Slow Carb Diet (4-Hour Body): 16 Most Common Mistakes

Tim Ferriss provides 5 rules that are necessary to be compliant with a slow carb diet. While the rules are simple, the diet itself is not necessarily “easy”. Below are some common mistakes on the slow carb diet that can slow you down on your fat loss journey. Most of them also apply to keto diets.

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Why Slow Carb?
16 Most Common Mistakes
Slow Carb vs Keto vs Low Carb

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Why is the Slow Carb Diet so Popular Anyway?

There is more than one answer to this question, but in my opinion it has become popular because it is simple and easy to follow (and because of cheat day of course!).

I have personally tried other diets in the past, but many of them were hard to follow. Some of them required unusual ingredients, others precise combinations, and others were simply unbearably boring.

The Slow Carb Diet uses the principles of the 80/20 Rule to focus on the few things that cause the highest impact.

For example, in the context of the Slow Carb Diet, having a high protein “first meal” that avoids sugar, flour, and dairy is a relatively small change that can have a huge impact on weight loss.

16 Most Common Mistakes on the Slow Carb Diet (applies to Keto also)

#1 Having carbs for breakfast rather than protein and fat

It is not uncommon for people to think they can have “healthy oatmeal” or fruit and not pay the price. This is particularly true with habitual bagel & cereal eaters. Eat a high protein breakfast – it makes a BIG difference.

#2 Not Eating Beans/Legumes

This is a very common mistake, mainly because if you are coming from a high-carb diet and go to a high-protein-low-carb diet, you will automatically eat much fewer calories.  Often times this will lead to fatigue and tiredness and you will quit.  Legumes have a lot of fiber and protein and because of this they are a “slow carb” that can offer a form of energy that will not spike your insulin levels like a refined carb.  

You don’t need beans with every meal, in fact too many beans can stall your diet, as they are fairy dense in calories. I’ve found about a cup per day to be optimal for most.  Monitor yourself and if you end up getting fatigued, up the quantity of beans in your day.

 #3 Not paying Attention to Domino Foods

Keep Domino Foods under control (foods that may easily lead to overeating) by deciding on the size of each portion in advance.  There is nothing wrong with occasional snacks of compliant foods, just keep a close eye on the size of the portions.  Domino foods include nuts, peanut butter, chickpeas, olives, etc.  Nuts are a particularly common culprit in weight loss stalls.

#4 Not Getting Enough Sleep

Sleep deprivation can lead to gaining weight because of the hormonal imbalance it causes.  The hormones leptin and ghrelin regulate your hunger, and lack of sleep can play havoc with these hormones.  In addition, lack of sleep leads to emotional instability which often leads to bad decisions regarding food.

#5 Not Drinking Enough Water

“Enough” water is based on the individual; how much you sweat, how much protein you’re eating, how much you exercise, etc. The common number cited is eight glasses a day, but that is fairly arbitrary. A more compelling guidepost would be five clear urinations a day. Sorry for the TMI.

#6 Getting Off on the Wrong Foot

You don’t have to take a college class to understand low-carb eating, but you do need to understand where hidden carbs are lurking.  Learn to read labels, focusing on two things: grams of sugar and grams of carbs.

#7 Giving Up Too Quickly

There are lots of different approaches to low-carb or slow-carb eating, and there are often missteps at first, as you try to find one that works for you, or to modify an existing one.

There is a tendency to over-react a bit when everything doesn’t go quickly or perfectly, and give up. Don’t give up. At a minimum you need 6 weeks of being totally compliant before throwing up your hands and saying it doesn’t work.

#8 Not Enough Vegetables

People tell me they get tired and fatigued eating a diet lower in carbs, and it turns out they are eating almost no vegetables or beans.  It is not an “all-protein” diet. You need the micronutrients that come from vegetables.

