I'm the rare defender of Tim Ferriss on HN. A lot of what he says is common sense, a lot of it is crazy, a lot of it is probably wrong, but here's why I think he doesn't deserve the scorn given to him:
Everything he says is backed up by this premise: "Don't just accept this - try it! I'm only recommending it because I found it to work."
I've done his slow-carb diet before and am doing it again now. I lost 25 pounds in two months the first time, and I've lost 5 pounds this week since I restarted it. These results, which are on par with what he claimed, make me hesitant to flatly deny anything else he recommends.
I basically agree with you. The 4 Hour Body is chock full of a bunch of stuff that isn't scientifically proven, which I'm always suspicious of. But, the science is solid on a lot of the stuff he really pushes hard.
The slow-carb diet is an excellent diet for weight loss and does avoid some of the problems of other rapid weight loss diets; it controls calorie intake without forcing you to count calories. I counted calories for the first week or so I was on it (in vegetarian form, which is a little bit of a challenge, to get enough protein without resorting to soy and wheat gluten products), and found I was eating about 200-300 below my resting metabolic rate every day, while eating enough to never feel hungry or get snacky. There's no way I could avoid losing weight if I'm eating significantly fewer calories than what I burn just sitting at my desk, and there is pretty solid science that the ingredients in the diet encourage loss of fat rather than loss of muscle...you're getting plenty of the stuff you need to maintain muscle mass, and adding some things to increase burning of fat for fuel.
As an aside, I've found the easily testable bits (particularly the "boost testosterone and libido" chapter) to have very evident results. That may be just because I was deficient in a few of the vital nutrients, and returning to nominal made things better, but I definitely saw a change. I plan to keep Brazil nuts in the house at all times, henceforth, regardless.
I read it . . . loved parts of it . . . and simultaneously thought it was most random book ever.
He does give a disclaimer at the beginning, where he says the book is not meant to be read from beginning to end. When looked at that way, the work is somewhat more coherent.
I bought the Kindle version, and when reading on the iPad, this work really comes into its own: it's more of a collection of linked content than a book proper. The chapter notes are important, and the links to YouTube and content on his website are useful. One the iPad, I can access that content quickly and then return to where I was reading.
I will say that whatever the flaws in this work, Tim Ferris has changed two important aspects of my life forever with his two books: how I work, and now how I eat.
I enjoyed both of Tim's books. Yes, his methods are a bit... unconventional, but the underlying principles are good:
Book 1: "Do less..."
Book 2: "...and measure it."
Book 1 (4 Hour Work Week) is especially interesting in contrast to other productivity books; books like GTD are about cramming more into your day. 4HWW is about identifying the highest impact things and cutting out the rest.
Was his diet a type of protein sparing modified fast? I think Tim Ferriss is a shining example that how you deliver your message is a factor in your overall influence just as much as what your actual message is. If your goal is to influence as many people as possible, his strategy is probably not ideal. If your goal is to influence a significant number of people in a very significant way, it's hard to argue against it: it's very effective.
The writer of the article was indeed very funny, but honestly anyone can be made to look like a buffoon if their words are taken out of context, and the results aren't examined.
Personally, I'd recommend to anyone interested in health and fitness at all to grab the 4 Hour Body - there's some stuff worth reading.
While reading it, it read more like Freakanomics than an encyclopedia of "how to lose weight". Its more about heres some cool shit i/we've saw happening, heres what we did, try it out. He never advocates heavy drug use or any of that shit. He even mentions: "Medication = can give you weight loss, but trade off is long term damage to your body"
Now heres one interesting thing... if you think "eat whatever you want and you will lose weight" is bullshit, consider this: I used to love drinking soda. Drank it by the gallons. I stopped due to weight gain. Now I don't crave it, I am mostly repulsed by it, and am quite happy just drinking water, in fact I can drink whatever I want because I want water.
Over time your mindset will change, you simply got used to a lifestyle of excessive eating and thus... "I don't want to give up my donuts in the morning". Just eating fruits daily makes me repulsed by eating processed sweets (donuts and the like) because there is so much more and better flavor out there that is not due to just adding tons of sugar.
> but here's why I think he doesn't deserve the scorn given to him: Everything he says is backed up by this premise: "Don't just accept this - try it! I'm only recommending it because I found it to work."
