**two things: sorry for the infrequent updates – life has been hectic (with work and a new baby on the way), and sorry for all the weird changes around here – I’m playing with the site’s layout/themes and trying to find one I like best.  Please bear with me!**

I’ve decided that for this next month I will do my best to put the “4 Hour” into my 4 Hour Body.

By that I mean I want to see what happens if I commit to doing only 4 hours worth of work/exercise in this next month.  One hour per week, for 4 weeks.  I want to see what kinds of changes I can make.

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Alright, I tried changing it up a little bit today with my breakfast – still was eggs, but no omelet – a little different.

So here goes with the food lust, er, list

Breakfast: 3 fried organic eggs, 1/2 cup black beans with avocado.  copious amounts of coffee (this is an everyday thing – thankfully I drink coffee black no sugar, so there’s theoretically no limit on my intake with regards to 4HB

Lunch: I had the leftovers from yesterday – chipotle ground beef on lettuce, tomatoes, black beans and avocado.  Nice and filling, with just a tiny bit of heat from the chipotle sauce – the recipe for the sauce is on the site

Snack: I was really having the hunger pangs today – not really having cravings, just feeling hungry.  While I was out at the store, came across beef jerkey and thought “hmmm, that should work on the slow-carb/4HB diet…”  280 calories, 52 grams of Protein, ~10 grams of  Carbs, and only 3.5 grams of Fat in the entire bag…I think, not a bad deal!

Dinner: mixed greens, tomato, guac, with “curry” chicken and black beans…not the best meal I’ve had so far, but passable and filled me up

So far my eating hasn’t been too bad, cravings have been minimal – shockingly minimal.  Like I’m thinking about what I will pig out on for my cheat day and nothing is really “calling my name”…I guess that’s a good thing.  I think I need to add more veggies – I’ve been eating a ton of salad and beans, but I feel like I’m missing out on the vegetables.  I am missing fruit.

There are going to be some changes coming to the site – I hope you will like them.  I’m going to be adding some pages and am thinking of moving the site to a self-hosted site to give me more flexibility in layout and design.

Let’s hear how everyone is doing in the comments

Tomorrow look for a “roundup” type of post – and if you like what you see here and are on the 4 Hour Body bandwagon please let people know about this site.

Happy Festivus!

BV

Today started my first day of Christmas break – I was worried about this day.  When I’m at work I’m a little better because my day is more structured.  When I’m home things are out of whack and it’s easier to eat “whatever”.  Today was a good day (food-wise) though.  I was very tired all day, had no energy and a headache all day.  I don’t think it was a carb-deficiency headache though.  I think it was more from the house being so dry and my head was hurting most of the day.

Meals:

Breakfast: 2 egg/1 egg white substitute omelet, salsa, and avocado (obviously there’s a pattern here – I’m trying to stick with what works!)  I had 1/2 cup of red kidney beans on the side.  I tried to change up my meal a little by microwaving some frozen spinach and kidney beans.  It smelled disgusting! It literally had me gagging (the smell, I couldn’t even bring myself to try it).  I like spinach, usually, and I’ve eaten it with eggs in the past – not sure if there was something wrong with the spinach today though (it could be that its been in the freezer for about 2 years probably ) **FAIL**

Lunch: I took the kids out to an indoor crafts/play place so I packed lunches for all of us.  They had PBJ’s and a banana, I had a mixed greens salad, tomato and blackened sauteed chicken with one slice of bacon crumbled on top.  Vinaigrette dressing to go with it.

Dinner: While hanging out with the kids I was checking out twitter and saw a photo posted by @alexknelson, I had to have something like that for dinner.  I made a chipotle sauce and mixed it in with browned ground beef, black beans, tomatos, guac, salsa, hot sauce on lettuce (with a bit of sour cream) – it was freaking great.  I’m adding a new category with recipes and this sauce and beef will be on that.

So far my meals have been very tasty – but I find myself craving PB on whole wheat and orange juice…I guess the cravings could be for worse things.  I’m also finding myself not wanting to use my “cheat” day on Christmas (which is my “scheduled” day)…I feel like I won’t get the most out of it, primarily because I’m wanting IHOP harvest grain n’ nuts pancakes – and they won’t be available on Christmas.

I weighed myself in today:

Weight: 191lb (-4lbs since 12/19/10)

What kinds of success are you having with 4HB?  I’d like to hear it – and if there’s some challenges you think would help motivate us write them in the comments, let’s make this fun and interesting!

