and less and thus become better and better at maintaining this diet.
- I suck at eating healthy
By the way, this kind of analysis is normal when you’re trying something new. Rather than beating your head against the wall over and over expecting different results, pause for a bit and evaluate. What’s been going wrong? Why has it been going wrong? What were the circumstances? If you’re failing at something, it pays to take a moment and consider your options. By the way, I say “failing” but I’m actually doing ok based on my weight and general feeling. Still, I think I’m missing out on some of the potential for this diet.
What’s Been Going Wrong?
- I’m not quite sticking to the slow carb plan during meal times – This has been a minor issue but a consistent one. At least once or twice a week, I catch myself eating a burrito or a slice of pizza, which is not part of the diet. However, in the grand scheme of things, I tend to suspect that this is not my biggest problem.
- Sugar cravings – Simply put, this diet is BORING! The food flavors are dull, unless I’m eating out at restaurants, which can get really expensive. The food I prepare at home is simple. Legumes, eggs and so on. Even with a liberal quantity of hot sauce, these meals are just not interesting. My mouth protests as does my brain. Which causes me to crave stronger flavors, especially sweet ones. This leads to candy and / or diet coke, both of which I am trying to avoid.
Solutions
There are two things I’d like to work on:
- More sleep – From past experiments, I know that I can resist cravings more when I’m fully rested. Lack of sleep tends to make me more irritable and less focused, which leads to snacking. Due to various personal reasons, I’ve been getting less sleep than I would like in the past weeks and that’s going to change.
- More flavor in the morning – I’m thinking of adding an orange or two to my morning meal. I’ve checked Tim’s past posts about his diet and this seems acceptable. Oranges are relatively low in sugar and shouldn’t disrupt the low carb aspect of the diet too much. Hopefully, this curbs some of the cravings. I may add one orange to my morning meal and then save another as a midday snack.
That’s all. Other than this, I’m happy to report that, even with the occasional snack, I’m still losing weight.
01.14.2011 Weight – 224
