There are some ideas that sound foolish first and need some time and a rise in awareness to be understood and appreciated. The principles of what is called “The Warrior Diet” can be filed under this category. The first time I heard and read about this way of eating and living, I closed my ears and called it rubbish. The second time I thought about it, I already had bought a book about it. The third time I considered it, I was already practicing it. And up to now, I did not stop to do so.

What is The Warrior Diet?

The Warrior Diet is a way of eating and living that is different from what we know from mainstream living. The author of the book “The Warrior Diet”, Ori Hofmekler, took a good look at ancient cultures and contemporary tribes and studied their approach to dieting, exercising and lifestyle. The lessons that he could learn from his observations are condensed into his book, with a strong emphasis on the nutrition part (hence the ‘diet’ in the book’s title).

This review will incorporate official recommendations as well as personal additions that have begun to dawn on me.

The Warrior Diet Eating Cycle

The Warrior Diet eating cycle is the central element of this diet and the factor that distinguishes it from other diets. While regular diets are keen on changing on either how much or what to eat, The Warrior Diet is much about the question when to eat.

On the Warrior Diet, the human body goes through periods of fasting and feasting, mimicking the primal circumstance of the hunter that had to survive without steady supplies (fasting) and gorged on his prey upon successful hunt (feasting). This is accomplished by incorporating two phases:

• The undereating phase, where you eat less than normal (down to zero), lasting 20-21 hours of the day.
• The overeating phase, where you eat significantly more than normal (up to satiety), lasting 3-4 hours of the day (usually at the end of the day).

The Undereating Phase

During this phase, you are entitled to fast. This is the time, in which your body digests your feast meal and draws upon the energy storages it has. It is occupied expending energy and has no energy to lose for digestion, which can draw up to 40% of the total energy available. Furthermore, the body detoxifies during this phase and tries to cleanse itself from the metabolic junk that meals bring with them. The foods consumed during the undereating phase are intended to aid the detoxification process, keep blood sugar levels stable and enrich the body’s enzyme pool to strengthen the immune system.

Foods that are okay during this phase are lean and easily digestible proteins (preferably dairy or eggs), raw vegetables (abstain from salads, they are hard to digest and sedative) and fruits (with low fat content). Occasionally, a handful of (ideally raw) nuts is okay, but not recommended. Ori recommends vegetable juices for their high mineral, vitamin and nutrient content – I can agree although I do not use them. Fruit juices are far from ideal as they critically influence your blood sugar levels.

To me, the optimum solution for the undereating phase has become to eat small portions of cottage cheese or yogurt (quark, here in Austria, which can be stirred to creamy consistence) with fruit (apple or peach, berries are very good too), seasoned with a teaspoon of bee pollen and some cinnamon. The smaller the portions, the better. You tax the digestive system less by eating less at a time. Four small meals is therefore better than two bigger ones.

The Overeating Phase

After the work of the day is done, time has come for the big feast of the day. The body is primed for food consumption and will have better ability to digest more of the food you ingest.

Ori recommends starting the Overeating Phase with a salad, consisting of as many different tastes and textures as possible. The salad enriches the body with enzymes that help digestion and helps against cravings – it diminishes the possibility of eating too much afterwards.

The first course thereafter are steamed vegetables and protein plus fat sources. Eat as much as you like of these foods until you are satisfied. Only if you are hungry afterwards, choose on carbohydrates to finish off the meal. Ori recommends this to prime the body to use fats as its primary fuel but also talks about cycling the main fuels – days of high fat content should be alternated with days of relatively high carbohydrate content, ideally in form of whole grains and legumes.

I personally skip the salad and concentrate on the main course which normally consists of vegetables and protein plus fat sources like aged cheese, whole eggs or meats (preferably fish) and do well on this regimen. Occasionally, I eat high-carbohydrate meals, especially when eating with my wonderful girlfriend. She cooks like a goddess. Good that the Warrior Diet is not too strict on these regulations You might as well eat what you want to – without looking at the macronutrient content – but keep aware that the quality of the food determines the quality of your well-being afterwards.

The Warrior Diet and Athletics

Ori Hofmekler looked back not only on the general population of ancient cultures but more specific on the warrior castes of the cultures – so his research has a lot in common with athletics. He wrote about how there are not enough elite athletes to be found on this planet now to row a battleship with the speed and over the distance slaves have rowed it back then – a mark to describe the decay of athletic performance over centuries.

The Warrior Diet is designed to maximize the athletic performance by minimizing digestive stress and priming the body to go into a fight-like state, hormonally. Working out on an empty stomach is one of the key elements for a optimum performance as Ori Hofmekler describes it – workouts are therefore situated in the undereating phase, where the energy output is the central biological mechanism. Replenishing the energy storages is the duty of the overeating phase.

