The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman

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The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman

3.68 of 5 stars 3.68 · rating details · 6,872 ratings · 777 reviews

Thinner, bigger, faster, stronger... which 150 pages will you read?

Is it possible to:
Reach your genetic potential in 6 months?
Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours?
Lose more fat than a marathoner by bingeing?

Indeed, and much more. This is not just another diet and fitness book.

The 4-Hour Body is the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than...more

Hardcover, 571 pages

Published December 14th 2010 by Harmony (first published 2000)

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Jan 08, 2011 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed the book. I'm not going to claim that the book is perfect or earth-shattering or anything like that. I did find it entertaining to read all the stuff Tim Ferriss put himself through. I've also benefited from some of his recommendations (though not all). My biggest criticism is the book didn't do enough with the mind part. For that, you might want to read Emotional Intelligence 2.0. That book did a great deal for my mind.

For The 4-Hour Body, here's what's in the book so you can make you...more

40 likes · like · see review

Jan 04, 2012 Camille added it · review of another edition

Anyone who read my review of 4 Hour Work Week knows that I think that Tim Ferriss is a total smug dick. That said, he is a smug dick who really seems to kinda know what he is talking about. There were a ton of super useful tips in 4HWW and he really spells things out to you to total dummy level. So when I found out he had a diet book, I figured I should check it out. This dude is the king of of shortcuts, SO if anyone was going to be helpful (and most efficient) in helping me achieve my meager w...more

21 likes · like · see review

Jan 10, 2011 Gnomad rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fitness, food-diet, non-fiction

Tim Ferriss, time management guru/guy on the internet I love to hate, followed up his first book, The 4 Hour Workweek, with a book designed to teach people how to hack their bodies. It's a hodgepodge of advice on everything from weight loss, bodybuilding, sex, running, sleep, and nutrition, and attempts to eschew conventional wisdom in these areas in favor of small (except not really), easily done (except not really), often overlooked (except not really) hacks that anyone can employ. Now, I expe...more Tim Ferriss, time management guru/guy on the internet I love to hate, followed up his first book, The 4 Hour Workweek, with a book designed to teach people how to hack their bodies. It's a hodgepodge of advice on everything from weight loss, bodybuilding, sex, running, sleep, and nutrition, and attempts to eschew conventional wisdom in these areas in favor of small (except not really), easily done (except not really), often overlooked (except not really) hacks that anyone can employ. Now, I expected to eye roll a lot at this book (and I did), but I thought it would be interesting. Instead of mild interest, though, I spent the entire read alternating between spitting anger and abject boredom.

The cornerstone of the book is Ferriss' self-experimentation. As he says, he's gone out and tried all the crazy treatments and bought all dangerous products so you don't have to. And that's very nice of him, certainly, though I suspect he's really only indulging his own neuroses and OCD issues rather than doing these things out of any sense of altruism, but whatever. And I do believe that there is a ton of value in self-experimentation. Self-experimentation is where the big theories and scientific discoveries start, take shape, and get you thinking about the world in ways you hadn't before. It's is not, however, science. Science is what you do after you've come up with all these great ideas and interesting observations. Ferriss doesn't seem to understand this, though, skips the middle science part all together, and goes straight to doling out advice on what the reader should be doing to change themselves. The result is contradictory recommendations that are at best benign and at worse dangerous to the user on a physical and mental level.

And then I got to the sex chapter. Ferriss, you see, decides to teach the world (men) how to give a woman a 15 minute orgasm. As though they too are something to be hacked and experimented on so that men can feel better about themselves and their mad skillz. So he talks about his 'experiments' in female sexuality while nudgenudgewinkwinking his way through the parts where he finds his 'test subjects' and talks to 'experts'. And, you know, as disgusted as I was with the whole tone and objectification throughout the chapter, I think I could've forgiven a small part of it if I had learned something interesting or been presented with a novel sexual technique. But no. Ferriss' road to mindblowing orgasms is...manual clitoral masturbation. And I'm still not sure where the 15 minutes comes in. Ugh.