Isn't this a stock phrase in EVERY and ANY telemarking ad?
Conveniently, in order to "try it" you have to buy his book to find out what "it" is, in which case he already haves your money --and unlike telemarketing there is no refund policy...
I've read 4 Hour Body and think it was terrible. Self indlugent, misleading (at best) and dangerous (at worst).
There were numerous 1 star reviews on Amazon.com that summed up my thoughts pretty well, so I'll not drone on here about it... I do however wonder about all the legions of 5 star reviews that are in there.
I wonder if Tim tore a page out of 4 hour work week and outsourced an indian marketing firm (brickwork?) to write a large number of 4 and 5 star reviews.
I've been in the fitness industry for 26 years now. I can tell you there are better ways to achieve results, but good or great long term results require consistency and dedication.
20 - 25lbs of lean mass per year in an untrained 18 year old is very reasonable but quite an accomplishment. What he claims is extremely improbable if not impossible without chemistry.
A master at taking the next suckers money selling half truths. The number of people buying into it is frightening.
I don't know much about Ferris, and haven't read the book but I've been a quite devoted life extensionist for a while, researching diets and studies and nutritients relentlessly, and a favorite researcher and blogger of mine is Chris Masterjohn, whose scientific rigor and sobriety is ever unwavering, who wrote a favorable review of 4-hour body.
Have you actually read the book? Everything is subjective, but I feel it offers plenty of value, and my life is improved for reading it. Specifically relating to nutrition & weight gain.
I don't really care for or about Tim's marketing methods, but to say it has no substance at all is to miss the point. Same goes for 4HWW.
getting a nice body - looking beautiful - is probably one of the most valuable benefits you could offer to someone. rule of marketing - human drives. 4HB appeals to drive to bond, drive to defend, drive to acquire.
4HB reads like a hacker's book, and that's why I loved it.
Conventional wisdom says you kill yourself at the gym to bulk up. But a muscle isn't strengthened by fatigue -- it's strengthened by the body's response to that fatigue. So shouldn't your goal be triggering the response?
That makes for an exciting read. The book is full of it -- tracking down the extraordinarily successful in a given field, taking their advice himself, and sharing the results.
It doesn't have any "I tried this and it worked" or "I tried this and it didn't work" or "This goes against XYZ scientific study, so I'm hesitant to try it."
In fact, I don't see any substance at all really, aside from gathering that the guy doesn't like Tim Ferriss.
>Here’s a better analogy: “The 4-Hour Body” reads as if The New England Journal of Medicine had been hijacked by the editors of the SkyMall catalog. Some of this junk might actually work, but you’re going to be embarrassed doing it or admitting to your friends that you’re trying it. This is a man who, after all, weighs his own feces, likes bloodletting as a life-extension strategy and aims a Philips goLite at his body in place of ingesting caffeine.
Just... wow. The book sounds ridiculous, and the review is fantastic.
Ferriss is a hacker...but the system he works on is his own body. I respect him for the experiments he does, and his willingness to share the results and the mistakes and embarrassing stuff, even if his science isn't always complete. To be fair, he generally admits when he's not discussing actual science and just correlation or limited data.
I'd no more insult him for doing what he does than I would for someone releasing a new product in its minimal viable product form. Yeah, it's a bit on the hyperbolic side, as such things go...but, honestly, I think we as entrepreneurs could probably learn a thing or two about marketing from watching him.
The example "bloodletting as a life-extension strategy" refers to donating blood. In this section of the book (one page), Ferris references Drs. Eades who make the same recommendation.
At that point, it becomes a matter of different writing styles for different audiences. Ferris writes short sections, as if the book contains hundreds of blog posts, while Drs. Eades' books are more scientific and verbose.
The section on the Philips goLITE is the same way. Ferris spends 200 words telling us how he uses it and why. In his book, The Vitamin D Solution, Dr. Michael Holick spends pages covering the same material,
Is it really "ridiculous" to make this information available to the public in different formats so people can choose the one that fits best with their reading style? It seems perfectly reasonable that some people just want a list of "try these things" while others will want to do extensive research.
Funny review overall through not very telling about the book (more about Ferriss himself). I've only read small snippets of the book (and don't intend to read much more), but it's pretty clear that the writer is outside of Ferriss' target audience for this (especially if the author is afraid of becoming embarrassed in front of some friends for trying to improve his health). It sounds like he misunderstands the point of Ferriss' experiments a bit.