#9 Not Enough Fat

This can be a real problem also. Despite some effort to get out the word about healthy fats, the unscientific myths regarding the negative aspects of fat just won’t die. This leads some to attempt a low-fat version of a low-carb diet. Low fat and low carb together does not work.   Nothing will sabotage a diet faster than hunger and you will get hungry without some good fats.  

High fat and high carb doesn’t work either by the way.  Slow carb is a high-protein-moderate-fat-low-carb diet.

#10 Not Enough Fiber

Eating enough vegetables will go a long way towards ensuring you are getting enough fiber in your diet.

#11 Eating Too Much

It’s true that you don’t have to count calories on a slow-carb diet. But that doesn’t mean calories don’t count.  The great thing about slow-carb eating is that protein and fat are satiating and you don’t get as hungry as quickly as you do when eating high carb.  

Some people make the mistake, however, of thinking they can just keep eating and eating and still lose weight as long as the food is slow-carb.  

Listen to your body–eat when you are hungry, and stop when you are comfortable.  In fact, it takes about 20 minutes for your body to register “full”, so push yourself away from the table when 80% full, wait a bit and then if you are still hungry later come back for more.  Chances are you won’t be.

# 12 Lack of Planning

When you first start out on a new way of eating, you’ll run into old “‘habits” that need to be changed to new healthier ones. No longer can you mindlessly hit the drive-thru or snack on chips and dip while watching TV. This is a good thing.

Pausing to re-consider our habits is a constructive step towards making improvements in our lives (*note: read Gretchen Rubin’s “Better Than Before” book for strategies to change habits). In the case of eating, it’s important to plan ahead for a while, until our new habits come naturally.

Nothing will sabotage your goals more quickly than realizing that you’re hungry but you don’t know what to eat. You’ll reach for the most convenient thing you can find, and that is often a readily available, high carb snack.

#13 Getting into a Rut

Tim Ferriss talks about eating the same thing over and over as a strategy (actually it’s one of his 5 rules) for weight loss.  This works well for a while, but eventually people get bored and start looking for variety. 

This way of eating should be viewed as a lifestyle change rather than a diet and eating the same things over and over can help you achieve your weight loss goals, but not necessarily “maintain” them unless you add variety to your diet. 

A varied diet is also better nutritionally.  Basically, what helps here the most is learn to cook.  Most dishes can be modified to decrease carbs.

#14 Problem Ingredients in “Low-Carb” Packaged Foods

Many protein bars and many “health drinks” are loaded with sugar and carbs.  Learn to read labels and give a cautious look towards products that talk about “net carbs” or “impact carbs”.  Be wary of “sugar free” products if they have things like maltitol in them (a sugar replacement that is just as bad as sugar).

#15 Carb Creep

Set a personal carb limit that works for you and if the scale starts to creep up more than 3 pounds, pay attention.  Pay attention to the candy jar at work, to the “just a little sugar in my coffee”, to the “well, just this little bit can’t hurt” self-talk.  Carb creep is subtle and can become a vicious cycle.  If you notice carb creep, start over for a few days to a week with the strict protocol.

#16  No Exercise

While you don’t really need to exercise to lose weight at the beginning of the diet, at some point you will need to build some muscle to keep your metabolism high and maintain the weight loss.  

Resistance training of some sort, coupled with some high intensity interval training is the quickest way to build muscle and lose weight.  There are many different forms of this type of exercise.  Choose something that fits your lifestyle and that you can stick with in the long run….just make sure a part of your regime includes some resistance or strength exercises.

If you have a YMCA near you, they offer a huge range of resistance, cardio and mobility classes. What I like about their classes is that many of them have been standardized by long term professionals and then given to the various instructors to learn and incorporate. You don’t have to rely on the whims or belief systems of the different trainers (they tend to vary a lot and can be quite dogmatic).

Slow Carb vs Keto vs Low Carb

Many of these mistakes on the slow carb diet actually apply to most of the low carb approaches that are currently popular. If you are not sure which type of diet approach is best for you, check out this summary of keto vs slow carb vs low carb to help you decide.