Pareto demonstrated a grossly uneven but predictable distribution of wealth in the society with his famous 80/20 principle. This is where 80% is possessed by 20%, with the distribution found in most domains. It comes up in unusual places:. He found 80% of his garden peas produced by 20% of the pea pods. If you want to be fluent in Spanish, you need an active vocabulary of approximately 2500 high-frequency words. This will allow you to comprehend 95% of the conversation. 2500 words is a mere 2.5% of the 100,000 words in the Spanish language

Tim Ferris has applied the principle to develop the Slow Carb Diet. The goal is to focus on the 2.5% that delivers 95% of the results in rapid body redesign and performance enhancement. If you are already at 5% body fat or bench pressing 181 kg, you are in the top 1%. This is for the other 99% who can experience near unbelievable gains in short periods of time.

The Calorie Myth 

Did you eat half an Oreo cookie? No problem, if you’re a 98kg male, you just need to climb 27 flights of stairs to burn it off. FFS.

Most scientists and doctors are still harping on about the calorie. It’s cheap to estimate and a popular variable for publication in journals. It can be thought of a car park science, referring to a joke where a poor drunk man loses his keys during a night out on the town. His friends find him hands and knees under a streetlight, even though he knows he lost them somewhere else. “Why are you looking for your keys under the streetlight?”. They Ask.  “Because there’s more light over here. I can see better”. If we want to a banging body, we need to be a bit smarter than that.

Firstly, if you’re serious, choose one of the next two goals to start today. 

Goal 1 – The 9kg Recomp Goal

On a 1-10 attractiveness scale, 9kg appears to be the critical threshold for going from a 6 to a 9, or 10 (at least tested with male perception of females). It doesn’t just mean a 9kg reduction in weight. It could entail losing 9kg of fat and gaining 9kg of muscle. But most often it is about 6.8kg of fat and 2.3kg of muscle, or some blend in between. Designing the best physique includes both subtraction and addition.

To achieve the goal we can focus on diet, drugs and exercise. For us, it is 60% diet, 10% drugs, and 10% exercise  

Goal 2 – Body Fat Goals

I have always been notorious with directions. When I used to work with my dad when I was younger, we’d work at clients homes all over Victoria. When I just turned 18 years old, the best technology was Melways, playing right into my personal weakness with directions. I usually had to put on an additional ⅓ of travel time to account for my frequent mistakes. But all my problems were solved once Google Maps came along. 

Most people are still using the Melways when the Google Maps equivalent is available to us. They launch on a journey towards their destination and are making tremendous progress. They take on all sorts of diets, using odometers and stepping onto the scales, and conclude that they’re not making any progress. But they’re weight isn’t changing on the scales; which only measures total weight. But we’re targeting body recomposition. So we need an upgrade with our navigation device, answering “am I getting closer to my destination?”, accurately.  We need our own physical GPS to guide us to our 9kg recomp goal. For me, I found a body composition analysis that measures muscle in all of the main parts of the body, alongside bodyfat with astonish accuracy. It only cost $45 at a local F45 studio.

Firstly, measure your body fat and then set agoal. Here are some descriptive attributes about the desired end point you might choose.

• 20% body fat – No visible muscle definition and only a hint of separation between muslcle groups
• 15% – Muscles appears between shoulders and upper arms. Abs are not visible
• 12% body fat – More muscle separation appears, particularly in the chest and back. An outline of the abs begins to appear
• 10% – Muscle separation gets deeper in the arms, chest, legs and back, and six packs are visible when flexed
• 7-9% – Abs are clearly visible all the time. Vasculinity in arms is prominent, chest and back separation is obvious, face starts to appear angular
• 5-7% – Striations appear in large muscle groups when flexed.Competitive body builders aim for this in competition day

Set Yourself For Success

I (Jonesy) once got hit with a plane voyagers worst nightmare. I took my seat at 25A, by the window so I can marvel at the city of Sydney on the way back to Melbourne. I knew the flight wasn’t very busy, so I had a real shot at having a spare seat right next to me. As I got my hopes up, I locked eyes with a person strolling down my end of the plane. Let’s just say he was a big boy; who could easily take two seats. I was praying that he kept walking past me, but he smiled and gave me the all knowing nod. “G’day mate, I’m next to you at 25B”.  Turns out he was a great guy. But on the short journey, he downed a Big M and a whole packet of  M and Ms.

