Weight Loss for Busy People Best Fitness Blog
Our Warrior Diet review investigates a weight loss program that’s apparently based on the way that our paleolithic ancestors ate…but does the Fred Flintstone approach work?
The Warrior Diet is a book by Ori Hofmekler, a former Israeli soldier. The philosophy behind Hofmekler’s diet is best summed up as feast and famine…all in the space of 24 hours!
You eat very little during the day and pig out at night. According to the author this is how we are genetically programmed to eat, how our body’s are designed to be refuelled.
So, how does the Warrior Diet work?
Warrior Diet Review – How Does it Work…?
I’m sure we’ve all done it from time to time. You’ve left the house in the morning with little more than a coffee and a round of toast.
You’ve been busy all day and have had little time to eat a proper meal. You’ve had maybe a yogurt, a piece of fruit, a few mouthful’s of a sandwich.
You then arrive home at night starving and ready to eat the contents of the fridge in one go!
Having gorged yourself on a thousand calories or two of meat, potatoes, bread or whatever else you can lay your hands on, you veg out in front of the TV – full, content and…well, a little guilty!
But don’t be, according to Hofmekler, this is how you’re programmed to eat. “Undereating” during the day and “overeating” in the evening.
Our Warrior Diet review concludes that this is essentially a fasting diet with a difference. The difference being that rather than starve for days, you just starve during the day.
You’re allowed some light snacks during the day, healthy ones. Things like fresh fruit and veg, some lean protein, perhaps a low fat dairy product.
You then eat your main, high protein meal in the evening. There are no calorie restrictions, you just eat until you’re satisfied.
However, if you limit yourself to healthy wholegrains, fruit and veg, lean meat…you’ll be struggling to eat more than a thousand or so calorie.
With all the fibre and protein you’re going to feel pretty full as well.
The diet is also big on exercise, as the name might suggest.
Hofmekler recommends some basic, brief and intense weight training and some aerobic workouts.
Squats, deadlifts, shoulder presses, clean and jerks, snatches…bread and butter, muscle building, strength training exercises!
The combination of the extreme eating regime and the heavy weight and endurance training is designed to toughen you up both mentally and physically.
Being hungry during the day is supposed to keep you alert, as if looking out for the next antelope to wander by on the veldt!
It’s designed to bring the warrior out in you.
All very macho, I’m sure!
Warrior Diet Review – Does it Work…?
I’m not quite sure how anyone is supposed to know how people ate 25,000 years ago. You could always speculate, which is what Hofmekler is doing.
Sure, if food was scarce then it’s likely that our ancestors may well have gone for days without food.
Then when they caught and killed something they’d have stuffed themselves silly in case they had to go a few more days without food.
However, that doesn’t mean that famine-feast-famine is the optimum way to nourish our bodies. Stone Age man really had very little choice!
However, according to the author, if you follow this program you’ll burn fat, build muscle, lose weight, speed up your metabolism, live longer, age more slowly, be more alert.
In essence, you’ll develop a more explosive, harder, leaner body.
Now we’ve no problem with the author’s recommendations about eating healthy, wholesome food.
It’s the whole feast/famine theory that smacks of faddy, pseudoscience.
We’ve found no independent evidence when writing this Warrior Diet review that suggests that starving yourself during the day then eating a big meal in the evening is more effective for weight loss.
Sure, eating a few hundred calories during the day then 1,000 or more calories in one meal in the evening may well lead to weight loss.
But that will be because you’re eating fewer calories, not because you’re eating one big meal a day!
The exercise is also going to help.
Besides, protein is the most satisfying macronutrient and your body can only handle 25-50g on average in one meal before you get full. That’s only around 100-200 calories.
We would suggest that you will lose weight on this diet, but it’s not a healthy way to do it.
And it’s downright suicidal if you’re a diabetic!
Warrior Diet Review – The Bottom Line…
Scientific research has shown that our bodies work best when given small amounts of food often. It’s called grazing.
It helps to ensure that your body uses what you give it and is less likely to store any excess energy as body fat.
It also keeps your metabolism fired up so you burn more calories each day.
The problem I see in this Warrior Diet review is that you’re starving all day so your metabolism slows down to conserve energy.
When you do eat your body is more likely to store some of that energy as fat to protect you against the next period of starvation.
When you starve, your body burns muscle for energy, which also makes the principles espoused in this diet a little odd.
If you want a lean, hard body I’d have thought building some muscle would make sense?
I also have problems with the feast/famine principle when it comes to exercise. I don’t know about you but I’d struggle to lift weights, run or cycle when I’ve not eaten enough during the day.
A big breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, a pre-workout snack, a workout and lots more food to follow is more like it!
No food during the day and I’d die in the gym!
There’s many a decent Warrior Diet review on various websites and magazines, so someone must be getting the results they’re looking for.
Me? The principles espoused by this diet run counter to the science and my personal experience.
Dieting needn’t be this tough…unless you’re a commando, that is!
Our Warrior Diet review verdict? There are better ways!
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