My Warrior Diet

[Ró-fhéinní]

I understand your problem with the toast - i went through it about a week ago during a business meeting over breakfast. I stuck to fruit for the meal but had a slice of buttered toast at the end because the smell of it made me crave it.  My hunger spiked sharply after that but about 2 hours later i had a hard boiled egg and it subsided. I think the protein helped level out my blood sugar and helped me stay off the hunger pangs.

[fotakou]

Yeah thinking that a toast cannot do much can in actuality do a lot!I have also experienced it and it was not that good.Dont worry man,i believe that these things,like the hunger,happen in order to remind us not to stray from our wd
Also a small advice,dont buy dinosaur training.It was good for the time it was published but now it seems really outdated.Here is a really good quote from someone at rosstraining.com

Brooks didn't max out every workout. While the book tends to come across that way, that was more for motivational purposes than anything else. On one of his videos he was a bit clearer about some of those things. I don't remember which one and it doesn't matter anyway.
If you were online at the time that this book was popular you'd understand a bit more too. He used to post on Andy Fochtman's Old School Strength Training ezboard all the time. He had a huge cult of fanatic followers who would have eaten their own boogers if he'd told them that the "old timers" thought it would make you stronger. You really had to be there and see all this for yourself. He gave more information away for free than there is in the book and he genuinely seemed to enjoy it the entire time. He was kind of like Ross is right now. Dinosaur Training was everywhere. It was all over the Internet. People were really obsessed with it. It was like a bible. Everybody loved Brooks. Then he disappeared...
Around the time Dinosaur Training came out, "functional training" barely even existed. Brooks made it really popular to train for something other than your reflection in the mirror. He popularized it in a way that seemed so honest, so raw and passionate that the idea caught on like a forest fire. In his absence, more "scientific" training methods started to become popular. Workout programs have to be very complicated now, charting weeks and months in advance, citing this or that study or textbook and dropping as many names of Russian sports scientists as the author can think of or it won't be accepted. Brooks would have told you to train two or three days a week with three or four exercises per session and add weight whenever possible.
In any case, while he was gone it was decided that his methods are stupid and couldn't possibly work. Then he came back and brought with him a ridiculously expensive new book that went against so many of the tings he had preached as gospel only a few years before. This enraged a lot of people. He seems to be seen as a bit of a joke now. A has been, desperate to take back and cling to whatever respect there is left available to him. He's just another guy with a book and a website now. Nothing special about him at all. Not anymore.
If you do end up reading Dinosaur Training, there probably isn't anything in it that's going to be new to you. There will even be a few things that you'll flat out disagree with because it flies in the face of the current crop of popular functional training gurus' doctrine and dogma. That's because it's "old" now. Everything in it has been scrutinized, analyzed, done to death. It came around at a time when a book of its type was absolutely necessary. Brooks was the right man at the right time to put out such a book and everything just clicked. But now it's just a book. Buy it and you'll be owning a piece of history, an icon of late '90s Internet weight lifting pop culture, but don't expect it to revolutionise your training by any means. Those "Lost Secrets of Strength and Development" aren't lost anymore. They're as common online now as anything else.

Hope i helped 

[Renegade]

Fotakou,
Ha ha, your advice was just a little bit too late, I've already bought a copy of the book! Still, I wasn't expecting anything life changing, I just thought I should read it as a lot of my current training seems to relate to the way strongmen used to train before the days of exercise machines and gyms full of mirrors and pop music !

[Renegade]

Week 12

This week was pretty uneventful. I finally got over my cold (I think I actually caught two colds back to back ), and got back to doing some training. I decided to start an Escalating Density Training program (EDT) using two 24kg kettlebells, as I'd had great success using a single bell and EDT in the past. However, it's a pretty strict routine which doesn't seem to fit in very well with my work and family life at the moment, so I think I'll try something a little less demanding from next week.

The daily bodyweight check results showed very little variation this week, which is good:

Sunday 16th: 69.6kg
Monday 17th: 69.2kg
Tuesday 18th: 69.8kg
Wednesday 19th: 69.0kg
Thursday 20th: 69.6kg
Friday 21st: 69.2kg
Saturday 22nd: 69.2kg

My bodyfat reading was between 4.5 and 5mm everyday using the Accu-Measure calipers, which equates to somewhere between 7 and 8% for someone my age (33 years old). I'm not sure what caused the big difference in weight during Week 11. If anyone has any ideas, let me know .

[Renegade]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I was going to write what my daily eating plan looks like at the moment, but I already did it earlier in the week as a reply to a Q&A post. You can check it here:

http://www.defensenutrition.com/forum/index.php/topic,1354.0.html

It's the first reply from the top. I'm still eating twice during the overeating phase, which seems to be working well. I have my salad, eggs and main meal at work, followed by something else when I get home later. Funny, this is the one thing that I thought would be a problem when I first started the Warrior Diet, but it actually allows me to eat much more than in one big sitting. Like everything with the WD, you have to experiment and see what works best for you, rather than just trying one way unsucessfully and then giving up (which is what happened last February when I tried to follow the book to the letter ).

