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"What does a warrior eat?". That may sound a bit silly in this time and age, but the question still applies. Nowadays when people think "warrior" they probably think of athletic icons, people they see on television, the gym rat who is always at the gym, and a whole slew of other images of "warrior" that bombard us each and every day. While it may be true that those people are at the peak of athletic excellence, they are often the most un-healthy people out there. Between all the chemicals they put into their bodies, and the nutritionally shallow foods most of them eat, they are really not the ones we should look to for a model of how a warrior eats.

A warrior only eats things that are natural, whole, and nutrient dense. Lots of fruits and vegetables, plenty of plant based fats and protein, moderate amounts of lean animal protein, and water. In short, a warrior only eats things that will help him to be more healthy, and not things that will passively kill him.

This page of my blog is dedicated to articles reviewing diet books, warrior worthy food ideas, and my ideas on diet.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

How I'm doing

I've been following the warrior diet in a sense for the last few months. While I've made some changes I still follow the core of the program.

I've found that if I eat a bowl of whole grains with water and salt (oats/buckwheat) in the morning I am not even a little bit hungry until about 1 or 2 o'clock. Once I get hungry I eat some fruit, but I don't eat anything after 3 o'clock because I go to the Y at 5 after work and have found that its really not a good idea to work out with food in your stomach/gut.

Note: if i don't eat the whole grain in the morning I eat fruit all day long until 3, depending on how hungry I am sometimes I'll go through 5 bananas or 4 or 5 apples.

I've found that the grain (mostly oatmeal) doesn't have an impact on my energy level during the day, while giving you that stick-to-your-ribs feeling. It also doesn't affect your weight gain/loss the day after, and if you have it long enough before your workout it won't affect your performance in the gym. With this knowledge I'm going to start eating more whole grains, hopefully increasing my intake of fiber and vitamins that whole grains are rich with.

Contrary to the opinion of the warrior diet, I believe it is not conducive to good health to eat as much as you can in one short period of time. With a better understanding of how the digestive system functions I suspect there is a limit to how much the digestive system can handle at one time. So I've been eating less during my "over-eating" stage of the day, and more fruit and grains during my "under-eating" stage. I find that I feel a lot better during the day if I can grab a piece of fruit to munch on, whether its something to do with blood sugar, or something else, it seems to make my day easier, without any negative affects on my energy or performance in the gym. I have found that fruit will satisfy me for about an hour, then I'll be hungry again. While a grain will keep me in a state of satisfaction for much longer, 3 and sometimes even 4 hours.

The reason I'm not worrying about the water fast during the day anymore is because I don't care about losing weight anymore, and since I'm not eating as many calories during the day I find that I get more hungry during the day, and I don't want to fall into the trap of an eating disorder.

I have found that even though I'm only eating one meal and a ton of fruit, I have plenty of energy, and it almost seams like my body is able to operate with less than most people, because I have a very active lifestyle which you think would require a higher caloric upkeep, but honestly, I probably eat less than 1500 calories each day (because the fruit is so low calorie) but the total "volume" of food is about normal. (five banana's should be able to get anyone through a day)

When I started watching my diet a few months ago (before I started this blog) I weighed about 186lbs, as of today I weigh 161 lbs. I've not been trying to lose weight, but it seems like it melts off without me doing much.