"No, I was more concerned with increasing sperm count than isolating variables."

And that, my friends, pretty much sums up the book for me.(less)

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Jan 14, 2012 Mark rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is crazy. Timothy Ferriss is narcissistic and obsessive to an intense degree - at one point he gets a blood glucose monitor installed in his skin so he can graph his levels. His constant humblebragging is pretty hard to take.

The 4 Hour Body is laid out like a recipe book based on what goals you want to achieve. There are chapters for weight loss, muscle gain, endurance improvements, swimming, s_x techniques, testosterone improvement, injury rehabilitation, and so on. He is not kidding...more

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May 09, 2011 trivialchemy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: triathlon

I know no one reads my math or exercise book reviews, but f*ck you guys because books that I can leave on the back of my toilet and read from a few pages at a time are the only books that I have been able to get through for the past six months. Do not judge me.

I mean, I do know it's kind of embarrassing. No one wants to like a self-help book. Not on here anyway. Because we're all educated, self-aware goodreaders, and when we hear that cloying, mutually congratulatory snake-oil rhetoric, we see...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Mike W rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sports

Having seen Tim Ferriss on TV, I suspected he was a huckster. But I was sufficiently intrigued that I read his books anyway. Now, having read them, I'm convinced he's a huckster. The gullible reader of this book will be convinced that he can have the body of a champion athlete or model with very little effort, just as the gullible reader of Ferriss's other tome, the 4 Hour Workweek, might imagine that she can make millions of dollars (or at least live like a millionaire) with a mere 4 hours of w...more Having seen Tim Ferriss on TV, I suspected he was a huckster. But I was sufficiently intrigued that I read his books anyway. Now, having read them, I'm convinced he's a huckster. The gullible reader of this book will be convinced that he can have the body of a champion athlete or model with very little effort, just as the gullible reader of Ferriss's other tome, the 4 Hour Workweek, might imagine that she can make millions of dollars (or at least live like a millionaire) with a mere 4 hours of work per week.

So Ferriss is a sophist, and much of this book is nonsense and chicanery.

And yet, even the Sophists had real insights at times, so that even their greatest adversary, Socrates, sometimes defended them. And so it is with the ebullient Ferriss.

While many of his particular prescriptions seem bogus, some of the general principles he suggests are valuable. I have myself benefited from following some of his advice.

Among his key idea are the "Pareto Principle" and the "Minimum Effective Dose." The Pareto Principle comes from the great economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto. It's defined on Wikipedia thusly: "The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes." And the related concept of a minimum effective dose Ferriss himself defines as "the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome."

Here I found Ferriss's advice useful. Much of the time I spent exercising was wasted, because I had not thought sufficiently about how to optimize--how to be efficient. Following his advice on weightlifting, I cut down from doing 3 sets of 10 reps per session, at 2-3 sessions per week, to doing 1 set of 5-7 reps once a week and got substantially better results. Much of the time I had spent lifting weights was clearly counterproductive.

I also benefited from Ferrriss pointing me to the so-called "cyclic ketogenic" diet. That diet is different from the one Ferriss himself recommends in the book, but shares some common features. Ferriss's own diet he dubs the "slow-carb diet". It differs from low-carb or ketogenic diets by encouraging consumption of complex carbohydrates that do not metabolize quickly, like beans. And it shares with the cyclic ketogenic diet the idea of cycling, or taking days off periodically. My own experience suggests that this is superior to the typical low-carb diet.

Ferriss has a tremendous talent for self-promotion, like Madonna or Lady Gaga. And he is almost as superficial. But he sometimes has something interesting to say, unlike those two "ladies". He contradicts himself repeatedly. He advises, at different times, to take no rest in between sets in lifting weights, and to take 3 minutes between sets, and also 5 minutes. And in each case he's very certain and very precise in his prescription. This deepens the sense in any reader who is not asleep that he's just making things up.

