The Easy Way Out

[Michelle]

I remember when I first read The 4 Hour Body, I was really fired op about the whole idea of eating as much as I'd like (of the allowed foods) and losing weight.

Tim even said we didn't have to do any exercise! Luv it!

I hit the program hard for about 4 weeks. I lost a little over 10lbs. Ate like a king, didn't exercise a bit. I'd even started an exercise program before the 4 Hour Body and STOPPED it when I started the slow carb diet.

Since Tim had mentioned you didn't HAVE to exercise, and later in the book even cautioned against overtraining, I figured it was the smart thing to do. Just do the diet.

Anyway, I only had about 15lbs to lose total and I plateaued after 4 weeks.

I'm small - barely 5'4", 130lbs currently, small boned. And I sit on my rear all day for work, at a desk. I even work from home so I don't have to walk far to get to work, LOL. Because of my smaller size and lack of activity / exercise, I simply wasn't burning enough calories every day to lose more weight. And since I'd stopped my new exercise regimin, I wasn't getting any extra burn that way either.

I'm pointing all this out not to say that Tim was wrong - I still don't think he was. And I'm not trying to say slow carb doesn't work (it obviously does, based on losing what I did lose with a basically sedentary lifestyle).

No, I'm pointing this out because I tricked myself - and we all trick ourselves sometimes. So give yourself a gut check here!

When Tim said something about overtraining sometimes preventing weight/fat loss, my brain lied to me and interpreted that as a ticket to not working out. What a joke! As if me doing a 20 minute exercise video (Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred) would "overtrain" me, LOL!

But that's how our minds trick us!

Truth is, I feel crappy now. Doing that 20 minute video in the morning got my blood pumping and me feeling good for the day ahead.

I also have to consider what Tim wrote about swimming - how he doesn't consider it "exercise" and can swim for 2 hours and thinks of it as more of a meditation! If I'm doing laps for 2 hours, it's a freakin exercise! His reality - his level of activeness - is VASTLY different from mine, and probably most of the readers' here. So I let that trick me too. I'm thinking, "Tim's a writer, a desk worker, and so am I, so we're the same."

Really, I sit on my butt all day. I do nothing. I climb downstairs in the morning, sit at the desk till noon, eat, sit at the desk till 4. Evening means dinner and TV.

Not jujitsu or 2 hours of swimming like Tim, LOL. Nor do I live in a walking-friendly area, unlike Tim, so if I'm running an errand I'm driving. Period.

My level of activity is crappy, and it's no wonder I plateaued. There's only so much my body can do with the calories I put in it, even if they're really good for you slow-carb kind of calories.

So, I'm getting back on the workout train. I had to abandon kettlebells for a while due to some neck problems, hopefully those will be sorted out and I can get back on them as well. Me working out might just get me up to a daily caloric burn of a "normal" person - that is, someone who goes to work, walks to their car and back, goes to lunch, etc.

Fact is I'll burn more calories daily if I've got more muscle, so I'm setting out to build it - and using the slow carb diet to feed those muscles all the protein they'll need!

[Midtowner]

I TOTALLY agree with you Michelle - my brain happily reads 'excercise not mandatory' as DONT EXERCISE. Thankfully, I gut checked myself on this on when I started. I started both the diet and actively returning to the gym at the same time - my gym efforts consist of some weight training and cardio, sometimes group exercises classes in these areas. Nothing serious, but a definitely 3-4 time a week commitment. During my first 6 weeks of the program I dropped 15 pounds, which I have to assume is much higher than that in terms of fat due to the amount of weight training I had been doing.

I just got back from a week at an all inclusive, and while my initial return weight was up 6 pounds over when I had left - by the end of the week (last friday) I was down to only one pound up over my pre-vacation weight. NOT BAD!

I definitely think the Slow Carb diet in combo with at least some moderate exercise is the way to go!

[gameface]

Just remember that when you work out, shorter harder workouts help burn more. You can get much bigger loss/gain with heavy weight or intensity training. If you jog, instead of jogging 4 miles, jog 1 mile and every other hundred yards, sprint and then back off for the next hundred. If you like machines more, don't get on a bike or treadmill. Get on a rowing machine and work hard. That thing will knock you on your ass in no time and be more beneficial for you in a quarter of the time.

Me, I work from home and have been super busy so working out has taken a hiatus unfortunately. But when I was, I felt better doing 3 days a week of high intensity workouts and was done in 10-15 minutes. And remember, most women won't get "big" doing this. Getting rid of some fat and firming up some muscles is never a bad thing. YMMV.

Good luck!

[fmfblogger]

I definitely agree. I started it with no exercise too, but like you I have a sedentary lifestyle. TF was very specific to point out that exercise is different than physical activity. I think a lot of people are doing 4HB thinking that no exercise means no physical exertion. I treated it that way. Sure, it works at first but it's more because your body is going through changes it hasn't gone through in a long time, if ever. Movement is important.

I added TF's "exercise" to my regimen two weeks ago, and I like it. It *might* take me 30 mins a week to do it, and I definitely feel results. My wife even said my chest looks bigger (which was awkward before she explained, because I want my chest to be SMALLER! She meant it sits higher and is less flabby because the muscles are getting bigger).

So yeah, you can do it without exercise, but not with no movement. But adding a bit of exercise will only make it better!

-j