BV

Day 3 is almost down…so far so good, although I haven’t noticed much “weight” loss on the scale.  But, it’s only day 3 and truly that isn’t my determining factor for doing well on this diet.  The way I feel and how clothes are fitting along with TI (when I get a chance to take the measurements) will be more of a guide for me.  I am interested in getting a BODPOD measurement – but the nearest one I could find online is about 45 minutes away and I’m not sure I’ll have the time to schedule an appointment and get the measurements done.

Yesterday I wrote about the base of the skull headaches I was having…I’m glad to say today (as I kind of expected) I didn’t have any and I felt much better.  Glad those went away – the only drawback to today is that I drank a lot of coffee and then switched to ice tea (unsweetened) – and started to get very nauseous around lunch time.  I waited a while and drank water and all was well – I need to drink more water obviously and stay away from too much caffeine.

Meals:

Breakfast: I prepped last night which helped with cooking this morning.  I had a 4 egg omelet (2 whole/2 egg white sub) with black beans scrambled in, some turkey breast avocado and salsa.  Another very good breakfast – only thing it was TOO much – I ate only about 3/4 of it as I was too full to finish.

I still didn’t eat within 30 minutes – but I started eating about 40 minutes post wakeup.  Again, I’m sure that’s not a huge deal but I’d like to try to get it to 30 minutes or under.  I may look into whey protein shakes to start the morning – but I’ve never found a brand that is good with water – if there are any suggestions I’d love to hear it!

Lunch: salad with veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots) 1/2 cup of dark red kidney beans, tomatoes and pickles and lunch meat (ham).

Snack/2nd lunch: bowl of leftover chicken soup…very good

Dinner: wifey made a crock pot meal of chicken breasts in cream of broccoli cheese soup – I smeared away as much of the cream as possible and ate it alongside roasted asparagus and salad with tomatoes and avocado.  The chicken was decent – a little dry, and hopefully the broc/cheese didn’t run me off the track.

I’m feeling a little hungry right now – but I’m going to drink cold water and hopefully that will do the trick – although I don’t know if this works or is a placebo effect.

As for the workout from yesterday – the hips are a little sore, but on a scale of 1-10 (1o being hit by a truck and dragged 30 feet down an asphalt road)…I’d say I’m about a 2, not bad (but also, weirdly not good).  I’m thinking of throwing in some HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) – only because I actually enjoy doing those types of workouts – but I don’t want to overdo and burn myself out…I am a bit out of shape, and I know I tend to overdo it early on.

In a future post I plan on reviewing/talking about a similar diet I tried in the past and it showed some good results…I think it would be good for those people that feel that TF’s Slow Carb Diet is a little to strict and spartan.  Please look forward to it.

If you liked this post – I’d be thrilled if you would share it on Twitter or Facebook

Let’s hear how from you – post in the comments how your day went!

BV

In The 4-Hour Body (4HB) Tim Ferriss makes it sound like an imperative that you eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking, normally I don’t even come close to this – usually closer to an hour or so after waking.  Since I’m taking this seriously I am trying to make sure I eat within that first 30 minutes of waking (I’m defining “waking” as once I’m definitely done sleeping and I’m out of bed).

I think I ate at around 40 minutes post-wakeup…I’m pretty sure those extra 10 minutes won’t have any major effect on weight loss, but I will say I find it difficult to do my morning “routine” and get breakfast ready in that time frame.  One of the reasons is when I get up I try not to make too much noise in the kitchen which invariably wakes my 5 and 2 year olds up earlier than they need to be.  I’m trying to come up with night-time prep plans to make the morning breakfast routine quicker and quieter – any advice???

Meals:

Breakfast: similar to yesterday, 3 eggs (2 whole organic/1 egg white sub.) with avocado (I used the prepped stuff) black beans and some salsa (I don’t usually like jarred salsa – but this stuff from Target was very good)  ***I’m an IDIOT…I accidentally deleted the pic off my phone…but, it was essentially the same as yesterday except for the salsa***

Lunch: leftover salad with avocado, tomatoes, some chicken and a packet of tuna.  By the way, I’m pretty sure this is part of the very low carb situation – but I’ve been getting those lovely skull headaches…but they tend to go away after a short while.  I’m hoping day 3 brings these to an end.

