Hey Y’all…
I’m wonderin who’s tried the warrior diet. I’ve searched the archives and it looks like a fairly mixed opinion, which had a lot of people speculating results they would get had they tried it, but there were also a ton of people saying they really like it.
I know it’s totally 100% opposite what I’ve been doing (8 hours of fasting would make me the most crabby kid on earth).
So what is all y’alls opinion on it?
This mostly just a bump…but i saw the book at B&N and started to read it. Once i realized it was basically just one meal a day i blew it off because its contrary to all i know. If there is research to back it up i would love to read it, as well as hear other peoples opinions on it.
Will
i did the warrior diet for years without even knowing it was a diet. actually i did far less than the pavel’s idea of the diet. he says to eat like 3 meals in 3 hours, i only did one. i ate about 1-3000 cals in one meal. it was also low protein, high carb.
when i started lifting i made incredible gains. i didn’t eat all day, would workout either morning or night, then eat potatoes or yakisoba or chicken or hummus around 10 at night. in about four months of progressive overload my stength nearly doubled and i gained about 10-20 pounds of muscle (i dont know exact muscle gain because i just came off anti-depressants which made me gain weight).
on the other hand, all my life (before injury) i experienced athletic superiority in any sport i played. chances are i have monsterous genes, but who knows?
my advice: dont try it unless you want to…think about that statement.
Hey CU,
I have not read the book, but supposedly there is research to back it up. If you look up things like calorie restriction and adequate or optimum nutrition you should find some links. Dr. Roy Walford has done lots of research on calorie restriction. He has not applied it to athletic (or at leasts very intense athletics) training.
Some of his recipes are definitely different.
My wife and I did follow it for a while (stopped mainly because it didn’t fit family lifestyle right now 3 kids) we both had strength gain and good amount of fat lost unsure if gain or loss of muscle I think sl. gain.
The diet is not just one meal though it is three meals if needed spaced apart by about 2 hours if I remember correctly. My wife dropped about 48 pounds post pregnancy and I dropped about 25 pounds.
My 2 cents HTH,
Peace,
T-Ren
Ori Hofmekler’s Warrior diet is based on how humans tradionally ate. They would get up, hunt all day, then feast at night. His theory is that during the day, your sympathetic nervous system is functioning (hunting, fighting, trekking) so you have heightened awareness. Eating relaxes you; so you don’t eat until before sleeping. One giant meal per day, from like 6pm until sleeping.
The diet, though, is not for many. He says to not use it if you workout in the AM; you’re suppose to gorge after you workout. And, if you workout in the PM (say, 4 - 5 pm) you gorge afterward – okay if your single but not if you have family. That was the hard part for me because your family has other activities.
Binge at night. Genius. And I bet that workout done without eating anything since the night before is REAL productive. And how are you expected to get adequate daily protein in one meal?
The diet is a joke. T-Nation writers have condemmed it too.
I did this diet when I wrestled in HS. I would cut about 20 lbs in 4 days over the weekend gain it back on this diet and I was eating i say 4000 calories right after practice while cutting the weight. While doing this I felt like crap my strength would go down I would feel paranoid all day and lethargic looking but my endurance was rediculous on this diet and as soon as i ate about an hour later i felt as strong as an ox. Thats my experience with it.
But my recommendation don’t do this diet if you are trying to gain muscle, it ain’t gonna happen but your endurance might go up.
I think it’s the best cutting diet I’ve ever tried - bar none. There is one “but”. You have to use steroids. But it works like a charm.
Ask yourself one thing, “How many REAL athletes do you see following a diet remotely like this?” By real athletes, I don’t mean DD zealots who believe everything that is put into print from DD Publications, BUT rather, REAL athletes. I would be willing to bet NONE. The diet is hype. I was stupid enough to buy the book when I thought DD products were quality and not hype. In my experience, some of Pavel’s stuff is good, but a lot of it is just rehashed in some different way. The price tags on DD stuff is absolutely ridiculous. Especially when you can go find most of Pavel’s stuff in older texts, like Science and Practice of Strength Training, for a better price. It just doesn’t have all the funny “comrade this and that” and " the party is always right" nonsense.
Warrior Diet, an amusing read at best. Do yourself a favor and EAT. If you want to get lean, don’t eat shit. If you want to put on muscle, eat a lot. It really isn’t all that complicated.
Simply look at the man who created it! Do you want to look like him? If so follow the diet! If not…move on
Zeb,
Not everyone has the same body chemistry as Ori. Different diets work differently for different people. Just saying if you want to look like the author, follow his diet is a bit ridiculous.
JMO.
Scott13:
No actually it’s not at all “ridiculous.” In fact, it’s called common sense!
If you look at the diets of those touting them you can get a good idea of how it effects the human body. Granted there are metabolic (and other) differences between human beings, but there are also many more similarities. For example, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that protein helps build muscle (given proper exercise).
After purchasing one of Ori’s videos, I think it was called “Warrior Workout.” I can tell you that I would be skeptical of anything the guy produced within this field. It was a total waste of time! Unless you enjoy watching a man struggle to Bench Press 135lbs.
I am not commenting on him as a man. I am sure he is a great father, husband and all around good citizen. However, from what I have seen he has no business in the diet and fitness field!
