Home    Diet    Exercise
"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.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Health Nut

I remember a time when I would go to my local health food store to pick up my protein powder, and I would think "These people are crazy, how can they buy into all this crap?". While I admit, there is a ton of crap in the health world, I am sold on eating pro-organic, and lots of healthy fruits and vegetables.

Good story, huh? Well I just thought I'd give you an update on my healthstyle progress.

I'm still sticking to my regimen of bench press/deadlift/pull-ups. I do two sets of five reps per each exercise, and I wait 1 song in between sets (lol, its easier than looking at the clock) My routine is mainly influenced by Pavel's book "power to the people", its a good book, read it. Anyways, I have a 10 day workout schedule (I work out 5 days a week so it takes 2 weeks to get through a cycle) where I start my first day 45 lbs lighter than my current 5 rep max, and work myself up in weight in increments of five lbs per day. At the end of a cycle I take 3 days of relaxation (no matter what day of the week it is) before starting my next cycle. The next cycle I simply add ten lbs to my first day and offset the weight from there. I'm on my fourth cycle and I've seen my 5 rep max for bench press go from 160 to 165 (i know, I'm a lightweight :D) and my dead lift hasn't really topped out yet, I'm taking it pretty slow, my last cycle ended with 5x245. As far as pull-ups go I started out barely being able to do one body weight pull up (correctly anyways, not talking about chin-stretching pull-ups here) Now I can do a full set of 5 body-weight pull-ups and a second set of 3 or 4. I'm getting closer, once I can do two sets I'll start adding weight to a belt.

On the diet front nothing has really changed either. I am still following the warrior diet principle, only slightly modified. Instead of fasting through the day (which is good for detox) I start my morning with a bowl of oatmeal that has cinnamon/2Tbs flax meal/stevia mixed in. That usually holds me over until lunchtime, unless I worked out in the morning, then I get more hungry earlier. Anyways, once I get hungry I eat fruit, lots of fruit. Not at one time, but through-out the day. Some days I'll eat 6 or 7 bananas, or a bunch of whatever fruit I'm eating that day. If I'm eating bananas I'll eat them two at a time, so as not to overload my stomach, but it only takes about a half an hour for fruit to go through your stomach (that's what they say anyways) so I can eat pretty frequently. I have found that my energy levels are not dramatically affected by what kind or how much of fruit I eat, which makes sense, because fructose (sugar naturally found in fruit) has so low of a glycemic value (on a side note, I have experimented with fruit juices, even though they are 100% juice, they still make me drowsy, I think something changes in the sugar, I'm not sure, but that's my best guess) I'm still working on my evening meals, some days I eat according to the principles of food combining, and some days I just don't care (pizza days ^_^) I usually splurge on friday night, eating whatever I have been craving (like a red bull and a candy bar :D) but the rest of the time I'm pretty good about my portion sizes and not eating dessert.

My weight is hovering right around 162 lbs, which is right where I want it. I started out at one eighty something, thats about a 20 lb difference, not bad for someone who didn't really need to loose weight.

*Edit*

One time I bought five lbs of grapes, and I pretty much ate them in two days. Those days when I was working out (after work) I was not as strong, or energetic as normal. I know this contradicts my previous statement about fruit being equal, but I think the higher glycemic fruits are not fit to be a single source of nutrients, maybe as a snack, but not the only thing eaten through the day. Just yesterday I had a thing of blueberries, two bananas, and two things of raspberries. I haven't felt that hypoglycemic in a long time. I've had pretty good luck with bananas, apples, oranges, mango's, and watermelon. Berries are really good too, I just make sure I eat plenty of fruits along with them.