And Ferriss takes a hard line on epidemiological studies because they are typically observational rather than experimental. And yet he himself frequently draws firm inferences from observational data that even a mediocre epidemiologist would deem far beneath her standards. For instance, Ferriss cites, as evidence for his assertions, the case of Casey Viator, who followed a regimen Ferriss approves of and purportedly gained 62 pounds of muscle in 28 days. But there was only Casey in this "experiment" and there was no control group. Just one guy, who might or might not have been taking anabolic steroids, in an emprical study from 1973 that was never repeated.

In sum, there's a lot of dross here and only a handful of gems, in a long book. But the discerning reader might still get some advantage from reading it.(less)

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Sep 20, 2011 Margot rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, food, fitness, non-fiction

The 4-Hour Body is a hulk of a book, weighing in at over 600 pages. But Ferris comes right out in the intro and encourages readers to use it in an a la carte fashion, based on their personal needs and interests. I did not heed said advice, since I wanted to review the entire content of the book, rather than just what pertains to me (obviously, I'm not planning on gaining 30 pounds of muscle weight in as many days).

I found this book unexpectedly and deeply engrossing. Every time I sat down to rea...more

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Feb 09, 2011 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: personal-development

I found this book really useful. Real experiments backed up by real data.

I'm a life-long experimenter, and The 4HB appeals to me because it teaches people how to do experiments, track the data, and draw conclusions from it.

A number of reviews confuse how this book is marketed with the content it contains. If you find the marketing distasteful or infomercial-y or cheesy, fine, whatever, it's your opinion. Personally, I think the marketing strategy for this book has been well-planned and executed,...more

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Aug 05, 2012 Christine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: on-my-kindle

After knowing so many people that have successfully changed their eating habits with the help of this book, and then watching "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead" and "Food, Inc." on Netflix, I finally had to try it myself.

Going into week three of 4HB style eating, and I've lost 4lbs with minimal effort. The much bigger deal? Since dropping gluten & high-fructose corn syrup from my diet, my allergies have all but disappeared, and my inflammation has dropped so much that most of my shoulder pain (wh...more

4 likes · like · see review

Anne Ruthmann Congrats!!! I started using the MyFitnessPal app with success for me- but now that I'm overseas and eating on the go a lot- being able to track food i...more
Jan 10, 2012 04:46pm

Lynn You both might be interested in the Primal Blueprint....it's similar in some ways to what Ferriss suggests but also has a lot of practical info and is...more
Jan 11, 2012 03:26pm

Christine Lynn wrote: "You both might be interested in the Primal Blueprint....it's similar in some ways to what Ferriss suggests but also has a lot of practica...more
Jan 11, 2012 09:59pm

Jan 08, 2013 Dave marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: calibre, non-fiction, psychology

SUMMARY:
Thinner, bigger, faster, stronger... which 150 pages will you read? Is it possible to: Reach your genetic potential in 6 months? Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours? Lose more fat than a marathoner by bingeing? Indeed, and much more. This is not just another diet and fitness book. The 4-Hour Body is the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than a decade, to hack the human body. It contains the collective wisdom of hundreds of elite athletes, dozens of MDs, and...more SUMMARY:
Thinner, bigger, faster, stronger... which 150 pages will you read? Is it possible to: Reach your genetic potential in 6 months? Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours? Lose more fat than a marathoner by bingeing? Indeed, and much more. This is not just another diet and fitness book. The 4-Hour Body is the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than a decade, to hack the human body. It contains the collective wisdom of hundreds of elite athletes, dozens of MDs, and thousands of hours of jaw-dropping personal experimentation. From Olympic training centers to black-market laboratories, from Silicon Valley to South Africa, Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, fixated on one life-changing question: For all things physical, what are the tiniest changes that produce the biggest results? Thousands of tests later, this book contains the answers for both men and women. From the gym to the bedroom, it’s all here, and it all works. YOU WILL LEARN (in less than 30 minutes each): How to lose those last 5-10 pounds (or 100+ pounds) with odd combinations of food and safe chemical cocktails. * How to prevent fat gain while bingeing (X-mas, holidays, weekends) * How to increase fat-loss 300% with a few bags of ice * How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in four hours of total gym time * How to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested * How to produce 15-minute female orgasms * How to triple testosterone and double sperm count* How to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks * How to reverse “permanent” injuries * How to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months * How to pay for a beach vacation with one hospital visit And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are more than 50 topics covered, all with real-world experiments, many including more than 200 test subjects. You don't need better genetics or more discipline. You need immediate results that compel you to continue. That’s exactly what The 4-Hour Body delivers.From the Hardcover edition.(less)

