Month: September 2011

What’s Google search if not the perfect embodiment of the omniscient computers from old spy films, able to pull up and cross reference all manner of data, sometimes even in real time, on any person that a spy needed to know about? Now we all have access to this tool and we apply it to everything. So when I learned about Tim Ferriss some years ago, I did then what I do now when faced with any new person, or concept, or book, or film, or quote, or line of dialogue. I google it. There, I even lower-cased it. If the Shorter Oxford English says “google” is now an English verb, who am I to argue?

Anyone who hadn’t previously heard of Ferriss would, I’d imagine, be sorely tempted to click on that second suggestion. I did. And what I found were a bunch of negative, moaning, obvious losers, but we’ll come to that later.

First I’m going to explain how I lost 8 kilos in 6 weeks. You might not be impressed with that, but there are a number of reasons that figure is impressive. First, that three times in this period, I ate insane quantities of food, to the point where I felt I was a bite away from genuine nausea. And second, that the only regular exercise I’ve had has been ping pong and third, that I’m a Type 1 Diabetic. Until recently, an obese type 1 diabetic. The doctors out there know just how hard it is for an obese type 1 diabetic to lose weight.

The difference has transformed my life and more importantly, my wardrobe. It is staggering how quickly a vicious circle can become a virtuous one. I am in almost every conceivable way, a completely different person to the one I was two months ago. Ferriss is metrics-mad and if I didn’t have so much to do, I would be too. (That’s a subject for the 4-Hour Work Week, which I will also cover in this series of posts)

Want some highlights?

• I lost 8kgs of weight in 6 weeks
• I undid 5 years of steady weight gain
• I can now tie my shoelaces comfortably
• I can now wash and dry my feet comfortably
• I can walk to the tube station without having to stop several times for a breather
• I can play ping pong for four hours.
• My mood is massively elevated and I’m fired up
• I have far more energy than I’ve had in years
• Stomach aches and bloating gone
• Diabetic control massively improved
• My skin is better
• My night-time Lantus dose has dropped from 36 units at peak to a regular 16 units. That is truly remarkable.

Was it easy? No. Can you do it in four hours? No – you can do it in 4 minutes per week. Tim’s book titles are ruthlessly optimised to sell. He even split tests them in Google Adwords. Told you he was metrics-mad, but there is method as well as madness.

I promised Tim a review of his book when he kindly sent it to me over Christmas last year through his agent. There is a reason I didn’t write the review at the time. It didn’t work.

I couldn’t make it work until I really understood the principles that Ferriss used to research the book in the first place. I’d read it twice over before the New Year. I applied as much as I could afford to apply. Ferriss was even considerate enough to reply to my tweet on adjusting it for diabetes. The man is clearly smart – he too put up with the pain of a 24-hour glucose monitor to understand how his pancreas behaved in the presence of different foodstuffs. You couldn’t fault him for commitment.

Over the next few posts, I’m going to explain how I dropped three notches from my belt and I’m also going to tell you whether Tim Ferriss played a part in shaping my new life. If I can do it, I think you probably can.