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

crapulous: sick from, or marked by, excessive drinking.

Excessive drinking is not a problem I have to cope with as I am abstinent of alcohol consumption since new year’s day 2007. I occasionally consume alcohol as a byproduct of what I eat but never explicitly consume alcohol for the sense of enjoyment.

While I can understand that there are alcoholic beverages that have good taste, I have yet to understand all the people that find enjoyment in drinking them into a delirious state of mind, where they lose control over their body and mind. I experience this state as shameful, being an outside on virtually every party I attend.

As a student, drinking is something I am confronted with regularly. My fellow students tend to celebrate their efforts with the consumption of beer (or other alcoholic beverages), especially so when the semester is over. I rarely attend these celebrations but every time I do I experience some distinct patterns:

• I start to lose grip to the community from the point I declare not to drink alcohol this evening. While they accept my decision, I am pushed outwards the community informally.
• The individual rarely is keen on consuming more than is good for him but in groups, people tend to exceed this limit. They push each other farther and continue drinking even if they already feel horrendous.
• The state of total drunkenness is socially accepted while staying sober is perceived critically.

One of my fellows once told me that while it is not remotely a problem that I stay sober during these parties, that alcohol is considered a social drug and it melts the ice between people. They somehow create a connection between themselves by means of alcohol consumption. While connecting to other people is a good thing to do, I have yet to understand why a medium like alcohol (that alters sensory perception) is needed to accomplish this goal. I guess that alcohol lowers the barrier to talk to each other and thereby loosens the individual’s tongue – so that connections can be formed at last. Still, this is more a social epidemic that needs treatment on a behavioral level than a valid reason to (mis)use alcohol.

Alcohol consumption in moderation is not a problem. Small amounts of alcohol even increase the rate of resorption of nutrients from food so it is safe to say that alcohol is not always a bad thing. It gives you a warm feeling in cold times – northern tribes knew this all along and made use of it. The dosage is the key – whether it is a gift or a poison.

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Another meaning of crapulous is extremity in food consumption (drinking and eating) and therefore extends beyond the realm of alcohol consumption alone in terms of meaning. There are some interesting thoughts on this, I want to elaborate on.

In David Wolfe’s book “The Sunfood Diet Success System” he wrote about the ‘elementary principle’ (in my German version of the book: “Elementargesetz”): The less you eat, the less you will need. The more you eat, the more your body will crave for food.

This is interesting and probably the reason why fasting can work out. During fasting people experience sensations of starvation only during the first few days, with decreasing intensity. Thereafter their body already has adapted to the circumstance that he is fed no food and the whole biological chemistry within the body is starting to recycle what the body storages have to offer (fatty acids and amino acids, vitamins and minerals in essence) and to excrete what is superfluous – a process of cleansing.

While there are little claims that life is possible without the consumption of food in any form (even water) (which would be the domain of people living off light and love), it somehow is reasonable that digestive stress (a byproduct of food consumption) is a key element in the aging of our body. This would extend the equation to: The less you eat, the less you need to sustain your physical form the longer you live. The more you eat, the more you need to sustain your physical form the shorter you live. In conclusion, it would work out in a ‘fixed amount’ of food-based energy the body is able to metabolize within its lifespan and the faster you approach this amount, the shorter you will live. However, there are no scientific trials testing this hypothesis.

Spiritual masters have been known for millennia to have the ability to sustain their physical appearance without being dependent on food consumption. Jesus meditated in the desert and stayed abstinent from food and numerous Indian saints have demonstrated similar behavior. It somehow is an attribute of spiritually enlightened people to abstain from food and rest – the higher your level of consciousness, the less the taste for physical food and the less the need for physical rest. Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krsna movement, was known only to rest in a meditative state for a few hours during night – from which he could be awakened anytime without depriving him from rest.

This leads me to the conclusion that food and drinking is something that determines the thickness of the bond that connects us with our physical world. Eating in extremity limits the spiritual development we undergo and vice versa. But still, every athlete has to eat to sustain his performance. Athletics too are an immensely physical endeavor, devoid of spiritual content. It is a step into the right direction to start eating the right things and the right amounts and abstain from gluttony.

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While eating less is highly spiritual, eating much can be very enjoyable in terms of physical senses. I am well-known for eating an awful lot but eating in a low frequency – normally only one big meal per day, loosely following the principles of the Warrior Diet, which gives the opportunity to experience both the state of satiety and hunger. Both states are interesting experiences – and consuming food becomes somehow ritualistic after a prolonged fasting period.

In addition, I normally do a prayer prior to eating a meal. It heightens my senses and makes me aware that this meal is – too – a part of divine creation. I thereafter consume it with greater respect of what had to perish to nourish me now, may it be a plant or an animal. Eating consciously is a great experience that I highly recommend. Food has never tasted better – in the Hare Krsna movement, this food is called Prasadam – Krsna’s mercy – they say that it is like nectar that cleanses the human soul. While you might find this description exaggerated, I can understand their words and share their opinion in this respect.

For experimentation I recommend the following:

• Try out a fasting-feasting meal cycle like the Warrior Diet prescribes and consciously experience hunger and satiety
• Try out serving yourself smaller dishes and eat as slowly and conscious as you can
• Do a prayer to a higher entity that you feel connected to prior to eating. Show gratefulness that you are allowed to consume this meal.

Do this trials and record your experiences. Probably you want to post them in comments – I would love to read them

Have fun doing this!

In love for life
Simon

P.S.: As a conclusion, here are examples of real extremity in food consumption:


Natusko “Gal” Sone really is extreme – unbelievable.