Editor’s Note – This is the latest in a multi post series dealing with the 4 Hour Body Diet. For more information, please check out the rest of the posts.
This is my first week of trying out a healthy eating plan compared to the Tim Ferris 4 hour body diet and I’m happy to say that the initial results are in. I lost 1.5lbs this week, which is 1.5lbs less than what I lost on an equivalent week on Tim’s diet.
So, let’s start with some disclaimers:
- One week’s worth of data is relatively meaningless. It’s too short of a period of time to really tell us what’s going on.
- 1.5lb difference is also pretty meaningless. That could be a big dinner last night or a single workout before my weigh in. Either way, this number won’t mean much until we get another weigh in next week.
However, I do already have some useful data.
Calories Per Day
In both the first week of the 4 Hour Body Diet and in this first week of healthy eating, I’ve avoided sticking to a calorie budget and have instead just tracked what I ate. I stuck to my eating rules and focused on eating until I felt somewhat full. I only ate when hungry and avoided eating junk food. In theory, I should have eaten the same amount of calories on both diets. However, after looking at my food journal for the week, my daily calories are about 600 calories higher per day on the healthy eating plan.
If I look at the nutrient breakdown, my protein numbers are about 50% lower and my carb and sugar numbers are about 50% higher. So adding in 50% more carbs accounted for more calories than reducing my protein intake by 50%.
Now let’s forget the whole proteins versus carbs thing. I know some people insist their nutrient of choice is healthier than yours, but that’s besides the point. Just focus on the calorie numbers for a second. I only ate when hungry and ate only until I was full and yet I still ate more calories on one eating plan than I did on the other. Another way of saying it is; the Tim Ferris diet got me full and kept me feeling full on about 600 calories less per day. That is huge. That’s about 1lb lost per week while still feeling just as full.
My gut instinct (sorry for the awful pun) tells me that this is an innate difference between carbs and protein. Proteins take longer to digest so your body feels fuller for longer periods of time. Anyone who’s had a heavy, meat centric meal knows the truth of this one. At the same time, carbs digest quickly and leave you wanting more, especially sugar heavy carbs like fruit. Again, this is common sense, but I guess it took these numbers to make me face that truth.
This Week
I’m going to continue with the healthy eating plan for at least another 4 weeks, just to make it equivalent to my 4 hour body experiment. I’ll keep updating this series of posts with numbers and opinions as I go. If you have any questions, suggestions or advice, please feel free to send them my way.