[Renegade]

Week 13

Well, I started the Warrior Diet on September 1st 2008, which makes tomorrow 3 months exactly! There have been ups and downs, but generelly it's been easier than I first imagined. Things seemed to have slowed down somewhat these last couple of weeks, maybe because since I've settled into a regular pattern of undereating and overeating I don't feel like I'm doing anything unusual anymore. I decided to stop doing the EDT kettlebell workout and to have gone back to doing an abbreviated 3 day per week training routine, just for the time being. This should give me a just a little more time at home and work while things are busy in the run up to Christmas.

It's basically the same press/swing workout I used when I first started training with kettlebells almost a year ago (the "ladders" routine described by Pavel in Enter The Kettlebell!). The only difference is at that time I was using a single 16kg bell, and now I'm using double 24s! It's going to get tough, but if I build the reps up gradually it should improve my technique and form. I eventually want to be able to go the full set of 5 ladders with a single 32kg bell, for a total of 75 military presses per side. This, however, is a very, very long way off in the future .

I also ordered some new books last week, two of them are Ori's: "The Anti-Estrogenic Diet" and "Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat", the other is "The Paleo Diet for Athletes" by L. Cordain. Not that I plan on switching from the Warrior Diet, but they look like they're worth reading and might help me to understand a bit more of the science behind balancing hormones, intermittent fasting and exercise.

Here's to the next 3 months (looking forward to overeating during the Christmas period!) .

[racer]

Renegade.

Thanks for the posts to the forum.  I continue to learn from you and others.  I will post my weekly WD update tomorrow morning.  I have been getting back in to lifting my kbs after a long layof from a shoulder injury and laziness.  I am lifting 16kg and 24kg kbs trying to do mostly some form of kb circuit.  This week, I added ladder swings and snatches with the 24kg to add to my previously abbreviated workouts.  I am going to try this week to do ladder swings on Tues and Thursday.  MWF I will try to do my circuit of Snatch, CJ, Rows and Swings 5x5 with 24kg and Snatch Ladder with 16kg. 

Thanks again.

[Renegade]

Week 14

As I'm going to be very busy this weekend, I thought I'd write a day earlier than usual in case I don't have time later. Basically, this was not a good week. I felt fine on Monday, but by the middle of the week I was feeling terrible. It started with light headedness around Tuesday afternoon, and on Wednesday I found myself getting angry and frustrated with the people around me (i.e. my family), and couldn't concentrate on anything. The light headed feeling turned into dizziness and headaches, and I also started to get blue and green flashes in front of my eyes. I've actually had these before since starting the WD, and they seem to appear when I haven't been eating enough.

By Wednesday night I felt completely detached, like my brain was out of gear. I started to worry about what I'd done to myself, and decided to fall back into the old safety net of eating more the next day, startig with breakfast. Things went well, and I also decided to eat some more at lunchtime, but found that I wasn't hungry at all. I had a sandwich later on, and then ate again at night. I ate during the day again the next day (yesterday), but found it really hard going. After having a bowl of muesli with whey protein for breakfast I felt bloated and tired, and definately not in the mood for training. I did a short 30 minute workout, then had my recovery shake. Again, I was nowhere near hungry by lunchtime, but ate anyway. After eating all day, by the evening I felt stuffed and altogether horrible. Although I was feeling a little more "solid", I think this was due to a dulling of the senses caused by eating too much. I still felt out of synch, and so decided that eating in the day probably wasn't the answer. So, today I'm back to my usual pattern of undereating and overeating, looking for a better remedy through the WD.

I think that weeks like this just serve to remind us that we really do need to pay attention to how much we need to eat at night, rather than spell disaster for the WD way of eating. Everytime I eat during the day, it just reinforces my determination to stick with WD. This log is also a great source of motivation, it gives me a reference point to come back to everytime I have a problem. I've decided to try rotating my carb days with fat days to see how that affects me. On the days when I workout, I'll have carbs, and on the other days I'll eat nuts. Doing things this way shouldn't break the bank, and hopefully I might start to feel better. I'll also avoid eating nuts with grains, to see if this helps.

I can see no reason why the WD should work for others but not me, so I'll just keep working at it .

[Renegade]

Week 15

This week basically carried on where last week left off, and I felt much the same, i.e. lack of concentration and feeling like I didn't have full control over what I was doing. Physically I've been feeling great with loads of energy. My workouts have been surprisingly good, but I did notice that after training I started to feel drained around mid-day. It's difficult to explain, but this "disconncted" feeling is almost out of body, like I'm just an observer watching what I'm doing (hence the feeling of having lack of control). I'm making sure that I eat a lot, so I really don't know what the answer is. I thought that as I've had both good and bad experiences on the WD so far, now would be a good time to weigh up the pros and cons, at least as far as I'm concerned:

Pros:

Great levels of energy for my workouts, and throughout the day when I'm not training.
I can workout whenever it's convenient, without having to worry about fitting in around my last and next meals.
I have more time available in the afternoon.
I don't have to think about what to make for lunch.
I don't have to worry about doing extra cardio, as the WD keeps me lean.
I don't suffer from any indigestion or gas.