How could he rationalize eating so much junk, when it could really be the thing that kills him? There is no logical answer for that behaviour. But then again, there is no logical explanation for why I justify eating two family sized pizzas on a friday night, or hitting the Snooze button and scrolling through Facebook when I promised myself to workout at 6am.

The Before Photo

We want to engineer our own success. The first strategy is to make everything conscious, using the powerful ‘before photo’. The people who have the most dramatic changes, usually credit this. We want to begin with an absolute shocker. Take photos of your front, back and sides. Don’t forget to look a little miserable. This isn’t bad news. We’re capturing something tangible that we can use as you journey towards your goal.

 Secondly, we want to engage the wonderful forces of social proof. With these horrible photos, send them to one of your friends or family, who won’t punish you too much. Let them know that “in X weeks, I’ll be sending you another photo of my new body. Wish me luck“. If you don’t want to send it to your mates, send it to us with the same text at podcast@whatyouwilllearn.com.

The 5 Rules For Reaching Your Destination

The Slow Carb Diet is simpler than assembling a 2 man tent. All you need to do is follow 5, very simple rules. 

1. Avoid white carbohydrates

The following foods are prohibited: All bread, rice (including brown), cereal, potatoes, pasta, tortillas, fried food with bread. If you avoid these foods and anything white, you’ll be safe. The advice is: Don’t eat white stuff unless you want to get fatter

2 Eat the same few meals over and over again

There are about 50,000 products in your typical supermarket. And the vast majority is going to make you fat. We want to simply select the ones that are going to help you towards your goals. Mix and match from the following list.

Main proteins

• Egg whites or organic eggs
• Chicken breast or thigh
• Beef
• Fish
• Pork

Legumes

• Lentils
• Black beans
• Borlotti beans
• Red beans
• Soya beans

Supplementary vegetables

• Spinach
• Mixed vegetables (including broccoli, cauliflower or any cruciferous vegetable)
• Asparagus
• Peas
• Green beans

You can eat as much as you like of these items but keep it simple. Pick 3 – 4 meals and repeat them. If you’re ordering Mexican and it has rice, just swap it with vegetables. If you’re ordering steak chips and salad, swap the chips for Veg. All it will cost is about 3 bucks and you can consider it your six pack tax.

3. Don’t drink calories

You should drink as much water as you possibly can. You can also get into the unsweetened tea, black coffee or low calorie vegetables as you like. But do not drink milk, soft drinks or fruit juice. 

4. Don’t eat fruit

Turns out I’ve (Jonesy) followed this rule my whole life. I hate fruit. So I was glad to hear that it is one of the hidden contributors to making us fat. How much fruit did your ancestor from Europe eat 500 years ago? Think they had Melbourne oranges in June? Not a chance.

5. Take one day off per week

This is the best part of the diet. You’re allowed to go nuts for one day of the week where you eat whatever you’d like. Whatever your vice is; double decker burgers with triple bacon, Tim Tams dipped in Nutella and dunked in Milo. Whatever floats your boat.

Make yourself a little sick each Saturday so you don’t want to look at junk the rest of the week. Paradoxically, dramatically spiking caloric intake in this way once per week increases fat loss by ensuring that your metabolic rate doesn’t downshift, from extended caloric restriction. That’s right, eating pure crap can help you lose fat.

That’s all to it!  Followed to the letter, it’s never failed. You’ll lose fat, put on muscle and improve your body composition.