I've just read the Four-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss. It seems on the face of it like ridiculously valuable material, if true - like what the completed version of Michael Vassar's proposed reboot of dietary science would look like at the finish point if dieting turned out to be more susceptible to Munchkinism than in my wildest dreams. Ferriss also talks the rationalist talk quite well in this book, much more so than in Four-Hour Workweek; he cites the experiments and occasionally says things like "I spent a lot of money on this and I expected it to work and it didn't work at all" or "I tried this and it seemed to work and I have no idea why it worked and I think it was probably a placebo effect."
Does the LessWrong hivemind have an opinion about 4HB? Has anyone tried it and found that it doesn't work, or that it does work, or that it works but not as well as Ferriss thinks it should work?
I read 4HB. It is valuable, even if some of the methods won't get people the same results he had.
If the options are "status quo" or "give Slow Carb a shot," I vote Slow Carb.
If other options are on the table, or if Slow Carb fails you, I vote for
I've lost a good bit of weight within those three guidelines (added IF recently for even more health benefit), but YMMV.
And if you don't already, use thedailyplate or fitday or a similar service to track calories and nutrient ratios for dietary self-experimentation. Can't analyze the data if you don't track it.
Best of luck
Archevore website is defunct, but I found an archived copy here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110315144025/http://www.paleonu.com/get-started