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Dec 07, 2012 Grant rated it 4 of 5 stars

I get the impression many people miss the point of Tim's work. Does he come off as the kid who was pretty unpopular in High School scrambling for attention? Yeah, a little. But he offers a starting point and a perspective. N=1 experiments. You are your own N. Try things, isolate variables. Do a science on yourself. I see a lot of reviews complaining that "this stuff doesn't work". It worked for Tim. Find what works for you.

I'm a little biased. I beat Tim to the punch on most of this stuff, and...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Jerzy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: health

Two stars instead of one, because it was so amazingly bad I just couldn't stop reading.
Reader's digest version:

"I'm Tim Ferris. Last week I tracked the weather for five days and noticed that it rained on the four days when I didn't carry an umbrella. But on the day when I did bring an umbrella, it stayed dry out. So obviously, carrying an umbrella prevents rain.
Now, some scientists may scoff and say that this flies in the face of known science and conventional wisdom, or that at least they'd nee...more Two stars instead of one, because it was so amazingly bad I just couldn't stop reading.
Reader's digest version:

"I'm Tim Ferris. Last week I tracked the weather for five days and noticed that it rained on the four days when I didn't carry an umbrella. But on the day when I did bring an umbrella, it stayed dry out. So obviously, carrying an umbrella prevents rain.
Now, some scientists may scoff and say that this flies in the face of known science and conventional wisdom, or that at least they'd need more data in order to be convinced. But I have no problem writing a whole book insisting to readers, through a stream-of-consciousness narrative told in OCD-level detail, that my umbrella-carrying behavior is what controls my weather.
Of course, if you want to really track the weather around you, you'll have to be willing to pay hundreds of dollars a week on expensive and time-consuming diagnostic tests to keep tracking your weather in minute detail, so that you can adjust your umbrella-carrying behavior in case the weather starts getting out of hand.
Also, I, Tim Ferris, am constantly having sex with models and partying with rockstars, as my 8 billion Twitter followers can avow. The book will continually remind you, just so you don't forget this even for a second.
In the introduction I'll tell you to be skeptical, to cover my ass; but I'll fill the rest of the book with overenthusiastic claims and dismissal of skepticism."

He does have a few decent tips, especially in the interviews with professional athletic trainers who actually get many people to do a program over time and see their results. I do admire the focus on doing the minimal workout to get results, rather than overdoing it unnecessarily.
(...although every chapter's advice contradicts itself: Work your muscles to failure every time. No, lift lighter weights for just a few reps, and workout right before eating every meal. No, eat breakfast as soon as you get up, before working out, and make sure it's all protein. No, avoid too much protein and have a glass of grapefruit juice with breakfast. No, avoid all fruits like the plague... I guess that's why the introduction tells you to read one segment at a time, not the whole book from start to finish. Oops.)

And I agree that obsessively-recorded self-experimentation might lead to changed habits that are right *for you*, individually. But the anecdote ("a few times I've had great sex after eating some almonds") does not translate into the general recommendation ("according to my in-depth research, guys should always eat almonds a few hours before sex"). I was not surprised to see a chapter here by Seth Roberts, who specializes in exaggerating the power & generality of claims he makes based on his own self-experimentation. They may be true claims for him, and they may be worth trying by others -- but he claims that if something works on him, that's enough evidence to trumpet it as reliable advice for everyone else, and I have no patience for that.
I'm also not convinced by his tracking of nutrient levels through tests that are both ridiculously expensive and unreliable from reading to reading.

