Day 19 - Guest Post and Big News!

Weight 199.8lb BF - 17.0%

Mood - low energy but elated at the progress!

Would you look at that! under 200lb for the 1st time in years! Literally like 10 years. BF is also down again too. So I think its a good time to reflect and update on how things are going with 4HB. I'll also posting a guest post from my friend Mike at DeckonFood he's a P90X advocate and someone who is a real foodie and a hobbiest nutritionist. So make sure to check that out!

So 4HB, how is it going? One of my friends who routinely reads my blog noted he could tell by my posts that I've been a little low energy. He was curious about my impressions about how things are going so I'll definitely talk to how the diet goes. I'm good to add a note about my mood to the top of the post each day so you can get a snapshot of how I'm feeling every day.

I think the 4HB diet is a good one and it works. And it works fast. I've seen consistent steady progress and I've seen my friend Matt and my wife also see progress on the diet too, so I do believe it is reproduceable. I think a good diet for folks in the real world breaks down into 3 main pieces:

• Feasibility - can a real live person do 4HB?


• Energy Level - will my family/friends still want to be near me as I do 4HB?


• Results! - are the results worth the effort?

I'm going to talk about all of these things as I wrap up the 30-day 4HB diet experiment at the end of next week. I will say my impressions of 4HB are quite good and it does translate to real life better than many diets out there despite the restrictions. Your mood and energy level will take a beating and you'll have to treat 4HB as more of a hobby than just eating passively. Its a more active engagement. But more on that later, now, on to Mike's P90X post and hop over to his blog, DeckonFood to see his amazing results! (my meals can be noted below Mike's post at the bottom of the blog if you are curious):

By Michael Decklever - DeckonFood.com

About four months ago I stood in front of a bathroom mirror in a hotel somewhere in the U.S. barely recognizing the guy staring back at me (well except for the 5 o’clock shadow and receding hairline…). I had been traveling a lot for work which meant a lot of dinners and a lot of drinks. It meant a lot of making excuses for not working out as well. So I took a deep breath, looked at the guy in the mirror, and told him we’re done. Two weeks later, I started P90X and for three months I sweated and ached and cursed and bled and ate my way to a completely new person. Now when I look in the mirror, I actually smile at the guy looking back, even though he still has that same damn hairline problem.

When I was wrapping up my 3-month conversion, Nick came to me and told me that he had something he wanted to try…the 4-Hour Body. As someone that completely understood the desire to do something to improve myself, I was definitely supportive. And even though I was probably more skeptical than him going in (seriously, I just spent 3 months killing myself in exercise and diet to drop 30 and he was going to lose 20 in 30 days by eating beans??), I appreciated that he had done the research to find something that fit with his and his family’s lifestyle. And when he asked me to write a guest post for his blog on some of the differences between the two programs, I jumped at the chance (well I wouldn’t say jumped as it has taken me like a week to actually pull this together because I do all original work, but I definitely agreed quickly).

I think it is good to start by looking simply at how the programs compare, and then at the end I’ll editorialize a little (that’s my new favorite term for expressing my own opinion which is obviously the only correct one). My qualifications to comment are that I’ve completed P90X, am a foodie, am enrolled in a Sports Nutrition program, and am just generally accepted as badass when it comes to food. Also, keep in mind that I have not done 4HB, so am offering this as an outsider looking in.

There are two components to really look at with the two programs; exercise and diet. We could toss in duration as well, but that’s a short discussion (P90X is 90 days, 4HB is 30…done). We’ll start with exercise.

4HB: From what I understand, the name “4-Hour Body” comes from the amount of exercise required in a month to accomplish the weight-loss objective. Most of it is swinging a kettlebell to exhaustion and you are done. Do it a couple times a week, and that’s sufficient.
P90X: Exercise is essential in this program. In fact you hit 4 hours of exercise 30 minutes into your day 4 workout. In a given week, if you do the exercises as you are supposed to, you will do 8 hours and 15 minutes of exercise (this includes doing an hour of stretching on your one “rest” day). The shortest workout in the program is a one-hour plyometrics work out that even 3 months after starting still leaves me grabbing my knees by the halfway point (though I no longer pause the DVD). In the entire program I did 107 hours of exercise, and that doesn’t include any of the runs I would take outside the program.

The one similarity though is that neither of the programs necessarily require a gym. Kettlebell work can be done anywhere, and it doesn’t have to be a kettlebell. Something with some weight to it that you can swing. In P90X, the resistance exercises utilize body weight as much as possible (think pull ups, lunges, squats). For those that need more resistance, exercise bands are really all that is needed. I spent a good 30 of the 90 days of the program on the road and was able to keep up with all of my workouts in my hotel room.

Moving on to the nutrition plan. Both of the programs definitely rely on adjusting your diet in order to achieve results. And both require planning in order to be successful; both meal planning and shopping. In fact, I would recommend for either plan that at the beginning of each week, you sit down and map out what you are going to eat for the week, and then make a grocery list to support that. Having a little more structure makes it easier to make it all the way through. The other similarity is that both require a lot of planning when traveling. Picking out suitable restaurants, packing snacks, and utilizing supplements all may be necessary in order to stick to the plan. Now that being said, let’s look at some of the differences (again, as I understand them).