Hahaha okay, awesome review. Still (and I've said something similar on HN before) for all Tim's giddy arrogance I still think he brings something valuable to the table. Yeah, he thinks his shit don't stink and yeah, he sort of sounds like a walking infomercial but guess what? So does almost every wildly successful person I have ever heard of. (Exceptions might include the likes of Bill Gates.) Tim is out there getting things done (commercially successful author, entrepreneur, etc) while a bunch of bloggers sit around making fun of him for having confidence and for maybe being a bit of an ass.
One of the things I've noticed from my earliest days on the net is the degree that folks seem willing to be humbled and belittled by what they think of as celebrity. Geesh, I remember some YC application deadlines that the sucking up got so bad I was afraid I might get pulled into the screen of my laptop.
Ferriss seems to be capitalizing on this. He's the guy that had the new book over on Amazon with something like a thousand positive reviews. A thousand! Something has gone wrong somewhere.
This was a great review. I am reminded of the beer commercial with "with most interesting man in the world". Sounds like Ferriss could have been a model for this idea.
Obligatory link for those outside the states who haven't seen "The most interesting man in the world" beer commercials and don't know what I am talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bc0WjTT0Ps
Ferris made no mystery that he likes to use shortcuts and exploit loopholes whenever possible, like when he basically cheated to win the chinese kickboxing championship.
"
At the risk of seeming disgusting, permit me to say that several days after I started this practice, I experienced what was probably the largest bowel movement in my life. I've also lost a few inches around the waistline and my energy level seems to be rising. "
The part of the book that you MUST take seriously is the part about the methods of rehabilitating your body after an injury.
Most of you will be sitting for in a chair for a good chunk of the next 10 years, so bad backs and bad knees are a given. So understanding why this happens and on how to fix it is huge.
Getting all that info in one place took me 2 years of learning as only leading strength coaches know this stuff. Your doc probably won't.
a friend recommended to me the 4-hour workweek. After the first few pages, I bound the entire book in duct tape. I didn't want to be responsible for anyone else reading it.
I've scoffed at his claims of 5K to 50K in 12 weeks, in the past. I went from couch potato to runner. I've run several marathons and ultras and have done quite a bit of experimenting on my body over the years. I managed to borrow a copy of this book tonight and pounded through quite a bit of it.
From what I read, it's actually 4 weeks of bone/muscle/ligament conditioning, followed by 12 weeks of running training -- IF you can run a 5K at an 8:00 pace or faster. If you can't, then yep, you guessed it, more training time.
This is doable and pretty much falls in line with conventional training (though Tim reorganizes it a little bit, and throws in the all important and generally under-emphasized benefits of cross-training), but it isn't "in 12 weeks" at all.
I've done quite a bit of iterative experimenting with cross-training (especially cycling and swimming) and it unilaterally improved my running speeds and my long run recovery times.
His graphs and charts seem rather superfluous to me. Meant to intimidate rather than inform.
I'm not so concerned about permanent damage because of the initial 4 week conditioning process. If you're not already a seasoned runner, this program will take you as long or longer as Galloway or Joe Henderson's training plans.
His advice and data are solid, but don't meet his "in 12 weeks" mark. As far as I know, he still hasn't actually run 50K. The book links to http://www.fourhourbody.com/ultra for his results, but its still a dead page.
Personally I thought this review wasn't funny and quite shallow. I got the impression the author had only read the introduction and one or two other chapters.
The only interesting thing that I got out of the 4-Hour Work Week was the idea of traveling somewhere long-time to learn a new skill. Hardly groundbreaking, but a new idea to me.
The rest of the book varied between obvious, sleazy and cheating. So I'm not surprised that the new one is pretty much the same, only this time with health risks instead of financial ones.
Not that this is particularly new. It's basically Charles Atlas in the age of twitter and ADHD. The review is pretty fantastic, though.
I have to admit I did get one thing from the 4-Hour that has worked for me: It is OK to email the CEO or other high person of a company. I was surprised at how quickly I would get responses (although generally short ones) from CEOs of billion-dollar, global companies.