I'm most impressed that Ferriss put two chapters about identifying quack medicine right before the description of his own bullshit "study." Oh, your diet program has a 100% success rate? But the participants were self-selected volunteers from your rabid Twitter followers, not a random sample of the population. And you dropped the people who didn't complete the diet -- you don't know how many tried it and failed without bothering to report their failure on your survey. And the 200 reports were those who "responded to all questions" -- so it sounds like you dropped out the failures who skipped a question or two. And you break it up by subgroups that would be too small to compare even if the study design *were* statistically sound.
The diet may happen to be perfectly good, but the report here simply provides no evidence, whether in favor or against.

Dear Mr Ferriss, you do a far better job with the inspirational writing in the closing thoughts:
"Most of us have resigned ourselves to a partial completeness... The beauty is, almost all of it can be changed... Your body is almost always within your control... take an inventory of all the things in the physical realm that you've resigned yourself to being poor at. Now ask: if I couldn't fail, what would I want to be exceptional at?"
Lovely. Stick to that, please.

PS -- the author's bio says he is "a tango world record holder." I'm not sure what about tango you can measure and hold records in... but if that's your approach to a dance of emotional connection, then dude, you're doing it wrong.(less)

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Aug 28, 2012 Annette M Guerriero Nishimoto rated it 3 of 5 stars

Today's review is on The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss

While visiting a good friend and enjoying a cup of tea, our conversation drifted over to the subject of sex. Suddenly she started talking about Timothy Ferriss and this fantastic book that he wrote in which there is a section for men to learn how to bring a woman to the big "O". Now before you stop reading, give me just a moment.

Believe it or not, there are still millions of women who have NOT had one single climax. This tidbit of informati...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Ed rated it 4 of 5 stars

First, I have some ambivalence about the book -- the author does come across as being smug, and the chapter on vegetarianism begins by redefining vegetarian to mean eating at least 70% plant-based food by volume. That is, a definition that might include a burger with fries and a side salad.

That said, the core of this book I did find useful, even as a vegetarian. I lost 20 lbs of fat (from 21% to 12% body fat) on the "slow carb" diet that he recommends, and I have DEXA scans documenting it, per h...more

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May 26, 2012 Riki rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reading-challenge

Timothy Ferris clearly thinks quite highly of himself and doesn't hesitate to let you know how superior he is to you in every way in this incredibly long (592 pages) doorstop of a book. In it he professes to have the solution to many of your health woes and promises to help you accomplish such things as "Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours." (I'll spare you the pain of reading his incredibly scientific and boring explanation by telling you that this requires an unbelievably...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Pwilczewski rated it 4 of 5 stars

Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.

This book is all about challenging conventional wisdom, leading a data driven life and pushing the human body to its limit. Although everything he describes is done to an extreme, I think there's a lot to learn from his experience. Interestingly enough a few weeks ago I had already planned on following much of his advice - i.e. before reading the book. Much of the book is based on other research that I had already read about but it was good to see it all in one p...more

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Dec 05, 2011 Loy Machedo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Google the word ‘book fat loss’ and you will end up with a herculean task of having to skim through 32,000,000 pages of innovators, fictional writers, self-help gurus and quacks. I have no idea where Timothy Ferriss stands in that populated army of hopefuls but I can tell you this much - This New York Times Best Selling writer whose book debuted at the Number 1 position for 3 straight weeks and also enjoyed the critical reception of being crowned Amazon’s top 5 bestselling books for December 201...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Eveline Chao rated it 3 of 5 stars

I dislike the way Ferriss delivers his messages (his writing "voice" I guess) both in this book and his last, which feels oddly like '80s advertising copy or a fake doctor in an infomercial, along the lines of "with these 100% guaranteed techniques you'll find yourself able to facilitate 507% increase in blah blah blah..." (I should also note that I've met Ferriss in person and his actual real-life conversational manner is friendly & humble & nothing at all like his somewhat off-putting...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Lars-Christian Elvenes rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book could be called “Adventures in Human Experimentation”. I’ve liked Tim Ferriss for a while. His previous book “The 4-Hour Workweek is both a fun and and insightful read, and so is his blog. Look it up. You’ll also find bonus stuff for his books there.