Dinner: el wifey is trying to sabotage me!  well she’s prego and was craving ketchup (???) and wanted to go to Applebee’s – and I thought this would be my opportunity to show my resolve.  I ordered a 7 oz. sirloin with broccoli side and house salad in place of potatoes.  I also drank a bunch of unsweetened Ice Tea.  It was actually a very satisfying meal – the only concern I have about it is I know some restaurants (actually most) finish off their steaks in butter to add moisture and make them look a little better, I don’t know if the Applebee’s steak was finished like that.

Workout @ ~ 9pm, then had a “snack”: 1 spoonful of Smucker’s Natural Creamy Peanut Butter (I love this stuff!)

I thought it would be difficult doing this the week before Christmas, and although not AS difficult as I expected there were a few tough moments.

1. all of the goodies that were brought in – especially the breakfast casserole our secretary makes, I would have dived in but then I remembered she uses bread in it (DAMN!) and I would have had to take a pic in front of everyone and I didn’t want to do that
2. a student brought Christmas cupcakes around for us…and boy did they look good.  I was going to take a pic and post it as motivationNOT to eat it…but instead I smushed it into our secretary’s face, though I was paid back a little while later and wasspitting bits of cupcake out of my mouth so as not to swallow a disallowed substance!
3. French Fries…my daughter’s french fries were a big temptation, but again, I didn’t come close to breaking down.
   

   Lunch

   

   Dinner Salad

   

   Dinner sirloin and broccoli @ Applebee's

   

   Peanut Butter "snack"…delicious!

So far, I feel pretty good – I’m interested in trying the “PAGG” stack that is mentioned in the book as a supplement stack for helping with weight loss.  I think I will hold off for now though and see how the diet works along with exercise.  I also plan to do some sort of resistance training – the book recommends 2 or 3 days of posterior work using kettlebells and some of the minor additional work (crunches) – the problem with that is I have a 15lb kettlebell, which even in my untrained state probably won’t give much of a metabolic hit – but that sounds like an excuse, so I will do them anyway.

Day 2, just about in the books.  If anything changes I’ll update this post.

Have a great night!

BV

Okay, so I’m beginning my Rapid Fat Loss and “Flash” diet.  We’ll see how this goes – hopefully all goes well.  I am a little worried at the intelligence of starting this diet two days before beginning Christmas vacation and less than one week before Christmas.

One saving grace is that I can set the cheat day for Christmas day and pig out.  That will hopefully keep me safe and sane for the week!

Starting points:

• Sunday morning weigh-in (using a cheap, old bathroom scale): 195 lbs.
• Goal: 20 lb fat loss by Jan. 19, 2011.

I don’t know for sure how I will measure fat loss since I wasn’t able to get a bodyfat percentage, but what I think I will focus on is inches lost.  I need to take tape measurements of both arms (at the bicep), waist (at the bellybutton), hips (at widest point) and both thighs (at widest point) – add each measurement for my TI (total inches).  This is a measurement that will be able to help me keep track of progress along with scale weight.

Breakfast: 2 organic eggs + 1 egg white substitute, pinch of paprika, 1/2 cup of cooked black beans and 1/2 avocado

eggs, black beans, and avocado

I was worried about the black beans and the eggs…but it was actually very good.  I’ll look forward to eating this one again.

Lunch: leftover chicken “tortilla” soup (no tortillas actually in soup) and salad with 1 tomato and 1/2 avocado and balsamic basil vinaigrette

chicken "tortilla" soup, salad w/tomato and avocado

“Snack”: I felt like I was “starving” and had a nice, base of the skull headache – so I made a snack meal of 2 turkey sausage (which aren’t really that healthy, I’ll change to better ones when I finish this package) and a bowl of  mixed veggies

turkey sausages w/salsa and mixed veggies

Dinner: followed a salad recipe from the “Slow Carb Cookbook” that is the basis for the recommended diet in 4HB.  It was a salad with bacon, sauteed chicken cutlets, tomato, avocado (I had A LOT of avocado today!), and sauteed onions – it may have been the best salad I’ve ever made!

"slow carb" salad – tomato, avocado, bacon, and sauteed onions…umm umm good!

It wasn’t that bad, except for the slight headache and cravings for juice.  I’ve done a diet similar to this in the past (but not nearly as strict as this one) so I kind of new what to expect early on.  I’m just hoping that the next few days filled with holiday pastries and candies and such doesn’t destroy my willpower!  Wish me luck.

BV