Competitive athletes know that the nutrition around the athletic performance is important to their progression and regeneration and Ori Hofmekler does not miss out on this topic. While he does not write too much about it in his second book, “The Warrior Diet” (the first one was “The Anti-Estrogenic Diet”, wherein he talks about the epidemic ramifications of our estrogen-loaded environment), he goes more into detail about this in his third book “Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat”, wherein he writes about the biochemical background of the mechanisms, that are the foundation of the Warrior Diet. While pre-workout nutrition is reduced to a minimum (to alleviate digestive stress, as explained), post-workout nutrition is described as essential for good regeneration. Ideally, it consists of a 2:1 ratio of protein:carbohydrates, in this case the simple ones. Austrian climber Jürgen Reis, who wrote four books up to date about training and nutrition and is an adamant follower of the Warrior Diet principles, recommended an amount of 24g of protein and 16g of carbohydrates for post-workout nutrition. This number has to be adapted to personal requirements. One hour after the first post-workout meal, it is reasonable to add another post-workout meal, a magnitude smaller than the first one.

I personally do not use post-workout nutrition, because my workouts normally are the last thing I do before I start the overeating phase – this is my post-workout meal in this respect. If I work out during the day, I resort to yogurt, some bee pollen, cinnamon and a banana for the simple carbohydrates. This normally is just perfect as a replenishing meal.

Insulin Stability

Gary Taubes wrote about the role of insulin in nutrition and body composition extensively in his seminal book “Good Calories, Bad Calories”. Insulin is the strongest anabolic hormone and therefore the root of all tissue growth. While the athlete wants to have a decent rate in muscular growth, the growth of adipose tissue is heightened in particular by the (over)secretion of insulin. Keeping the insulin level low therefore is essential to give the body the chance to utilize his fat storages for energy output.

The Warrior Diet eating cycle helps stabilizing the insulin levels. During the undereating phase, insulin is low throughout. Energy stores are used as fuel for activity. The dominating hormones in this phase are glucagon (raising blood sugar levels) and adrenaline (stress hormone), priming the body to expend energy rather than storing it. The overeating phase in return triggers the anabolic switch hard – insulin sensitivity is at peak levels and the body is able to utilize the food for growth ideally.

This function helps to alleviate problems like type 2 diabetes mellitus, obesity and metabolic syndrome which correlate with problems with insulin secretion. To read more about this, I recommend reading Gary Taubes’ book, he does a great job reviewing the scientific side of the topic.

The Warrior Diet and Weight Loss

Like described above, insulin stability is a key factor to weight loss in general. If following the Warrior Diet principles, the individual should be able to stabilize its insulin levels and trigger the switch to start losing the excess weight. With the Warrior Diet eating cycle, the metabolism is accelerated, as the big meals in the evenings fire up the metabolism at a pace that the fasting phase cannot fully diminish.

Weight loss is not the primary goal of the Warrior Diet, rather a byproduct. I have experienced a few kilograms of weight loss since starting out with the Warrior Diet, but am not representative as a subject, as my weight was already relatively low (75 kg at 184 cm). I believe that the Warrior Diet helps the body to normalize its body weight down (or up) to a point that is ideal.

The Warrior Lifestyle

A major point Ori points out in his book is the decay of the warrior instincts in our civilization. People have become scavengers that eat whatever they are presented rather than consciously choosing what is good for them and only these foods only. This leads further to the way people live their live – they act like dead fish and swim with the stream, devoid of individuality.

Ori’s writing is an appeal to start acting conscious again – making good judgments what to do, what to eat and with whom to share your time. This is what a warrior is about – he fights not only to survive but to survive the best he can while defending his values and ideals. It is a plea not to succumb to common wisdom and start to live life again with a distinct sense of freedom.

I can support Ori’s vision of a ‘warrior spirit’ that permeates everything a man does. In respect of nutrition, this means consciously choosing what to eat. Most choices we have during the day are below ideal and should therefore be avoided. On a regular diet, man is implied to eat thrice a day and has to succumb to the offers he is made through the day. The search for food becomes an endeavor that leads people to consume what does them no good. Furthermore, people nowadays often have problems sustaining a time span of as small as three hours between meals – they seem to hunger for food all day and have lost the feeling for a sensation of hunger that is essential for good digestion and taste of food. This is a scavenger’s behavior. The warrior has no problem sustaining the whole day without food supplies and is eager to accomplish what he has planned. The warrior has learned to endure hunger and makes hunger his ally rather than his enemy. The feast afterwards is thousandfold more rewarding than any scavenger’s meal can even be.

I personally have learned to endure hunger over longer periods and remember days that have gone by without any food consumed. This is mere adaption – every person is able to do this. During daytime, I have better things to do than think about where to get food from next. I can fully concentrate on what is to do and have the freedom to abstain from food. I experience a sense of freedom by doing so – Ori’s vision holds true for me.

