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You might’ve heard about the new fitness book that’s causing a stir: It’s called 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. The book isn’t meant to be read cover to cover (though, that’s how most reviewers are treating it). It has various chapters to help readers achieve a variety of goals: Weight loss, muscle gain, a better sex life, a better night’s sleep, running a marathon, etc.

I decided to focus on the weight-loss section first. In the last four years, my body has transformed dramatically. I’ve leaned up quite a bit and put on considerable amount of muscle. But I’ve never been able to really lose those pesky 10 pounds around my middle section (front and back). I decided that Tim’s Slow Carb diet was worth a shot. What’s more, my friend in Atlanta and my sister and her boyfriend were trying it too. My Atlantan friend had already lost between 5-10 pounds in the first few weeks and my sister lost 5 pounds in her first week.

What’s the Slow Carb Diet?
Here’s the rhyming mnemonic device I created for the diet: Proteins, green, and beans. That’s about it. You must eat a protein, a legume, and a vegetable at every meal. And you have to eat breakfast (with protein, beans and greens) within half an hour of waking up. You can eat as much as you want until you’re full three or four times per day. And drink TONS of cold water all day long.

And then there’s a list of thing you are forbidden to eat: anything white (bread, pasta, mayo, milk, soy milk, cheese, garbanzo beans, etc.) artificial sweeteners, nuts, whey protein, most sauces, fruits, juices, and a few other things.

Don’t freak out yet, though. There are a few allowed cheats: up to two doses of aspartame per day (Tim loves his two diet cokes per day), up two tablespoons of almond butter per day, up to two tablespoons of milk or cream in your coffee, and up to two glasses of red wine per night (NOT white wine though). And the best part of all is every Saturday you are required to have a cheat day. It’s not that you can cheat if you want to. No. You must cheat. Eat carbs all day. Eat cookies, drink milk, eat pizza, you get the picture. The idea is that if you eat a carb-free diet for too long, your body will go into conservation mode and will slow down its metabolism, thus reducing the rate of fat loss over time. By slamming your system with carbs once a week, you kick-start the diet each week.

Now this diet is pretty much a ketogenic diet like Atkins. But it’s even more restrictive than Atkins. It’s also not meant to last forever. You go on it to lose weight, not to have fun. And trust me, it’s not very fun. It can be boring as hell eating this stuff. But if losing weight tasted good or was fun, America would be a country of skinny fuckers.

My Experience
Okay, now that you understand the protein, beans, and greens Slow Carb diet, I’ll tell you how I went about it and what my results were. First, I set a goal: approximately 10 pounds of weight loss in 4 weeks. And knowing that I was going to be bored by bland food for only four weeks, it made it much easier to keep on going.

I was extremely religious about sticking to the diet. I ate eggs, egg whites, spinach, and lentils every morning for 4 weeks. I ate beans three times per day (with the help of Beano). I switched to espresso instead of coffee so I could get by with reduced amounts of cream. I switched to no more than a full packet of aspartame per day (instead of 6 packs of Splenda per day). I drank a ton of cold water each day. And I cheated on Saturdays (although, with some moderation).

During the first two weeks I did absolutely no cardio. In fact, I had the flu and was on antibiotics for a sinus infection during the second week. During weeks three and four I did cardio three times per week for 30 minutes each time. That’s it.

Now a little about my dietary handicaps. I’m a pescatarian/vegetarian. This reduced my protein options which meant I got really bored really fast. I also take a few prescription medications that might affect my liver, thus reducing my ability to process fat. And finally, I was only trying to lose 10 pounds. Most people who lose the 5 pounds per week that Ferriss touts in the book, are trying to lose 10, 20, 30, or even 50 or 100 pounds. So my loss was bound to be a little slower.