I read it as well and thought that deep down it was really just a rip off of other studies and advice, just done in a quirky (and sometimes downright crazy) way.
For example, his "diet" is really nothing more than a suggestion to cut carbs and "anything white," eat a few square meals a day and take a day off once a week to convince your body you are not on a diet. I've read that same advice hundreds of times before. Disappointing (not that I had high expectations going into it).
So what? I hadn't read that advice before. I found it on his blog and lost 20 pounds in a month. Following exactly his advice. I wouldn't call that a rip off.
I had heard this advice many times before, but he added just one comment that completely made it for me.
He advises to have just a few basic meals to choose from and then stick with those. Don't try to put variety in your diet at all or try and keep it interesting. It's that wandering eye that will cause you to go off diet.
That simple change made it completely easy for me to stick to my diet because now I don't have to think at all. It's like I'm stuck on a starship and this is what the kitchen computer makes every day, and it doesn't matter if I want something else, because this is what the meal is.
At risk of echoing others, I too found his approach a bit different from stuff I had read, decided to try it, and lost a couple kilograms in the first week (started on Jan 1).
I appreciate his hyper self-promotion, too, because otherwise I would have never heard of this book; it's the first diet book I have ever read.
The big question here is: is Tim Ferriss that self-righteous naturally, or does he do it on purpose to gain more attention?
Few people can deny that being so self-righteous that other people get provoked is one hell of a personal marketing strategy. I just keep wondering if the people who succeed in personal branding have thought this out and planned their self-righteousness strategically, or if they just are that way naturally and got lucky.
[+] [-] pchristensen|15 years ago|reply
Everything he says is backed up by this premise: "Don't just accept this - try it! I'm only recommending it because I found it to work."
I've done his slow-carb diet before and am doing it again now. I lost 25 pounds in two months the first time, and I've lost 5 pounds this week since I restarted it. These results, which are on par with what he claimed, make me hesitant to flatly deny anything else he recommends.
[+] [-] SwellJoe|15 years ago|reply
The slow-carb diet is an excellent diet for weight loss and does avoid some of the problems of other rapid weight loss diets; it controls calorie intake without forcing you to count calories. I counted calories for the first week or so I was on it (in vegetarian form, which is a little bit of a challenge, to get enough protein without resorting to soy and wheat gluten products), and found I was eating about 200-300 below my resting metabolic rate every day, while eating enough to never feel hungry or get snacky. There's no way I could avoid losing weight if I'm eating significantly fewer calories than what I burn just sitting at my desk, and there is pretty solid science that the ingredients in the diet encourage loss of fat rather than loss of muscle...you're getting plenty of the stuff you need to maintain muscle mass, and adding some things to increase burning of fat for fuel.
As an aside, I've found the easily testable bits (particularly the "boost testosterone and libido" chapter) to have very evident results. That may be just because I was deficient in a few of the vital nutrients, and returning to nominal made things better, but I definitely saw a change. I plan to keep Brazil nuts in the house at all times, henceforth, regardless.
[+] [-] symesc|15 years ago|reply
He does give a disclaimer at the beginning, where he says the book is not meant to be read from beginning to end. When looked at that way, the work is somewhat more coherent.
I bought the Kindle version, and when reading on the iPad, this work really comes into its own: it's more of a collection of linked content than a book proper. The chapter notes are important, and the links to YouTube and content on his website are useful. One the iPad, I can access that content quickly and then return to where I was reading.
I will say that whatever the flaws in this work, Tim Ferris has changed two important aspects of my life forever with his two books: how I work, and now how I eat.
[+] [-] RKlophaus|15 years ago|reply
Book 1: "Do less..."
Book 2: "...and measure it."
Book 1 (4 Hour Work Week) is especially interesting in contrast to other productivity books; books like GTD are about cramming more into your day. 4HWW is about identifying the highest impact things and cutting out the rest.
[+] [-] jpcx01|15 years ago|reply
Are you skeptical that my fig leaf root seed product results in a higher sex drive and whiter teeth? Don't just accept this... try it!
[+] [-] 9oliYQjP|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alecco|15 years ago|reply
That statement only shows he only cares about selling his book. If the method fails you, it's your ($15) loss.
[+] [-] calebgilbert|15 years ago|reply
Personally, I'd recommend to anyone interested in health and fitness at all to grab the 4 Hour Body - there's some stuff worth reading.
