The 4-Hour Body: The Four Horsemen of Fat-Loss and the Ice Age
Tim Ferriss’s dad was standing outside a BBQ restaurant in San Jose when a homeless man walked up and said: “You know how I lost all my weight? More than 100 pounds? Garlic. Clove after clove.”
And that’s how garlic became the final piece of a supplement stack Tim had been building for two years.
Chapter 10: The PAGG Stack
Before PAGG, Tim used the ECA stack - ephedrine, caffeine, and aspirin. It worked great for fat loss. It also nearly destroyed his health. Withdrawal headaches. Sinus infections so bad that a Stanford specialist looked at his MRI and immediately asked about stimulant use. His sinal cavities were completely blocked.
So he needed something different. Something that didn’t rely on stimulants.
After years of testing, he landed on PAGG:
- P - Policosanol: 20-25 mg
- A - Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA): 100-300 mg
- G - Green tea flavanols (EGCG): 325 mg
- G - Garlic extract: 200 mg
Here’s what each one does and why it matters.
Policosanol
An extract from plant waxes, usually sugar cane. Tim originally tried it for cholesterol. During a four-week experiment, he dropped total cholesterol from 222 to 147. The surprise was unintended fat loss.
Research on policosanol and cholesterol is mixed. But Tim found that 23 mg per day before bed produced better fat loss than the other three supplements alone. You only take it once per day, before bed, because your body produces most cholesterol between midnight and 4 AM.
Alpha-Lipoic Acid (ALA)
ALA is an antioxidant first tested in the 1970s for liver disease. It reversed the condition in 75 out of 79 patients. Very low toxicity - the PAGG protocol uses 300-900 mg total per day, well within safe limits.
For fat loss, ALA recruits GLUT-4 transporters to muscle cells. In plain language: it helps your muscles absorb more calories. More going to muscle means fewer going to fat storage. A 2009 study showed rats given ALA stored carbs as muscle glycogen instead of converting them to fat.
ALA helps you store carbs in muscle, not in your belly.
Green Tea Flavanols (EGCG)
EGCG is the active compound in green tea. Tim recommends decaffeinated extract pills, not actual tea. Drinking enough tea to hit the target dose would mean way too much caffeine.
EGCG does two interesting things. First, like ALA, it recruits GLUT-4 to muscle cells. But it also blocks GLUT-4 in fat cells. Carbs get pushed toward muscle and away from fat.
Second - EGCG may cause fat cells to self-destruct. Normally when you lose weight, fat cells just shrink. They don’t disappear. That’s why people regain weight so easily. If EGCG actually kills some of those cells, that’s a big deal for keeping weight off.
The effective dose hockey-sticks between 900 and 1,100 mg per day. Below that, results are mild.
Garlic Extract (Allicin)
The final piece. One test subject - a semi-professional athlete at 9% bodyfat - lost 6 pounds of fat in a single week after adding garlic.
The science is confusing. Allicin has almost zero bioavailability after extraction. But results were real. Tim thinks the actual active ingredient might be S-Allyl cysteine, a precursor with near-100% oral bioavailability. His recommendation: aged garlic extract with high allicin potential. Don’t try eating raw cloves. Your stomach will not thank you.
The Dosing Schedule
Take AGG (no policosanol) before breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Take the full PAGG before bed. Six days a week. One day off per week, one week off every two months. That week off is not optional.
Also important: take B-complex vitamins while using PAGG. And if you’re on blood thinners, thyroid meds, or anti-anxiety drugs, talk to your doctor first.
Chapter 11: Ice Age
This chapter starts with a question: how does Michael Phelps eat 12,000 calories a day?
Ray Cronise - a NASA material scientist for 15 years - heard that number and it didn’t add up. Even competitive swimming burns about 860 calories per hour. Phelps would need 10+ hours of continuous butterfly daily to burn that much. Not possible.
Then Ray figured it out. Water is 24 times more thermally conductive than air. Phelps spends 3-4 hours per day in water. His body constantly loses heat to the pool. That heat loss burns massive calories.
Ray’s Experiment
Ray was 209 pounds and losing about 1.48 pounds of fat per week on a standard diet and exercise plan. Good, but slow.
He added cold exposure: ice water in the morning, shiver walks in winter wearing just a T-shirt, sleeping without covers. In six weeks he lost 28.6 pounds of fat - an average of 4.77 pounds per week. That’s more than three times his previous rate. 61% more total fat lost in half the time.
Why Cold Works (Beyond Just Losing Heat)
The math still didn’t quite work out, though. Simple heat loss from cold exposure couldn’t account for all the extra fat burned. Something else was happening.
Two things, actually.
Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT). White fat (WAT) is storage. Brown fat (BAT) is different - it’s packed with mitochondria and burns calories as heat. Cold activates BAT. Cold might even convert white fat to brown fat. In 1999, scientists thought adults barely had any BAT. Better imaging later proved them wrong - adults have it, especially in the neck and upper chest.
Adiponectin. A hormone secreted by fat cells that increases fat burning and glucose uptake by muscles. Cold exposure seems to boost adiponectin, which could explain why Ray also gained muscle during his cold experiment.
Four Ways to Use Cold
Tim tested two protocols and distilled everything into four options:
Ice pack on the neck - 20-30 minutes in the evening. Lean back against it while watching TV or reading. This targets the area where adults have the most BAT. About 60% as effective as ice baths, with zero suffering.
Ice water in the morning - At least 500 ml of ice water on an empty stomach right after waking. Studies show this increases resting metabolic rate 24-30% for about an hour. Eat breakfast 20-30 minutes later.
Cold showers - 5-10 minutes before breakfast or bed. Start warm for 1-2 minutes, then go full cold. Focus the cold water on the back of your neck and upper back. It wakes you up like nothing else. Also, cold showers have been shown to work as a treatment for depression.
Ice baths - 20 minutes with two ten-pound bags of ice. First 10 minutes legs only, then submerge to the neck. Brutal but effective. Tim calls it the “Guantanamo Bay bath.” Optionally take cayenne pepper 30 minutes before - not on an empty stomach.
The Missing Variable
The biggest insight here: the fitness world forgot about heat when talking about thermodynamics. Everyone says “calories in minus calories out.” But they only count exercise as “calories out.” They ignore thermal load completely.
Climbers on Everest eat lard and sticks of butter and still lose 25 pounds per attempt. The climbing alone can’t explain a 5,000-calorie daily deficit. The cold does the rest.
Your body is an open system. It exchanges energy as work, heat, and matter. The heat part was being overlooked by everyone.
Cold exposure won’t replace diet or exercise. But it’s a multiplier that most people ignore entirely.
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This is part of my 4-Hour Body retelling series. New posts every Saturday.