Body Hack: How to Lose 30 Pounds in 24 Hours | Hacker News Reader

Body Hack: How to Lose 30 Pounds in 24 Hours

fourhourworkweek.com

20 pointsmattjaynes19 comments

This is ridiculous, and is similar to the drivel he puts out in his 4 hour work week book. I read it, and I wasnt impressed.

This title should read: How to lose 30 pounds of water in 24 hours by endangering your body.

I hear heroine works pretty well too.

How to lose 30 pounds of water in 24 hours by endangering your body.

I wouldn't argue with that. Given the disclaimers and warnings in this article, I don't think Ferriss is arguing with that either:

It should be noted that dehydration can result in internal organ failure, coma, and even death, particularly when diuretics are used...

...do your research and don’t treat this as a low-stakes game. It will kill you.

Those aren't exactly weasel words.

I can't speak to the truth of the mixture of science, pseudoscience, and unconfirmed observations in this article (can anyone?) but if you think that this sort of thing hasn't been standard technique in many sports for a century and more... you haven't read Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit. I don't know if any jockeys read HN, but if they do, they are yawning right now. They used to do this all the time. I would be amazed if they don't still do it.

I think this sort of thing is a terrible idea, but that's why I'm not an athlete. Given that athletes exist and will try these experiments, it's just as well that they conduct open debates on the Internet rather than try to invent this stuff for themselves in private. And if we actually want to stop this sort of thing, I think Ferriss is on the right track:

The practice of severe dehydration will continue among elite athletes in weight-class-based sports until competition weigh-in timing is changed. The problem is amplified further when athletes gain muscular mass over the course of a single competitive season, yet are required to remain in a single weight-class to retain records and ranking.

If these sports encourage stupid behavior, perhaps it is because they need different rules. [1]

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[1] Though changing the weigh-in timing can't fix horse racing, where the rules are ultimately enforced by the laws of physics. I'm not sure what is to be done with horse racing, other than to adopt rules that will slow everyone down. Although my favorite idea is the robot jockey:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_jockey

I really don't think of this as drivel. I knew a couple high school wrestlers, and weigh-ins are very important. There are all kinds of strategies to make weight, and then rapidly gain weight.

It's a necessary thing to do if your seriously competitive in sports that have a weigh-in. Just think about it, weight classes are so that people are appropriately matched. Most people try to lose weight before a weigh in, so if someone doesn't it would be competing against people in a weight class above him.

The discussion in the comment section is actually really good. Tim Ferriss makes a few interesting statements.

First, he said that making weight was against the spirit of the competition, but until rules changed it would be a necessity.

He also mentioned that this method does not hold a lot of attraction for people with eating disorders. It makes people look like zombies. He said that he had coached female athletes with eating disorders and that these methods were very unattractive.

He did say that this method was dangerous. But cutting weight was extremely common in athletics, so he wanted to lead people to the method that was the safest and had the least risk of organ failure.

I do think that he should have emphasized more in this article that not even this method is safe, just less dangerous.

As mentioned in the article, sport rules should be changed to weigh just before start of the game. That will reduce this kind of hacks

Amen. I never understood why they place the boxer weigh in date so far away from the actual match. Seems like a stupid Idea that is mainly kept for the media-hype.

It's disappointing that as of now there isn't a single worthwhile, quality comment in this thread (edit: except for mechanical_fish's). The article is, in my opinion, high quality, if not excellent. It thoroughly explains how the authors (or rather, scientists, at least in this context) approached the problem of maximizing human body performance within incredibly short timespans. At least two ingenious hacks were meticulously detailed: using hot baths to (counter-intuitively) sweat out large quantities of non-essential fluids, and consuming hand moisturizer to maximize the quantity of reabsorbed water. And let's not forget the method of breaking down large clusters of water molecules in their drinking water to ensure that the digestive system will be able to absorb all of it into the bloodstream.

In addition, the negative commentators appear to have either skimmed the article or don't understand the implications of the techniques presented, specifically of hyperhydration. It is a legal and relatively safe way for athletes to reach peak performance levels for their competitons.

So naturally, it's mistifying why this article is being condemned by a group of hackers, puzzle-solvers, and limit-pushers. Most of your concerns seem to be about safety. And yet, the article goes to great lengths to explain all the various pitfalls of their techniques, and why their instructions must be precisely followed to ensure safety (such as the method of preventing potentially lethal water intoxication). So if you have safety concerns, kindly detail why you are concerned, rather than saying "this seems unsafe!" ... Rock climbing is dangerous, which is why you take appropriate steps to mitigate the risks.

It would be awesome to hear your thoughts on these incredible body hacks. I spent 45min typing this out on an iPhone keyboard. Please, put in 5 to give your comments some substance?

Just curious, why was the article killed? This is so strange. I thought the content was very cool, only to find that I gave a huge endorsement to an article that was apparently so bad, it had to be killed. Maybe I'm not a hacker, or at least the right kind of hacker.

Dude, you need to work on your morale management. Someone killing an article doesn't say anything about you.

I have a better solution that is quicker and less costly:

Amputation

That's a tad permanent, though, don't you think?

doesn't this solve one of the classic dieting problems of keeping the weight off?

Indeed it does. I've heard it costs an arm and a leg, though. :)

Reddit, with all its pun thread shenanigans, can be found at http://www.reddit.com

You know what the real test of HN is? Whether we can be redditish without becoming reddit. Until we can do that, we're just fooling ourselves.

Certain behaviors, such as long chains of sarcastic comments, should be avoided, even as a test. In fact, sarcasm itself seems pretty dangerous to a social site.

I think an exception should be made for posts to crap like 4 hour work week.

True. The article is more at home there as well.

The same guy also claims to describe how he gained 34 pounds of muscle in 4 weeks, "with two 30-minute workouts per week, for a total of 4 HOURS of gym time." The kind of results he describes might be unique to his own body.

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to...

You could lose a lot of weight quickly by cutting off your arms and legs too, but that doesn't mean I would do it. Man, this seems ridiculously bad for your body.

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