[+] [-] GrandMasterBirt|15 years ago|reply
Now heres one interesting thing... if you think "eat whatever you want and you will lose weight" is bullshit, consider this: I used to love drinking soda. Drank it by the gallons. I stopped due to weight gain. Now I don't crave it, I am mostly repulsed by it, and am quite happy just drinking water, in fact I can drink whatever I want because I want water.
Over time your mindset will change, you simply got used to a lifestyle of excessive eating and thus... "I don't want to give up my donuts in the morning". Just eating fruits daily makes me repulsed by eating processed sweets (donuts and the like) because there is so much more and better flavor out there that is not due to just adding tons of sugar.
[+] [-] foljs|15 years ago|reply
Isn't this a stock phrase in EVERY and ANY telemarking ad?
Conveniently, in order to "try it" you have to buy his book to find out what "it" is, in which case he already haves your money --and unlike telemarketing there is no refund policy...
[+] [-] AlexC04|15 years ago|reply
There were numerous 1 star reviews on Amazon.com that summed up my thoughts pretty well, so I'll not drone on here about it... I do however wonder about all the legions of 5 star reviews that are in there.
I wonder if Tim tore a page out of 4 hour work week and outsourced an indian marketing firm (brickwork?) to write a large number of 4 and 5 star reviews.
[+] [-] staunch|15 years ago|reply
This isn't an unusual practice I don't think, as in everything Ferris is just more successful than most at exploiting borderline unethical behavior.
[+] [-] revorad|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oldsaltydog|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edw519|15 years ago|reply
Now imagine what you can accomplish when you combine that with something that actually offers value to others. Hack away!
[+] [-] Kutta|15 years ago|reply
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Review-Tim-Ferriss-4-H...
[+] [-] ekanes|15 years ago|reply
I don't really care for or about Tim's marketing methods, but to say it has no substance at all is to miss the point. Same goes for 4HWW.
[+] [-] zackattack|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teye|15 years ago|reply
Conventional wisdom says you kill yourself at the gym to bulk up. But a muscle isn't strengthened by fatigue -- it's strengthened by the body's response to that fatigue. So shouldn't your goal be triggering the response?
That makes for an exciting read. The book is full of it -- tracking down the extraordinarily successful in a given field, taking their advice himself, and sharing the results.
[+] [-] lionhearted|15 years ago|reply
It doesn't have any "I tried this and it worked" or "I tried this and it didn't work" or "This goes against XYZ scientific study, so I'm hesitant to try it."
In fact, I don't see any substance at all really, aside from gathering that the guy doesn't like Tim Ferriss.
[+] [-] jorgeortiz85|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phren0logy|15 years ago|reply
>Here’s a better analogy: “The 4-Hour Body” reads as if The New England Journal of Medicine had been hijacked by the editors of the SkyMall catalog. Some of this junk might actually work, but you’re going to be embarrassed doing it or admitting to your friends that you’re trying it. This is a man who, after all, weighs his own feces, likes bloodletting as a life-extension strategy and aims a Philips goLite at his body in place of ingesting caffeine.
Just... wow. The book sounds ridiculous, and the review is fantastic.
[+] [-] SwellJoe|15 years ago|reply
I'd no more insult him for doing what he does than I would for someone releasing a new product in its minimal viable product form. Yeah, it's a bit on the hyperbolic side, as such things go...but, honestly, I think we as entrepreneurs could probably learn a thing or two about marketing from watching him.
[+] [-] healsdata|15 years ago|reply
At that point, it becomes a matter of different writing styles for different audiences. Ferris writes short sections, as if the book contains hundreds of blog posts, while Drs. Eades' books are more scientific and verbose.
The section on the Philips goLITE is the same way. Ferris spends 200 words telling us how he uses it and why. In his book, The Vitamin D Solution, Dr. Michael Holick spends pages covering the same material,
Is it really "ridiculous" to make this information available to the public in different formats so people can choose the one that fits best with their reading style? It seems perfectly reasonable that some people just want a list of "try these things" while others will want to do extensive research.
[+] [-] aik|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DenisM|15 years ago|reply
So, he advocates using sunlight instead of drugs (such as caffeine). Why does that deserves a scorn in your opinion?