[quote]wufwugy wrote:
i did the warrior diet for years without even knowing it was a diet. [/quote]
Me too. Now that I think about it, when I was skateboarding a couple hours a day and attending FMA classes five times a week, I was eating like a horse once a day and still keeping pretty lean. I also ate horribly, with most of my food coming out of fast food joints. Doing a little math, my diet at the time specs out around 180/360/100 on fat/carb/protein, with about 3500 calories.
What surprises me is that when I really look at these amounts, they’re NOT THAT BAD. This is remarkably close to the calories I ought to be eating according to Berardi’s “Massive Eating” calculations. The carb/protein split is very close to the 3:1 ratio my trainer is advising (not that I think he’s right, but clearly this is one of the accepted “good” practices out there). The fat is a little high, but I could cut that pretty readily.
So I’m actually starting to think, maybe this is not that bad an idea. The only real change in my habits was that I dropped the skateboarding and FMA classes to make more room for running my business. So if I maintained a solid training regimen – including weights this time, to actually build mass instead of just burning fat and maintaining strength – this diet might actually work for me. Besides, wouldn’t it be really funny if I managed to stay ripped on a diet of complete garbage?
However, for the moment, I’ll stick to the strict dietary regimen until I drop my body fat below 15%. And if I do start this back up, I’ll probably cut down on the fat and supplement with additional protein.
I expect that genetics would play a BIG role in this… if your ancestry is from a notoriously warrior-centered culture, e.g. Nordic or Scottish, I think this sort of diet might work. If you’re from some other genetic stock, like Korean or Amerind, I don’t think it would work very well at all. I suspect a distinct connection with the lifestyle your ancestors followed to get the results you want, assuming your ancestors ever achieved those results in the first place. The ever-increasing variety of interbreeding further complicates matters; if an approach would work for one of your ancestral cultures, but not another, things get sort of up in the air.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
If you look at the diets of those touting them you can get a good idea of how it effects the human body.[/quote]
Just a supporting vote from me. If someone claims to have a diet that really works and is really good for you and will give you the body you want, then I would ask whether the proponent of the diet is on the diet, in good health, and displaying the kind of body I want.
If the answer to any of these comes back “no”, I’d need to investigate why. If I can’t find a good reason why, chances are I don’t want to listen to this person.
There are good reasons for all of the above; too many to list. You just have to use some common sense – if you see some wasted, skinny guy telling you to eat this and that diet but not eating it himself, and you find out he’s got leukemia… well, he certainly didn’t get it from his diet, did he?
[quote]Scott613 wrote:
Ask yourself one thing, “How many REAL athletes do you see following a diet remotely like this?” By real athletes, I don’t mean DD zealots who believe everything that is put into print from DD Publications, BUT rather, REAL athletes. I would be willing to bet NONE. The diet is hype. I was stupid enough to buy the book when I thought DD products were quality and not hype. In my experience, some of Pavel’s stuff is good, but a lot of it is just rehashed in some different way. The price tags on DD stuff is absolutely ridiculous. Especially when you can go find most of Pavel’s stuff in older texts, like Science and Practice of Strength Training, for a better price. It just doesn’t have all the funny “comrade this and that” and " the party is always right" nonsense.
Warrior Diet, an amusing read at best. Do yourself a favor and EAT. If you want to get lean, don’t eat shit. If you want to put on muscle, eat a lot. It really isn’t all that complicated.
[/quote]
Not to break your balls, because I have no idea about the Warrior Diet, but there are just as many, if not more, T-mag Zealots who believe anything that T-mag/Biotest prints without questioning it.
given all these negative opinions of Ori’s Warrior diet, im interested to see the reviews of his other book on t-jack
Will
Anyways, the rest of my post dealed with the fact that this diet was not for me, but for someone who I think may be able to implement it into their lifestyle, and maybe lose some weight, quick. They are new to training, and honestly, he’s pretty damn lazy when it comes to this stuff.
Zeb,
That’s histarical! I could just imagine his undernourished ass struggling with 135! I guess you are right in your assumption “if you want to be small, fraile and week [but have pretty abs!] follow the warrior diet!” I am glad I didn’t purchase the videos, the book was a waste enough! Right on Zeb, I stand corrected. If you want to look like Ori and be weak, follow the WD!
Morris,
I agree, and I am in NO WAY a T-mag/Biotest zealot. I think their marketing ranks right up there with dragon door. With all these companies, you take the good with the bad. I have used some Biotest products with good results, EAS, MetRx, etc. There is no one best in my opinion. But I am definintely not up T-Mags ass by any means, nor DD’s. I almost was with DD but figured out their BS just in time.
-Scott
cdarklock,
the comment you make about ancestry is rather interesting…come to think of it, im pretty much northern european.
I wouldn’t discard the principles of this diet completely. People are also forgetting that 1) Ori is not a bodybuilder, he’s a fitness guy. 2)He said that you don’t have to starve all day - just don’t eat gluten and carbs.
Another thing is that the “Maximum muscle, minimum fat” promises to show the science behind this stuff so it’s at least an interesting read.
And for those who ask why pro athletes don’t use this diet, ask yourself - “why didn’t they use laser-guided missles in WW2?”. Because they weren’t invented yet!
I’m not saying that this diet is the ultimate discovery, but at least let’s not discard it without knowing what exactly stands behind it. Sounds like something I want to look into.