Picton - Slow Carb Secrets 2: Includes Boosting Testosterone and Vegan Options for Weight Loss and Building Muscle Mass

In The Beginning

Oh yes, I was fat. The easy read cartoon for doctor in my service was based on me, with three chins and a tie only reaching halfway down my front. I think I got stuck on a fairground ride once. A chav shouted Fatty! at me in a Post Office in Southend-on-Sea. I was buying XXXXL clothes, that is if I could find any. A junior doctor was worried about the fate of my children on my imminent death. You get the picture.

Atkins didnt work for me. No bread-or booze?! WeightWatchers-couldnt resist loopholes and cheating. Yes, just cheating myself.

Then I stumbled upon the book The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss, follow up to his cult-like legendary debut The 4-Hour Workweek. The book includes, amongst great things like exercise tips and orgasm science, Tims own diet, which he has tested on himself with all manner of invasive gizmos, to find what will aid in weight loss and muscle gain.

I lost 9 and a half stone, 60kg in new money, and stuck to it immaculately for 18 months. It works. Then I came off it. No diet has been the same since. So I am back on at least a modified version, as I am now bulking up on those muscles and keeping testosterone up, as will be discussed later.

Totally unauthorised, sometimes heretical, here are my insights and tweaks to make 4-HB more palatable, sustainable and feasible for non-billionaires (but give me time) living in the UK. More specifically Essex.

Diet Principles

The basic rules of Tim Ferriss's 4-Hour Body Diet are simple:-

Rule #1: Avoid white starchy carbohydrates (or those that can be white). This means all bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, and grains. If you have to ask, dont eat it.

Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again , especially for breakfast and lunch. You already do this; youre just picking new default meals.

Rule #3: Dont drink calories. Exception: 1-2 glasses of dry red wine per night is allowed.

Rule #4: Dont eat fruit. (Fructose > glycerol phosphate > more bodyfat, more or less.) Avocado and tomatoes are excepted.

Rule #5: Take one day off per week and go nuts. Tim chooses and recommends Saturday.

It is essentially a slow carb diet, but with a few quirks thrown in by Tim, which I am generally inclined to go with as it did actually work, even though some of the foods and drinks Tim recommends may not be recommended on similar slow carb and low carb diets and vice versa.

I think it is crucial to stick rigidly to the six and a half days of slow carbing, and to fully engage in the cheat afternoon, ideally from noon on Saturday .

Confession- I never exercised whilst losing the 9 and a half stone, and you dont have to, also, Tim himself states the PAGG supplements help, but are not essential.

I like to hack the hacks themselves and bring it all down to the lowest common denominator!

I am exercising now, purely to build muscle and ramp up testosterone, more on all that later.

Breakfast of Champignons

Tims dad lost a bunch of weight trading carby breakfasts for Maximuscle shakes.

It is super easy to down a shake for breakfast when running late, but they are often high in carbs over here in the UK and/or cost 3 each for often just some milk (not allowed on 4HB) with artificial sweeteners (yuck).

Even pure whey is very insulinaemic, to be avoided as much as possible, so I go with the egg option instead.

A viral Tim video shows him cooking up some eggs, spinach and lentils in a plastic box by microwave, I just go with eggs either poached or omeletted with some grated Emmental (dairy discussion to follow) using a Sistema microwave easy eggs dish. If I scramble them instead I would use coconut oil or Kerrygold butter (the cows are grass-fed, it is full of Vitamin K2). Add some champignons or low sugar salsa too.

Drink? Black coffee. Milk is insulinaemic and off the menu, apart from cheat meals. You can use full fat cream or coconut cream, but I cultivate a taste for black coffee and think of it as fat burning fuel, when made at home it is Costa Americano via Tassimo. First time round I drank a lot of Tim favourite Yerba Mate tea, but too many rumours of carcinogenicity.

Lunch

I dont usually bother, at work etc. If near a supermarket could buy some hard boiled eggs, a bag of almonds, pre-cooked chicken or eat the inside of some McDonalds hamburgers or a chicken salad there. Black coffee usually gets me through the day. Skipping lunch might also give a taste, or not, of intermittent fasting anyway.

Evening Meal

Many possibilities, Tim recommends eating the same sort of meals regularly will help with weight loss in some sort of monotonous way. One example he gives is of a guy who eats Mexican every evening, e.g. Chipotle, but minus rice and bready stuff etc. Items such as chicken, hot sauces, vegetables, sour cream, salsa, guacamole and refried beans.

There are plenty of ways to make this diet tasty.

It is vital to look at the carb counts of anything processed, especially the sugar part of the carbs.

Some go to foods for me, nuts such as almonds and brazils, lactose-free cheese (Emmental, Leerdammer amongst others), good quality steak, beef brisket and burgers (minus the bun), fried onions, tomatoes and mushrooms, low carb coleslaw, sugar free beans (Asda mixed beans are the best), chicken in many forms, one sweet potato (controversy to follow in future chapter), a few glasses of Pinot Noir, more eggs, pickles and the week is the hardest part- just wait until cheat day!

Cheat Day!

Ohhh yeah! From noon on Saturday your dreams come true. You can even hoard food and drink all week for this time. This makes the diet doable. Forever.

Damage limitation- Tim does lots of air squats. Nahhh! It is endearing, but forget about it! I will use his maximum coffee synergising with naringin from grapefruit juice though. It has to be Tropicana Golden Grapefruit juice from Sainsburys (only place I have found it) for me.

Now the good part. You can eat and drink annnything until midnight ! There are glorious anecdotes and video clips of 4-Hour Body disciples and Tim himself indulging to the max. It is like a Viking Valhalla. No guilt. Kickstarts the metabolism and sorts out leptin and ghrelin issues. Worth the diet just for this crazy time.

Differences From Other Slow Carb Diets and Similar

People- from my experience stick to Tim principles, even if they are proven unscientific, n=1 style or plain crazy. It works. Thats what matters.

LCHF is similar in many ways, a bit obsessed with fat bombs, a lot more dairy.

Berries such as blueberries and raspberries have little effect on insulin, are probably okay then in a slow carb way and are recommended elsewhere. The 4-Hour Body diet though is anti-fruit outside of cheat day, due to fructose fears. Quite unique to this diet.

Other diets will allow things such as plain yoghurts, dark chocolate and such which are probably fine, but hey, why not save them until Saturday and have the more exciting versions? Although I make some allowances in a later chapter for vegans.