[+] [-] fooandbarify|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] judegomila|15 years ago|reply
- it's an entertaining read.
[+] [-] DanielRibeiro|15 years ago|reply
NY Times - Dwight Garner's snarky review of The 4-Hour Body: http://su.pr/16Eh4w For 100% ad hominem, it's pretty funny.
[1] http://twitter.com/#!/tferriss/status/23166933377486848
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|15 years ago|reply
Ferriss seems to be capitalizing on this. He's the guy that had the new book over on Amazon with something like a thousand positive reviews. A thousand! Something has gone wrong somewhere.
This was a great review. I am reminded of the beer commercial with "with most interesting man in the world". Sounds like Ferriss could have been a model for this idea.
Obligatory link for those outside the states who haven't seen "The most interesting man in the world" beer commercials and don't know what I am talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bc0WjTT0Ps
[+] [-] wazoox|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doyoulikeworms|15 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/How-Good-bye-Depression-Constrict-Ever...
[+] [-] The_Igor|15 years ago|reply
From one of the amazon reviews:
" At the risk of seeming disgusting, permit me to say that several days after I started this practice, I experienced what was probably the largest bowel movement in my life. I've also lost a few inches around the waistline and my energy level seems to be rising. "
[+] [-] AlexC04|15 years ago|reply
Thank you so very much.
[+] [-] keeptrying|15 years ago|reply
Most of you will be sitting for in a chair for a good chunk of the next 10 years, so bad backs and bad knees are a given. So understanding why this happens and on how to fix it is huge.
Getting all that info in one place took me 2 years of learning as only leading strength coaches know this stuff. Your doc probably won't.
[+] [-] tgrass|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runjake|15 years ago|reply
From what I read, it's actually 4 weeks of bone/muscle/ligament conditioning, followed by 12 weeks of running training -- IF you can run a 5K at an 8:00 pace or faster. If you can't, then yep, you guessed it, more training time.
This is doable and pretty much falls in line with conventional training (though Tim reorganizes it a little bit, and throws in the all important and generally under-emphasized benefits of cross-training), but it isn't "in 12 weeks" at all.
I've done quite a bit of iterative experimenting with cross-training (especially cycling and swimming) and it unilaterally improved my running speeds and my long run recovery times.
His graphs and charts seem rather superfluous to me. Meant to intimidate rather than inform.
I'm not so concerned about permanent damage because of the initial 4 week conditioning process. If you're not already a seasoned runner, this program will take you as long or longer as Galloway or Joe Henderson's training plans.
His advice and data are solid, but don't meet his "in 12 weeks" mark. As far as I know, he still hasn't actually run 50K. The book links to http://www.fourhourbody.com/ultra for his results, but its still a dead page.
[+] [-] jsmcgd|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SandB0x|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhd|15 years ago|reply
The rest of the book varied between obvious, sleazy and cheating. So I'm not surprised that the new one is pretty much the same, only this time with health risks instead of financial ones.
Not that this is particularly new. It's basically Charles Atlas in the age of twitter and ADHD. The review is pretty fantastic, though.
[+] [-] 27182818284|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _pius|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tchock23|15 years ago|reply
For example, his "diet" is really nothing more than a suggestion to cut carbs and "anything white," eat a few square meals a day and take a day off once a week to convince your body you are not on a diet. I've read that same advice hundreds of times before. Disappointing (not that I had high expectations going into it).
[+] [-] yeahsure|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] allwein|15 years ago|reply
He advises to have just a few basic meals to choose from and then stick with those. Don't try to put variety in your diet at all or try and keep it interesting. It's that wandering eye that will cause you to go off diet.
That simple change made it completely easy for me to stick to my diet because now I don't have to think at all. It's like I'm stuck on a starship and this is what the kitchen computer makes every day, and it doesn't matter if I want something else, because this is what the meal is.
[+] [-] veidr|15 years ago|reply
I appreciate his hyper self-promotion, too, because otherwise I would have never heard of this book; it's the first diet book I have ever read.
[+] [-] micaelwidell|15 years ago|reply
Few people can deny that being so self-righteous that other people get provoked is one hell of a personal marketing strategy. I just keep wondering if the people who succeed in personal branding have thought this out and planned their self-righteousness strategically, or if they just are that way naturally and got lucky.