Okay, enough caveats and explanation. Here are my results:

Weight Loss:
Starting weight: 190
End of Week 1: 187.5
End of Week 2: 186
End of Week 3: 185
End of Week 4: 182.5

Body Fat Loss:
Starting body fat: 13.7%
End of Week 1: 12.1%
End of Week 2: 11.6%
End of Week 3: 11%
End of Week 4: 10%

The cool thing is that 3.7% of my starting weight is roughly 7+ pounds, which means all the weight I lost was fat. Awesome! The fat loss is visibly noticeable. My abs and torso are thinner, my abs are showing, my waist is thinner (I’m now using a notch down on my belts), and my butt it smaller (my pants are baggy in the butt). This is the thinnest I’ve been (as a measure of body fat) in a very long time. And I haven’t been below 185 since the early 2000′s. The only result I’m not ecstatic about is the smaller butt. I’ve always liked my bubble butt. But now I’ll just turn it into a muscle butt instead.

The Next Step
Which brings me to the question, “What’s next?” I’m going to spend two weeks getting used to lifting weights again. (I haven’t lifted weights since early December when I had salmonella and got off track.) And then I’m going to go on a six-week muscle gain regimen at the gym. Followed by two more weeks of this diet to lose any of the fat I might gain while consuming massive amounts of food to gain muscle. Which will get me to May 1st. And then who knows what I’ll do after that. Stay tuned for updates about my progress on the upcoming routine.

Let me be clear: I hate my smile lines. A lot. That’s why I almost never smile in pictures. Nowadays I just smirk or don’t show any expression at all. I hate those fucking lines and I certainly don’t want them digitally captured and spread all over the damn interwebs. I’ve even begun to entertain the notion of botox to smooth away the canyons that form around my eyes when I smile or laugh. (Yes, I know I’m being melodramatic. Just bear with me.)

Then something I saw tonight made me put my paranoid vanity in check. At least in part. You see, I stumbled upon some close-up shots of Chris Pine. Now, I consider Chris to be a hottie beyond belief. Like, Yowza! I’d bend over backwards (and, of course, forwards) for him and let him go where no man (ahem!) has gone before.

So when I saw these shots of Chris with his very pronounced smile lines, I was incredibly relieved. Mostly because he still looks damn sexy. And Chris is only three years younger than me. Sure, my smile lines might be slightly more pronounced. But when Chris reaches my ripe old age, his lines will be etched deeper too.

So I make this pledge: As of tonight I will try to be a little less freaked out about my smile lines. Maybe I’ll even smile a bit more often in pictures. We’ll see. I’ll let you know how it goes…

How can you not love this name? DZ-Nuts is an anti-chaffing cream for the nuts and taint. And while I have almost no need for the product itself (I don’t own a bicycle), I am absolutely buying the baseball cap.

Designed for Dave Zabriskie (DZ) by a pharmaceutical scientist to reduce and relieve chafing, irritation, and protect fragile perineal skin from bacterial and fungal infections. Formulated for real and synthetic chamois.

“Proper MAINTAINTANANCE of the perineal area is essential during high level training and racing. Nothing can ruin stage race success faster than an infected saddle sore.” –Dave Zabriskie

Interesting. Not dumbed down. Worth watching all nine minutes of it.

I thought this a powerful message and a bold topic for Instinct to cover. The story and the photography are both stunning. What’s more, I had cued up Matt Schiermeier as a Humpday Hotness in the not too distant future. This amazing story will move him up to the front of the line for sure.

From Instinct:

It started with his vision. An infection made itself known in and around Matt Schiermeier’s eyes, leading a doctor to suspect he had AIDS. Like many in the decades before him, when the disease ran through a series of titles—G.R.I.D., gay compromise syndrome, gay cancer—Matt’s heart sank at the news. Rather coldly, says Matt, the ophthalmologist mentioned that the last time he had seen this specific infection, the patient died within two weeks. A few blood tests later it became reality: Matt was HIV positive. And his T-cell count had fallen below 200 cells per cubic millimeter of blood—the cutoff point, where HIV becomes full-blown AIDS.

