You know, I try to search the internet for other people's experiences on the Warrior Diet and there's a wide range, like everything else I guess. That's why when people ask my advice, I always tell them what I like to do and then explain that nothing works for everyone. That's why you need to try different things. Find what works for you. If you love carbs and eating low carbs makes you feel miserable, then it's probably not a long-term solution for you. You'll eat a pizza one night and you'll gain 20 pounds of fat over the next 3 months.
The top complaints about the Warrior Diet include: constantly hungry, no energy for training (or fear of same), and getting sick eating so much in 4 hours.
Constantly Hungry - Nope, not even close for me. I rarely even think about food during the day. The only effect I experience during the day might be a slight signal from my stomach requesting a little bit of something to tide me over. That's usually a handful of berries, a banana, a protein shake on workout days, etc. I rarely eat over 400 calories during the day. Many days I eat nothing at all.
No Energy for Workout - I feared this, especially working out in the morning. How could I expect to do so on an empty stomach? Well, it hasn't been a factor for me. I actually have more energy in the morning if I don't eat. Today I lifted weights for an hour and 20 minutes and I bested my previous workouts in either weight or reps completed. Then afterwards, just for the heck of it I did weighted dips AND pull-ups in a super-set fashion. Doing HIIT sprinting feels a bit different but it's not a lack of energy. There's almost a feeling that the body is burning a fuel that it's not used to burning. It feels sort of like being in the "zone". There's a good interview with Ori over at T-Nation. Ori explains:
T: But to be a true warrior — someone who needs to endure physical hardship, or even an athlete who needs to compete — you need some sort of glycogen storage, right? And that's hard to do when you eat only once a day.
OH: You're reaching a very important point. You've got to eat in such a way that you're capable of fighting for two hours straight, or wrestling or marching for hours on end, or being without food, or whatever. When I was a Navy SEAL(* - ed.), that's what we trained to do. By not eating, we learned to stretch our glycogen reserves. Those who train on empty, more and more and more, will find out that they have more and more glycogen reserve ability in their muscles and liver. The last time I looked up the research — I think it was a year ago — sedentary persons with what was thought to be about 200 or 300 calories of available glycogen reserve could stretch it up to 2,000-3,000. Some people even had 5,000 calories of glycogen reserve. There's a whole area of science about the situation of a body under glycogen depletion, and it's so relative. But one thing's for sure, as long as you are glycogen depleted — what I call fasting — your insulin sensitivity gets higher and higher, as does your protein efficiency. Sometimes, it goes 30-50% higher. That means that, after fasting, your protein efficiency could be 30-50% higher. You can eat less than 30% and still digest as much protein.
* = Apparently Ori wasn't a U.S. Navy Seal as claimed in the interview, but a special-ops in the Israeli army or something like that. Of course people are upset about that, and rightly so, that's pretty lame if he claims that. I've said it before, there's a lot about Ori and the Warrior Diet that I find to be B.S. but I don't throw the wheat out with the chaff.
Can't Eat So Much at Once - I eat until I don't want to eat anymore. Over four hours it's not that difficult. I often finish up in 3 and have a little dessert before bed. I don't feel sick at all, I feel satisfied. I also rarely crave junk food. When I get home, I immediately start putting my salad together and that's REALLY what I want to eat, it's so good. I sometimes add avocados. I've got this great olive oil and Pomegranate-Infused Red Wine Vinegar that I use as a dressing. The salad is as big as a football and it's delicious. You know how many times I've come home from work and put a salad together for myself before I started this diet? How about never. Of course, I've always been a big eater. I guess that's why it works for me.
So there you have it. If you're going to ask me if the Warrior Diet will work for you, well, I can't answer that. You might be hungry all the time, you might have zero energy for working out and you might not be able to eat so much in 4 hours. What can I say? Find another diet.
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