The Warrior Diet and Social Life

If you swim against the mainstream you should expect some resistance. Eating with the Warrior Diet eating cycle is sure to gain you numerous questions on why you are skipping breakfast and lunch and some people will even feel threated by your behavior. It is not easy to convince people that what you are doing is okay, fine for your physical health and rooted in human history.

From my own experience, it is a useless endeavor to convince people of the rightness of your diet. The best argument you can provide to convince your social environment is to just do it. Explain to them, why you are doing it, if they ask and do not talk about it when not necessary. Simply live the eating cycle and the benefits you gain from it. While I faced quite some resistance from my family and friends during the first few weeks, they gradually adapted to my behavior and fully accepted that this is my way of eating. Once they understood that it was fruitless to convince me of the contrary they gradually became open to the possible benefits of living this way. While none of the people in my environment has followed me on this path, the problems I faced have diminished.

The Warrior Diet Cult

Like every (semi-)popular diet, the Warrior Diet has a wide range of followers that gradually grew close to the idea, that their diet is the only truth of the universe and that is has to be followed in a religious way – straying from the ideal literally is considered blasphemy. It is hard to talk with hardliners about the possible problems of a diet and about options to optimize it further – I would go as far as to call it useless to do so. Hardliners are the people you should not follow on your path to learn new truths – they all suffer from tunneled vision when it comes to a certain subject.

Nutrition is not religion. Like I laid down in my article about a healthy attitude towards nutrition, nutrition is there to nourish you, both body and mind. Therefore, use the Warrior Diet principles like a tool, not like a dogma. There are days in life where the Warrior Diet may not be the tool to use and you can fall back to eating three meals a day anytime. I too have phases wherein I adapt to a different eating cycle before returning to the Warrior Diet eating cycle. New experiences bring you to new understanding – so be open to them. If you have the option to adopt a new eating cycle, try it out and stick to it if it serves you better than the former – if not, you can always fall back.

Always do what is best for you. There is no universal truth.

Personal Experiences

I personally did a smooth transition to the Warrior Diet in late 2007 and have been a follower of the nocturnal eating cycle ever since. With the exception of periods of a few days when I ate in other temporal cycles, the Warrior Diet was the diet of choice during the time.

Eating a diet low in carbohydrates has proven to be optimal for my bodily requirements but I have also performed well on meals high in carbohydrates. What has proven harmful are foods that influence my insulin secretion too extreme – white flour and refined sugar, to be exact. I avoid these foods most of the time. I do good on legumes and whole grain products, they seem to provide a steady stream of nutrients instead of a temporary spike. Still, fat seems to be the macronutrient that is better suited to provide long-term energy. At the same caloric amount, I get hungry on complex carbohydrates significantly earlier than on fat-protein foods. Even if you have never done it, I recommend trying out a diet cutting out all starches and sugars and rely heavily on fat-protein foods. After an adaption phase, you are likely to have good results on it.

Detoxification has been intense for me and still is. I have a direct bodily feedback on whether or not food does me good by the symptoms of detoxification on the next morning. The best mark for this is slime in the throat and a very yellowish and smelly urine secretion. If the food was okay, slime is minimized and the urine is transparent and has no scent.

During the day, I have a great feeling of lightness. With no food in my stomach, I feel that I can perform at my best with no ballast dragging me down – and normally this proves to be true. The feeling of sublime hunger has become an ally for me – it is a good feeling that makes me alert and enhances my performance. While this is mostly a psychological thing, it has immense importance for my daily life. Feeling good is the root of all productivity.

The freedom not to eat has been the greatest asset of the Warrior Diet for me. Since I do not have on the lookout for food supplies constantly, I can focus my energy on other (more important) topics. This sense of freedom is the main reason for me to stick to the Warrior Diet – I could spare the other benefits – detoxification, the light feeling and a good body composition – but never want to let go of the freedom to be independent from food for a long period of time.

In conclusion, this diet has worked out well for me and I wholeheartedly recommend it both as an eating cycle and a way of life. By becoming a warrior by design you take back control over the primary components of your life like personal environment, goals and nutrition. Living this way should be normal for a healthy individual so it is normal to be attracted by this lifestyle.

Try it out, give it a serious chance and consideration and report your experiences in comments.

Live life freely,
Simon

Growing your own vegetables is a truly worthwhile task to do. While creating your own garden is surely some effort, the harvest you will reap will make up for everything you have invested into it. While gardening itself has numerous advantages, I will stick to the advantages of homegrown vegetables in this posting as the question of what differentiates homegrown vegetables from those purchased from a grocery store (or a supermarket) is likely to arise often.

Naturality

Every vegetable and fruit you have once sown will grow naturally and therefore yield an all-natural harvest. This is as close as you can get to the natural state of every plant – a difference you will not only taste but also see – a vegetable from your garden looks different than one out of the piles at the supermarket. I will admit that they will not always look better but there are various attributes that make up for that.

