4 hours, some weeks on

So how have I been doing? Well, the data speaks for itself. My weight is going down slowly and I don't feel like I'm on a diet. In fact, I've been eating crisps and Coke occasionally, as I'll explain.

As well as the dietary changes, I also started taking infrequent garlic capsules; they help keep the blood flowing. I found the tablets easier to handle than the capsules.

This is the theory of metabolism. As you go on a diet and crash your calorie intake, your metabolism eventually slows to adjust to your food intake. The hashed area is where the metabolism is using more energy than you're eating and thus using fat; as you can see, eventually it joins the calorie intake and you're no longer losing weight.. This is why diets fail after a short while; the body adapts to your food intake and you no longer lose any weight.

The trick is to spike your metabolism every seven days to push it back up there. You don't need to pig out, but a good calorie intake will force the spike up and then you can return to the slow-carb diet and continue.

The final piece of the jig saw is exercise.

Exercise doesn't need expensive equipment and if you're carrying a lot of weight you don't have to get over active to start exercising. The arms are a great place to start and while I've got two 5kg dumb bells, all you really need are drinks bottles of whatever size, filled with water or sand. Arm exercises, to exhaustion every two or three days, is a good start at turning some fat in to muscle tissue. As you get better, increase the size of the bottles. Be careful that if you're in an area where you can't afford a spill, put them in plastic bags as extra safety. Just take your time and do the exercises right.

Long ago, I was taught that you do the exercises slowly for strength and quickly for bulk, so I do things slowly. Curls, using the elbows to bring the weights up to the shoulder, and stretches, taking the weights out to the side, or over the head. Ideally, the weight should be enough to make you feel like you're doing work, but not enough to stop you from doing between ten and fifteen reps.

You don't even have to get up from the sofa for these kind of exercises.

If you're like me, you've got memories of being in the gym, looking at the readout of the treadmill, reading the meter that tells you how many calories you've burned and have worked it out to be a minuscule part of a mars bar. (Ferris echoed exactly my thoughts in his book) You also have very little space at home and even less enthusiasm for hard work. Ferris says that if you do one exercise, make it the kettle bell swing.

What you're not told, however, is that exercise pays more dividends over time. As the BBC TV show demonstrated, the exercise doesn't just stop when you stop doing it, the effect on your metabolism continues over time, even while you're sleeping. The important thing is to keep at it and give yourself proper rest breaks between exercise sessions.

I've asked my friends in the leisure business and they agree that it is a good exercise. It has to be done right, the muscles have to be clenched and you shouldn't drop the weight too far to the floor. If you have problems watching the embedded video, here is the direct link.


The key thing is to raise the heart level for twenty minutes, twice a week. That is the minimum exercise needed to kick the muscles in to action converting the fat to tissue. As you've seen in the video, the kettle bell swing uses the arms, the back, the stomach, the backside, the legs, everything is getting a good work out for minimal effort. But if you decide to buy a kettle bell, be warned off the ones which are wider than the handle; remember that the bell will need to go between you're legs; and you don't want a bell that will take out your thighs on the downward stroke. I think my starting bell weight will be n the low 20 killo range.

I also do a few extra things, like if I'm climbing stairs, I'll put a bit of body energy in to it and I'll take the stairs instead of the lift where I can if it is only a few flights.

So the keys here are to use the diet to eat foods which help stave off hunger (protein breakfast) and keep your metabolism high (first hour breakfast) using these things to cut down the amount of food your eating (avoid domino foods, watch the fruits high in natural sugar, smaller dinner plates, fresh lemon juice after the meal to turn fast carbs to slow carbs, etc.) and cut down on the bread. Top this off with a bit of exercise and you should be on your way.

Also, don't cosset yourself. Your body will use calories to generate energy to keep yourself warm. You don't have to be uncomfortable or drive yourself towards hypothermia, but just lose the extra blankets on the bed so you use a bit of energy overnight in generating thermal energy.

There is a lot more in Ferris' book. It is worth the read.