How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days… Without Doing Any Exercise

How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days… Without Doing Any Exercise 4,183 CommentsWritten by Tim Ferriss Topics: Physical Performance, The 4-Hour Body, Uncategorized
Fat Loss via Better Science and Simplicity

It is possible to lose 20 lbs. of bodyfat in 30 days by optimizing any of three factors: exercise, diet, or drug/supplement regimen. I’ve seen the elite implementation of all three in working with professional athletes. In this post, we’ll explore what I refer to as the “slow-carb diet”.

In the last six weeks, I have cut from about 180 lbs. to 165 lbs., while adding about 10 lbs. of muscle, which means I’ve lost about 25 lbs. of fat. This is the only diet besides the rather extreme Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) that has produced veins across my abdomen, which is the last place I lose fat (damn you, Scandinavian genetics). Here are the four simple rules I followed…

Rule #1: Avoid “white” carbohydrates

Avoid any carbohydrate that is — or can be — white. The following foods are thus prohibited, except for within 1.5 hours of finishing a resistance-training workout of at least 20 minutes in length: bread, rice, cereal, potatoes, pasta, and fried food with breading. If you avoid eating anything white, you’ll be safe.

Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again

The most successful dieters, regardless of whether their goal is muscle gain or fat loss, eat the same few meals over and over again. Mix and match, constructing each meal with one from each of the three following groups:

Proteins:
Egg whites with one whole egg for flavor
Chicken breast or thigh
Grass-fed organic beef
Pork

Legumes:
Lentils
Black beans
Pinto beans

Vegetables:
Spinach
Asparagus
Peas
Mixed vegetables

Eat as much as you like of the above food items. Just remember: keep it simple. Pick three or four meals and repeat them. Almost all restaurants can give you a salad or vegetables in place of french fries or potatoes. Surprisingly, I have found Mexican food, swapping out rice for vegetables, to be one of the cuisines most conducive to the “slow carb” diet.

Most people who go on “low” carbohydrate diets complain of low energy and quit, not because such diets can’t work, but because they consume insufficient calories. A 1/2 cup of rice is 300 calories, whereas a 1/2 cup of spinach is 15 calories! Vegetables are not calorically dense, so it is critical that you add legumes for caloric load.

Some athletes eat 6-8x per day to break up caloric load and avoid fat gain. I think this is ridiculously inconvenient. I eat 4x per day:

10am – breakfast
1pm – lunch
5pm – smaller second lunch
7:30-9pm – sports training
10pm – dinner
12am – glass of wine and Discovery Channel before bed

Here are some of my meals that recur again and again:


Scrambled Eggology pourable egg whites with one whole egg, black beans, and microwaved mixed vegetables

Grass-fed organic beef, pinto beans, mixed vegetables, and extra guacamole (Mexican restaurant)

Grass-fed organic beef (from Trader Joe’s), lentils, and mixed vegetables

Post-workout pizza with extra chicken, cilantro, pineapple, garlic, sundried tomotoes, bell peppers, and red onions

Rule #3: Don’t drink calories

Drink massive quantities of water and as much unsweetened iced tea, tea, diet sodas, coffee (without white cream), or other no-calorie/low-calorie beverages as you like. Do not drink milk, normal soft drinks, or fruit juice. I’m a wine fanatic and have at least one glass of wine each evening, which I believe actually aids sports recovery and fat-loss. Recent research into resveratrol supports this.

Rule #4: Take one day off per week

I recommend Saturdays as your “Dieters Gone Wild” day. I am allowed to eat whatever I want on Saturdays, and I go out of my way to eat ice cream, Snickers, Take 5, and all of my other vices in excess. I make myself a little sick and don’t want to look at any of it for the rest of the week. Paradoxically, dramatically spiking caloric intake in this way once per week increases fat loss by ensuring that your metabolic rate (thyroid function, etc.) doesn’t downregulate from extended caloric restriction. That’s right: eating pure crap can help you lose fat. Welcome to Utopia.

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Life expectancy is down. That was not supposed to happen...at least not on my watch. I feel sort of responsible, having wished fat on the cheerleaders all those times or fantasizing about fat being in style when I was a kid. You think that is what happened? Nah, me either.

Jennifer Hudson’s Real Fitness Secret

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Thank you, Bixby.

After trying every wonder diet, weight loss plan, product, process, pill, food, exercise equipment, activity, routine, video and anything else you can imagine, I was still overweight and miserable. On top of that, I had just become pregnant with my first child and assumed I would only remain overweight forever, only more so. While I was busy remembering my convertible and thinking about how I would never have another one, I was driving home from work when I saw a mysterious dead animal in the road. Apparently, someone had hit it and kept driving, as there was no one in sight on that desolate country road.

As I got closer, I still couldn't tell what it was, but I saw the poor thing was still moving. I stopped the car when I was next to it, thinking I should get it out of the road, but when I opened my door, I saw it was a puppy. It hadn't been hit and was dying, but was just too young to walk on its own. His mother must have been taking him somewhere and couldn't carry him any further or had had a change of heart. Either way, I couldn't leave him there and got back in the car, putting this tiny puppy with the huge paws on my knee, saying, "We'll have to find you a home." By the time I got to my house, I was saying, "We'll have to find you a name."

Bixby was a couple of months old when I decided to get him obedience lessons and it was the best decision I ever made. I once had a dog that would run out the door whenever she could and wouldn't come back without really making me work for it and finally was stolen while on one of her jaunts. I didn't want Bixby to suffer the same fate because of my irresponsibility at not training my pets properly, so obedience training he got, or should I say we got.

I never realized how quickly dogs could learn and how easy training a dog to listen could be. Once per week, the trainer would come to the house for Bixby's lesson and every night after work, I would walk Bixby to the park down the street and spend an hour or so practicing what we had learned. The park was down a hill and the walk back home each night the first week made me wish I had opted for a goldfish, but I didn't quit and the second week saw me racing Bixby back up the hill with little effort.

The weeks went by happily and as my pregnancy progressed, instead of gaining the weight most women have to endure, I was losing an average of ten pounds per week. My doctor was extremely concerned I had been dieting, but I explained that I had found a puppy in the road and we were helping each other. By the time my daughter was born, I was at my ideal weight.