The 4-Hour Body is the result of 10 years of Tim Ferriss doing various experiments on himself, from losing 10 kg. in 30 days, adding 45 kg. to you bench press, preparing for marathon distances by practising 400 meter intervals, and yes, the...more

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Jul 06, 2011 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is an interesting mix of advice on weight loss, exercise, sleeping, sex, nutrition, etc., etc., etc. Feriss' has a nice, conversational writing style and it is an interesting read. His main theme is that of the "minimum effective dose," i.e. why do 20 push-ups when 10 will get you the results you want? It's an interesting premise and Feriss (a 30-year-old bachelor who is more than a tiny bit OCD in trying to "perfect" himself) goes out and tries all kinds of treatments, therapies, coac...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Barrie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Okay, Timothy is a crazy weirdo who thinks everything he does is perfect, and because he's tested it - then it's true and if you don't do it, you are then dumb and wrong.

Well, maybe he really isn't all those things - but that's how he comes across in this book. Filled with what he promises as a "minimalist approach" to a better life, I read this as a joke at first and also to see what the heck he had to say. First off, he can't quite say that anything he proposes you do with weight, sex, sleep...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Judith rated it 3 of 5 stars

One of my passions is diet & exercise books. I read them religiously instead of dieting or exercising. The 4-H Body was really entertaining, informative, and inspiring. It's really directed more toward men's health than women's, but I enjoyed it anyhow and will probably put into practice some of his tips. I am reading it now for a second time; this time, with a highlighter and post-its. NO, it's not a library book: I actually purchased the book for once. This is the kind of book you want to...more

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Apr 03, 2011 Phillip Welshans rated it 3 of 5 stars

Saw this author featured in the NYT last week and his book sounded interesting. I had heard of the Four Hour Workweek and had wanted to read that but I'm looking to focus more on my running and exercise in the next several months so thought this would be a good read. Overall, it was. It's clear that Ferriss is almost maniacal in his approach to his experiments and processes and once I got over trying to envision myself being as single-minded, I enjoyed the book a lot more. I approached the book...more

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Mar 19, 2011 Pete rated it 4 of 5 stars

I learned at least 100 things I didn't know. Most of it is based on his own experiences, but covered by reasonable looks at research. It COULD change your attitude about weight loss, exercise, and yes, even sex.

His writing style is from the perspective of a 30ish bachelor enamored with trying to perfect himself (aren't we ALL trying to do that!?). It can be very direct and a bit coarse to some ears; not mine.

He kindly divides the book into sections that cover a given topic. For instance, there...more

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Mar 06, 2011 Louise Silk rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: self-help

Contrary to his other book, I really enjoyed this one. It was a hodgepodge of information and advice about everything from weight loss, bodybuilding, sex, running, sleep, and nutrition. He sheds light on the conventional wisdom and adds lots of techniques that are pretty easy for anyone to implement.

The cornerstone of the book is Ferriss' self-experimentation. He's tried all the crazy treatments and dangerous products so you don't have to. This is much like his last book where it's all about in...more

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Mar 05, 2011 Libbeth rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: health-and-fitness

