Day Twenty Nine - Exercise & Undereating

How many days was I supposed to do this, 30 days, one month? Well, Happy St. Paddy's! I was up coughing and congested all night last night but managed to get to the gym this morning. I feel better after working out even when I'm sick so I make a point of doing that. I had a very good workout, moved up in weight on everything and felt pretty good about it. Deadlifted 300 pounds for the first time evah, so that was nice and that was after squats. I'd like to be able to do twice my bodyweight 360 pounds doesn't seem that far off for deadlifts but every pound feels heavier when you get up there. One thing's for certain, there's no need to worry about muscle loss on the Warrior Diet, at least not if you're an amateur. Eat the right foods and you'll be fine. Although this morning I did have some walnuts and some apple/raisin/couscous salad for breakfast as an experiment and I felt that was a pretty good thing to do. I don't normally eat breakfast at all but when I did before trying the Warrior Diet, it was a Pop-Tart or Granola bar, something with a lot of sugar and probably very high Glycemic Index. Even with the banana I'll have later and the post-workout protein shake it'll still be less than 600 calories during the undereating phase.

I feel bad that it wasn't a proper experiment in that I bailed out on the losing fat portion of the diet somewhat. I'm a little curious to see what would have happened had I continued how I started the first week, which resulted in the 6 pound weight loss. But I got scared that maybe a lot of that was muscle and it didn't make sense to sacrifice muscle with fat loss in the middle of winter. I think it might be a good idea to try that in a month or so before summer comes.

I guess I still need to take some final measurements and probably post some final photos. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I won't look as ripped as in the first week photo (certainly not in the midsection), but I may have added more muscle. I haven't made measurements in a while and with being sick my weight/bodyfat readings are all over the place. I'll try to post something this week sometime.

Will I continue? Probably not as strict a undereating/overeating dichotomy. I think mostly what I learned is to control the carb crash that I really didn't think I was experiencing. I touted many times that carbs don't effect me when it's apparent to me now that garbage carbs do. They're responsible for poor morning energy and afternoon sleepies. At least that's what I figured out because I suffered from none of that on the Warrior Diet. I also enjoyed not having to eat lunch or prepare something to take with me. It was very freeing to know that I can go 20+ hours without eating and feel nothing but increased energy and focus. It's funny now to hear people say at like 1:00 P.M. "OMG, I'm so hungry, I haven't had anything since breakfast." Really? Do you think you'll survive? I'm no conspiracy theorist but it certainly seems better for the food industry to keep you eating 4-5 times a day rather than once. Yeah, you may eat the same amount but on the Warrior Diet, I find I like wholesome food that I can buy in bulk a lot better. If you don't eat for 20 hours, when you final get to it, you don't want potato chips. You want a whole chicken, avocados, apples, nuts, bulk steel cut oatmeal, carrots, err, I need to stop, making myself hungry. That was the best part of the Warrior Diet, re-learning the delicate flavors of natural food. Eating processed food blows out all your taste buds making fruits and vegetable sugar bland and unflavorful. Try it yourself, take a bite of apple then eat a fruit-roll-up, then take another bite of apple. The second bite will probably taste like bland mush.

I'll probably post occasionally in the meantime, but not 3-4 times a day anymore, that gets old quick. Hopefully what I've put up here can inform others thinking about trying the diet. I'll still monitor and try to answer any questions. There's only one way to know if something will work for you.