After the diagnosis, Matt was as certain in his future as he was of the source of his infection—he’d only been in one relationship with a man before contracting the disease. “I cried and was pretty upset for about a day. It didn’t take me long to snap out of it and realize there was no way, shape or form that HIV was going to kill me,” Matt recalls, his voice bearing the weight of the memory. “It was the end of the fear.” That was in 2000.

Ten years later, 33-year-old Matt’s vision has improved, but HIV/AIDS remains in his focus. “I want people to look at me and see that this is what being HIV positive can look like. I have a dream to show people that I’m positive, strong, healthy and in a great relationship,” he announces for the first time to the world.

Read more about Matt and Cam in our July/August issue, out now!

More photos after the jump

LOL

Customers flooded ehealthinsurance’s 800 line with questions about healthcare reform in March. Thousands of customers asked when their free Obamacare coverage started. Um… that was called “single-payer” and/or “the public option” and the Republicans turned both those systems into Satan-on-Earth, baby-killing, socialist-fascist-Hitler-grannie-killing, red herrings.

And I am left to wonder: Are people in this country truly that out of touch? Did the Republicans seriously obfuscate the issue such that people thought it was a single-payer takeover of healthcare? And that now that Obamacare has passed, those disillusioned people are wondering where their single-payer coverage is? If so, then the Republicans won on multiple accounts:

First, they fanned the fascist flames and killed the truest, strongest elements of reform. And second, by convincing the public that the remaining weakened reform bill was still a government takeover of health care, they have a pissed off populace that expects single-payer coverage that doesn’t exist. Damn! They are good.

via Kiplinger

Caption: President Barack Obama’s signature on the health insurance reform bill at the White House, March 23, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

via The White House on Flickr

Caption: Senator Clinton congratulating Barack Obama on the passage of health care legislation before a meeting in the Situation Room.

via

How does health care reform play out? Who does it affect? When does it take effect? Here’s a great chronological list of the changes. Some pretty impressive immediate changes. (Source, WaPo)

2010
- Sets up a high-risk health insurance pool to provide affordable coverage for uninsured people with medical problems.
- Starting six months after enactment, requires all health insurance plans to maintain dependent coverage for children until they turn 26; prohibits insurers from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing health problems.
- Bars insurance companies from putting lifetime dollar limits on coverage, and canceling policies except for fraud.
- Provides tax credits to help small businesses with up to 25 employees get and keep coverage for their employees.
- Begins narrowing the Medicare prescription coverage gap by providing a $250 rebate to seniors in the gap, which starts this year once they have spent $2,830. It would be fully closed by 2020.
- Reduces projected Medicare payments to hospitals, home health agencies, nursing homes, hospices and other providers.
- Imposes 10 percent sales tax on indoor tanning.

2011
- Creates a voluntary long-term care insurance program to provide a modest cash benefit helping disabled people stay in their homes, or cover nursing home costs. Benefits can begin five years after people start paying a fee for the coverage.
- Provides Medicare recipients in the prescription coverage gap with a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs; begins phasing in additional drug discounts to close the gap by 2020.
- Provides 10 percent Medicare bonus to primary care doctors and general surgeons practicing in underserved areas, such as inner cities and rural communities; improves preventive coverage.
- Freezes payments to Medicare Advantage plans, the first step in reducing payments to the private insurers who serve about one-fourth of seniors. The reductions would be phased in over three to seven years.
- Boosts funding for community health centers, which provide basic care for many low-income and uninsured people.
- Requires employers to report the value of health care benefits on employees’ W-2 tax statements.
- Imposes $2.3 billion annual fee on drugmakers, increasing over time.

2012
- Sets up program to create nonprofit insurance co-ops that would compete with commercial insurers.
- Initiates Medicare payment reforms by encouraging hospitals and doctors to band together in quality-driven “accountable care organizations” along the lines of the Mayo Clinic. Sets up a pilot program to test more efficient ways of paying hospitals, doctors, nursing homes and other providers who care for Medicare patients from admission through discharge. Successful experiments would be widely adopted.
- Penalizes hospitals with high rates of preventable readmissions by reducing Medicare payments.
Keep reading for 2013 and beyond