I saw an article from Timothy Ferris about a year ago and thought it would be worth sharing the basics here. Tim describes how he managed to lose around 20lbs of fat in 30 days without doing any exercise. He has created 4 simple rules to follow in order to achieve this:

1. Avoid “white” carbohydrates
Firstly the aim is to avoid any carbohydrates that are considered “white”. These foods would include white bread, rice, cereal potatoes, pasta an food that is fried with breading.
The exception is if you have completed a training sessions of greater that 20 minutes you can eat carbohydrates withing 1.5 hours of finishing.

2. Meal repetition - eating the same meals everyday
Tim states that “the most successful dieters…eat the same few meals over and over again”.
He mixes and matches the following foods to contruct each meal from one the below three groups.

Protiens
• Egg Whites
• Chicken Breast
• Beef
• Pork

Legumes
• Lentils
• Black Beans
• Pinto Beans

Vegetables
• Spinach
• Asparagus
Peas
• Mixed Vegetables

Eating as much as you like of these foods is okay, just remember to keep it simple. You should be choosing 3 or 4 meals and repeating these. Ferris recommends eating 4 times per day from a pure convenience point of view. For those of your who are familiar with Ferris you will know how important lifestyle-design and not wasting time are to him.

3. Don’t drink calories
This is something that I have really tried to take on board ever since reading the article. I have really made an effort to cut out the fruit juices and reduce the amount of milk I have. Tim suggests drinking massive amounts of water and to avoid milk, full sugar soft drinks and fruit juice. He also advocates indulging in a glass of wine in the evening, believing it aids sports recovery and fat-loss.

4. Take one day off per week
Taking one day off per week to eat all the things you shouldn’t will hopefully have the effect of making yourself sick and not wanting to eat those things again all week and “spiking caloric intake in this way once per week increases fat loss by ensuring that your metabolic rate (thyroid function, etc.) doesn’t down regulate from extended caloric restriction. That’s right: eating pure crap can help you lose fat”.

I think Tim’s ideas are great if you need to cut down some fat or lose some weight quickly but I’m not sure how this menu would go longer term because of it’s blandness. Anyway it’s worth having a look at and even if you can incorporate a few things from this article it’s probably a step in the right direction to changing habits and losing some weight longer term.

Check out Tim’s original post and you can see some of the meals he has created from the food options: How To Lose 20 Lbs Of Fat In 30 Days Without Doing Any Exercise

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