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Gnomad's review just about summed up my feelings on this book, this is more a note to myself of why I abandoned the book and so I have put it as a "spoiler" so that it won't clutter up the page when people flick through the reviews. Stop here if you haven't got as much time on your hands as Timothy Ferriss.
I find that when I read this type of book as soon as I come across advice to not eat fruit at all (except in this case on one "cheat day") it blows my mind too much and I lose interest. Crazy...more Gnomad's review just about summed up my feelings on this book, this is more a note to myself of why I abandoned the book and so I have put it as a "spoiler" so that it won't clutter up the page when people flick through the reviews. Stop here if you haven't got as much time on your hands as Timothy Ferriss.
I find that when I read this type of book as soon as I come across advice to not eat fruit at all (except in this case on one "cheat day") it blows my mind too much and I lose interest. Crazy because it's not as if I eat so much as a grape from one week to the next but I have an instinctive feeling that if only I ate more fruit I'd be a lot healthier - and even though it quietly festers away in the fridge or bowl uneaten, or unjuiced or unsmoothed I don't like being told not to eat it. There is a lot of conflicting advice out there about the consumption of fruit but I strongly imagine that the pro fruit camp is larger than the anti. So, if I already don't eat fruit, one prong of his advice to not eat it shouldn't bother me, but it does. It also means that it's a piece of advice towards "body transformation" that's useless to me.
The business about the 15 minute orgasm startled me as well because I was flicking through the book at lunchtime at work and I would have been mortified if anyone had looked over my shoulder when I came across the diagrams. Maybe my circle of friends is too limited but I cannot imagine any of them doing anything but wondering if it was too late to catch the late repeat of Coronation Street while their partner was poking around down there, diagram in hand.
I liked his humorous writing style, i.e. tipping cows is only recreation, not exercise, and it's nice for him that he has so much time on his hands that he can perform all these experiments on himself "so that we don't have to". If he's got time to weigh his own excrement, take 6 naps a day, photograph his meals, track down the recommended supplements and such like good on him. Maybe he wouldn't need the ice baths to help him sleep if he cut down on the napping, but now I'm just being sarky.
If I'd read the book as if it was a series of blog posts by a self experimenter with ocd tendencies then I would have probably found it interesting and entertaining and seeing as I picked it up for pennies secondhand I can look at it in that light. If I'd parted with the full price I'd be feeling a little hard done by.(less)

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Feb 17, 2011 Beth rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: partially-finished

I did not read all of this book and just read certain sections. The author actually recommends just dipping into the parts that are of interest. I'd give it 2 1/2 stars, mainly because it's hard to evaluate whether the information presented is accurate or not. I loved the author's first book, the 4-Hour Workweek, and thought it was a very innovative approach to the new world of work. I probably would not have picked up the 4-Hour Body if I had not liked the author's first book so much. Both book...more I did not read all of this book and just read certain sections. The author actually recommends just dipping into the parts that are of interest. I'd give it 2 1/2 stars, mainly because it's hard to evaluate whether the information presented is accurate or not. I loved the author's first book, the 4-Hour Workweek, and thought it was a very innovative approach to the new world of work. I probably would not have picked up the 4-Hour Body if I had not liked the author's first book so much. Both books have titles that sound like claims from infomercials. In this book, Ferriss reports about ways to lose weight, improve muscle tone, improve sleep, and even have a better sex life using some methods/techniques he has researched. He performed hundreds of tests on himself and about 200 other people also participated in some of the testing (not a huge group). But he states that as an outsider and someone who is not part of the medical establishment that has to "play by the rules" and work within confines of institutions with reputations on the line, he is able to report on findings that won't be verified in the medical community for another 10-20 years. He consulted with many medical and scientific professionals and athletic trainers to write the book. He does urge anyone who tries these things to consult a doctor first. Some things suggested are very innocuous, such as drinking a glass of ice water upon waking up to help with weight loss. He recommends following a diet of eating primarily eggs, beans (legumes), vegetables and meat for 6 days a week (avoiding carbs, most dairy, fruit, and sweetened drinks), then on one day of the week eating anything you want and as much as you want (he says by doing this you will keep your metabolism from slowing down too much and avoid falling off the wagon on other days of the week). The emphasis is on protein that will help build muscle, so dieters will lose inches. Ferriss is all about life hacking and finding shortcuts that work. He has a strong interest, and some educational background, in the sciences so he is not totally without credentials to report on these topics. It's hard to know if his ideas are bogus or cutting edge, but as always he presents some interesting ideas.(less)

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Feb 05, 2011 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

II'd never read a health book which starts out by describing being backstage at a NIN concert.

I knew I was in for a wild ride.

In the 4-Hour Body, Tim Ferriss chronicles his eclectic experiences at hacking his body: weight loss & muscle gain, perfect abs and perfect baseball swing, tripling his testosterone, holding his breath for three minutes, & more.