4HB: The 4HB diet is a basic low-carb diet, low-fat diet. The goal is to remove fruits, sugars and breads from the diet…things that tend to be high in simple carbohydrates as well as dairy products. Instead, the person on the program is encouraged to eat beans (as the primary source of carbs), leafy green vegetables and lean meats. It is based on 3 full meals, 4 hours apart throughout the day. There are a couple of nice other things too, such as two glasses of red wine per night, and a “cheat day” once a week. Throw all caution to the wind and eat whatever you want.
P90X: While many people think of P90X as an exercise program, the diet is just as important for the success. It is what I would call an evolutionary diet in that it changes each month of the program. The diet plan is broken into 9 components; Protein, Carbs (defined as whole grains and legumes), Fruit, Vegetables, Dairy, Condiments, Snacks, Fats, and Water. There are 3 levels depending on the current weight and goals of the person exercising (I was a Level 2 or about 2,400 calories per day). There are really two options for following it. The first is a meal calendar that has been created and laid out. The second is a portion approach where you have X number of portions of each of the categories (a comprehensive list of what qualifies is also provided). I chose the portion approach for flexibility. It starts as high-protein and high-vegetables, not too dissimilar to 4HB. Fruits and carbs are limited to one serving each per day for the first month, though 3 servings of dairy are recommended. Additionally, P90X encourages a post workout recovery drink that is high in carbs, a protein bar at some point during the day, and a snack. You basically eat every 2 – 3 hours. In the second month, protein and dairy decrease, carbs and fruit increase. In the third month, protein decreases again, carbs increase, and the protein bar is removed leaving a fairly balanced diet of meat, carbs, fruit and vegetables. There is no alcohol recommendation either way, but with only one serving of carbs, I decided to completely omit it for the duration of the program. Also, there are no cheat days…just like with the exercises.

I wouldn’t say that one diet plan is more difficult to maintain than the other. They both require modification of the day-to-day diet of most people. The first phase of P90X is definitely difficult trying to get that much protein. I had to supplement with protein powder to get there. The last two phases were doable with no additional supplementation.

So for those of you looking for just a comparison, there you go. I think that both programs allow you to make some changes, though they are a bit different. 4HB is more for weight loss whereas P90X is more for truly getting into shape by building and toning muscle as well as losing weight. Both do require some discipline, though P90X requires much more (as well as time). 4HB is definitely less expensive as you just have to buy the book as opposed to the P90X DVD set (and any workout equipment you don’t already have). I’m definitely partial to P90X, but I respect anyone trying to make a change.

Now, if you want to keep reading, I know offer you my opinion of the two programs in a much less edited way (hopefully Nick doesn’t cut this part out). I’m not going to call 4HB “quackery” (which is the technical term by the way…seriously) as there is a little truth to the ideas, but I am going to raise the BS card. Will you see results on 4HB? Yes, Nick is proof of that. But are you really going to get in shape by doing almost no work and eating beans? No, I don’t think so. I think that 4HB was designed to capitalize on the “quick fix with no effort” desire for most Americans. There will definitely be an initial weight drop simply in water weight, and a little bit more that has a little bit more to do with a decrease in caloric intake than anything else. But I don’t believe that it is sustainable in the long run. It’s not really teaching better eating habits, especially with a cheat day that actually encourages worse eating (you only get to do it once a week, take advantage!), and I think a lot of people will fall back into old habits at the end of 30 days.

I could continue to go on about the diet. The foodie in me cringes every time I hear canned beans (there are 8 ingredients in Bush’s Black Beans including the ever-vague “natural flavor” and “spices”), but that’s not the part that I find most discouraging about 4HB. It’s the complete lack of exercise. We already have a problem with a very sedentary lifestyle, and in a way this promotes it. Don’t work out, lose weight, you’ll be fine. As someone that has worked extremely hard to get where I am, I get discouraged about the easy way out. Now I will say that I know Nick isn’t doing that as he is actually working out more than the recommended amount (which will actually lead to better results than he would achieve otherwise). And I know that committing to an hour a day every day for 3 months is more than most people can do. But find a middle ground.

Now, I’m not sitting here and saying that P90X is absolutely the way to go and people that don’t do it are fools. In fact, I think I’m a bit of a fool for putting myself through it. And to be honest, I’m not sure I’m 100% on board with the nutrition plan. But I do think it leads to improved habits that make the results sustainable over the longer term. And it makes real noticeable changes that you see in the mirror that encourage you to keep going. And, most important to me, there are no tricks or gimmicks or get their fast messages to it. It’s all about good old-fashioned hard work. Even though I’ve finished it, I’m still going because I like the progress, but I’m not final. And that’s actually discussed…how to keep going after you have used P90X to start yourself down the path to a healthier lifestyle.

I’ll end it with this…a free sneak peek into the “Deck on Food Secret to Losing Weight and Looking Better”. It’s really quite simple. Step 1, eat real food. Avoid processed crap, buy lots of fruits and vegetables, eat whole grains, get good cuts of meat (not cheap), and manage your portions. Step 2, exercise. Find something you enjoy and do it 60 minutes a day for 3-4 days a week. These programs are good only if you use them to learn about ways to improve yourself going forward. If all you want is a quick fix, in 3 months you’ll be right back where you were, or worse, and will be dumping money into the next quick fix fad that comes about. And let’s be honest, if you are going to dump money into something, dump it into good food. I’m not going to go into the whole cheap calorie discussion (I’ve written enough), but spend a little more on better quality food, and you will see results.

Meals today:

730am - Scrambled eggs with ham and coffee

1pm - after about 20-30min of plyometrics, I got a burrito bowl at Qdoba, nummers.

730pm - had grilled chicken with a romaine salad and a bean salad as well, very tasty!

Good night!