Genetical modification of foods is also a topic of today’s world. With homegrown plant foods, you are on the safe side – if you do not plant genetically modified seeds, you won’t reap those either. And even if you did – there are reports of gardeners that plants tend to return to their natural state as generations of homegrown plants go by.

Security

You get what you see. A plant from your garden is always what you have sown and how you have grown it – nothing more and nothing less. Everything you buy is beyond your control – you cannot possibly say – with 100% certainty – that a plant from the supermarket pile has this or that quality or has undergone certain (chemical) treatment. It simply is not possible. So you have to rely on the goodwill on manufacturers, that will most probably not focus on providing the best crop but rather on maximizing their profits, although this matter cannot be generalized. If you ever find a chance to purchase vegetables and fruits that are of great quality, stick to that reseller – he most probably is amonst the few that focus on product quality. Homegrown foods always underlie your own quality guidelines – you determine how good or bad your plant food will be by taking measures – or letting them be (just as watering the plants, applying chemicals, etc…)

Taste

Homegrown vegetables and fruits have a taste incomparable with those purchased at virtually any place. While purchased vegetables and fruits tend to look great and are big (in comparison), the taste oftenly is shallow and a far cry of what would be possible with proper care. Homegrown vegetables and fruits normally taste great – they sucked up the minerals from the soil below and transformed them (along with sunlight and water) into the marvellous plant they are. The better taste can be traced back to the aforementioned naturality of homegrown foods – for commerical use, foods have to have the maximum size and weight, not the maximum taste – hence the focus of the food industry.

Freshness

Probably the most striking argument pro homegrown foods is the sheer freshness of the foods. Vegetables and fruits tend to lose vitamins and minerals very quickly after harvesting, as they are cut off their own nutrition sources – they increasingly lack the power to sustain homeostasis, which is necessary to keep their mineral and vitamin circulation intact. While the plant is still alive, it gradually loses its integrity – and becomes foul, because of chronic undernourishment of the foul areas – damage cannot be undone anymore. Compare the plant with a human body – we need to be perfectly alive in order to repair damage done to tissue. Tissue cut off the stream of nutrients will become dysfunctional and starts to die. Taking this into consideration, numerous plants need to be eaten as fresh as possible in order to transfer their maximum nutritional value.

Those plants, which need to become ripe before consumption (like bananas or avocados, harvested far from being ripe and riping by lying around), also show differencies in quality between homegrown and purchased. Purchased plants are much more likely to become foul in the process (instead of ripe), as they are weak. Most purchased plant foods need to be treated with chemicals to assure survival – they would not stand a chance in real nature. This is why homegrown foods are a lot sturdier. You can test this out by growing a specific plant and purchase the same plant. Put it on a table and leave it be for a few days. The purchased plant will most probably become foul at a time when the homegrown one still looks perfectly fine.

This point of criticism is only partially true for organically grown vegetables and fruits. Organic foods tend to be a lot more sturdy, as they have to grow without the support of chemicals.

Price

A major block to eating healthy is the horrendous price for vegetables and fruits in good quality. The customer nowadays normally has two options

• go with the mainstream plant foods, devoid of nutritional value and treated with chemicals, priced average
• invest substantially more money and go for better quality

Vegetables and fruits are amongst the most expensive foods hands down. Creating a meal using mostly starchy foods like potatoes or flour is a lot cheaper than serving a staple of colourful vegetables, albeit them being a lot healthier. Therefore, money is a hindrance to enhance the nutritional value of the average diet.

Growing your own vegetables and fruits promises to be a solution to this problem – at least partial. Seeds are a very cheap good and good soil is also not too expensive. Unless you are living in the center of metropolian area, there might also be some green space you can cheaply rent and use for growing your own food. Even in cities there are little gardening spaces which you can rent and use – the rent will pay off by the amount of vegetables you will be able to grow. Even if you do not manage to cover your complete palette of need, you will have saved yourself a lot of money, which you can in turn invest in better quality for the rest of the plants you have to purchase.

In winter months, glass houses are a tremendous solution – there are countless plants which will grow in every season of the year.

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In conclusion, homegrown vegetables and fruits beat their colleagues from the supermarket hands down. Even if they cost you an investment in time (and money), even if you may not manage to save even a penny while growing at home, even if you – at the end – even pay more than before – it will all be worth the quality foods you reap.

I live in a very rural area, which gives me the tremendous opportunity to use a lot of space for gardening and growing my own plants but growing plants is possible virtually anywhere. Go purchase a good book about gardening and give it a go – or even better ask contemporaries, friends and familiy members if they are – by chance – passionate gardeners. Odds are, that you will find someone.

Eat healthy, eat fresh, eat your own.

Warm regards,

Simon