As a family physician, I can tell you that most of his material is not that revolutionary: his diet is just a simple variant of a low g...more

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Jan 24, 2011 Mike Hankins rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is my longest review to date, I have a lot to say about this. Let's begin, shall we?

This book is a little unique. You can think of it as a collection of short essays (my understanding is that the book started life as a collection of blog posts by author Tim Ferris) that attempt to “hack” the human body using little tricks and unexpected methods. Ferris likes to quote the 80/20 principle, and in this book, he's trying to find the least amount of effort, that 20% or less of work, that yields...more

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Jan 09, 2011 Jennie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, food-related

My husband worships Tim Ferris so when this book came out recently he preordered a signed copy, that's the kind of nerds we are. I digress. It arrived about a week after Christmas which was great timing since we're both getting back on the post holidays fitness bandwagon. I sat down to read this book with a VERY skeptical attitude - fully prepared to completely hate on everything Tim had to say. I have lost 30 pounds before through calorie counting and exercise, I know what it takes. I've read z...more

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About Timothy Ferriss

Timothy Ferriss, nominated as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People of 2007,” is an angel investor and author of the #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been sold into 35 languages.

He has been featured by more than 100 media outlets, including The New York Times, The Economist, TIME, Forbes, Fortune, CNN, and CBS. He...more Timothy Ferriss, nominated as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People of 2007,” is an angel investor and author of the #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been sold into 35 languages.

He has been featured by more than 100 media outlets, including The New York Times, The Economist, TIME, Forbes, Fortune, CNN, and CBS. He speaks six languages, runs a multinational firm from wireless locations worldwide, and has been a popular guest lecturer at Princeton University since 2003, where he presents entrepreneurship as a tool for ideal lifestyle design and world change.

Tim is an active education activist and has architected experimental social media campaigns such as LitLiberation to out-fundraise traditional media figures like Stephen Colbert 3-to-1 at zero cost, building schools overseas and financing more than 15,000 US students in the process. He is on the advisory board of DonorsChoose.org, an educational non-profit and winner at Fast Company’s 2008 Social Capitalist Awards.

Since his debut presentation on The 4-Hour Workweek at the world-famous SXSW Interactive conference on March 12, 2007, Tim has been invited to speak at some of the world’s most innovative organizations, including Google, MIT, Harvard Business School, PayPal, Facebook, The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Microsoft, Ask.com, Nielsen, Princeton University, the Wharton School, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He has also been invited to speak and keynote at world-renowned technology summits including FOO Camp, E-Tech, Supernova, and the Web 2.0 Exposition, where he shared the stage with figures like Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Board of Google, and Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.

Tim has amassed a diverse (and certainly odd) roster of credentials:

Princeton University guest lecturer in High-Tech Entrepreneurship and Electrical Engineering
Finance and Entrepreneurship advisor at Singularity University at NASA Ames, co-founded by Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil.
First American in history to hold a Guinness World Record in tango
Advisor to more than 30 world record holders in professional and Olympic sports
National Chinese kickboxing champion
Horseback archer (yabusame) in Nikko, Japan
2009 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute
Political asylum researcher
MTV breakdancer in Taiwan
Hurling competitor in Ireland
Wired Magazine’s “Greatest Self-Promoter of 2008″
Actor on hit TV series in mainland China and Hong Kong (”Human Cargo”)
Tim received his BA from Princeton University in 2000, where he studied in the Neuroscience and East Asian Studies departments. He developed his nonfiction writing with Pulitzer Prize winner John McPhee and formed his life philosophies under Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe. He is 31 years old, and The 4-Hour Workweek is his first book.(less)

More about Timothy Ferriss...

Books by Timothy Ferriss

From Rapid Fat Loss to Strongmen: A Guide to Becoming Superhuman

The Slow Carb Diet Cookbook: A Companion to the 4-Hour Body: Volume 2

The 4-Hour Workweek Escape 9-5 Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich

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