Cons:

Energy levels drop rapidly after training.
Lack of concentration, feel like my mind and body aren't functioning as a whole. This isn't good in situations such as driving a car.
I'm eating a lot of the same foods (such as eggs) every day just to make sure I get enough calories, which might not be so good.
If I make the mistake of having a bite to eat in the morning, it really messes up the whole undereating phase.
If I get caught out and can't overeat in the evening, that's the whole day gone without proper food.

The last problem made itself apparent last Sunday, when I'd planned to overeat as usual at the end of a very busy day. However, I ended up getting stuck in town and had to eat on my way home. This consisted of a salad from the convenience store, followed by an assortment of oily snacks from street vendors in China town! I actually felt very good the next day, but it isn't the sort of thing I'd want to happen often. Luckily, it was a one off, so not really a problem.

For the moment, the advantages seem to outweigh the disadvantages, but I really don't know how long I can keep going feeling this way. If I thought I could get my head together tomorrow going back to frequent feeding, I wouldn't hesitate to change, but I don't think that's the answer. I know the next few weeks are going to be interesting, I've got a couple of year end parties to attend this week which will involve eating my main meal at lunchtime, then next Sunday I'm heading back to the UK for 2 weeks over Christmas. If I'm still on track with WD by the end of that, I'll be able to cope with anything

[racer]

Renegade,

Try posting a food log on here for the next two weeks like Hunter has been doing.  Maybe there are food combinations or something that you cannot spot that someone else will that is causing symptoms that others have had.  It could be that the lingering cold that you have had is making you feel this way.

[Renegade]

Thanks Racer,

A food log sounds like a good idea, but I don't think the next few weeks will be a good time to do it. Like I said, there are going to be a couple of occasions this week where eating (and no doubt drinking) are going to happen around mid-day, and the food won't really be what I usually eat. Then, I'll be staying with family for a couple of weeks back in the UK. They all know I've always been interested in different ways of eating and training, so they'll probably be expecting me to make some sort of unusual dietary requests . Even so, there'll undoubtedly be times where we go out to eat in the day together, and I'm sure I'll be meeting a lot of old friends for drinks in the pub over New Year. I'm just going to go with whatever happens, it's a time for enjoying myself and I don't want to get stressed (or cause stress for others) if I can't eat what I want when I want. I expect that after 2 weeks of over indulgence I'll be more than ready to get back to the Warrior Diet!

I did wonder whether the way I'm feeling is due to a cold or not, as there are a lot of strange things going about at the moment. One thing I learnt shortly after moving to Japan is that, whereas a cold in the UK will give you the usual symptons such as a runny nose, catarrh and a sore throat, colds over here are just as likely to give you diarrhea and sickness. If it had only lasted a few days, I'd say that's definately what it was, but it just won't seem to go away. Who knows, I wasn't really having any problems up until a couple of weeks ago, so it can't be anything too serious or I'd have felt like this from the start.

I'll post when I can over the next few weeks, and hopefully things will get back to normal by the New Year .

[Renegade]

Just a quicky to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I've put WD on hold while I'm back in the UK, and am enjoying every minute of all this wonderful seasonal feasting  . Hopefully Santa will leave me something nice under the tree tonight !

[fotakou]

Just a quicky to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I've put WD on hold while I'm back in the UK, and am enjoying every minute of all this wonderful seasonal feasting  . Hopefully Santa will leave me something nice under the tree tonight !

and not under your belly 

Merry Christmas dudes and happy warrior dieting or conventional dieting  Be sure to get your insulin high and waste a lot of muscle 

[Renegade]

Week 20

So, here I am again after what seems like an eternity. I think it's been more like 4 weeks, but that's still plenty long enough! While I was away on my trip to the UK at Christmas I must have broken every Warrior Diet rule possible and eaten all the wrong things. The plan was to get right back on track with WD as soon as I returned home, i.e. 2 weeks ago. However, there have been a couple of obstacles in the way that I wasn't expecting. The first was a really bad stomach bug, which both myself and my daughter must have picked up just before we came back to Japan. We both fell sick the night we got back, and suffered with vomiting and diarrhea for the next 12 hours. I was in bed for 2 days, and eventually felt back to normal after about a week. Whilst I was recovering, I hardly managed to eat anything at all except for rice gruel .

There have also been a couple of changes at work. Although these are most likely only temporary, they won't be changing back until the end of March at the earliest. The main problem is that I no longer have an hour everyday in which to start overeating . Three days out of five I now get barely 30 minutes, with my biggest break in the afternoon. I used to have enough time to eat my salad and "first" main meal at work at either 6:00 or 7:00pm (albeit very hurriedly), but not anymore.

I don't really know what to do. I found out before that if I try to wait until I finish work and get home at 9:30pm to start overeating, I don't feel good at all during the last few hours of work. Leaving it so late in the day just doesn't seem to suit me, especially when I workout in the morning. Also, I live in a typical tiny Japanese apartment, and all the rooms open onto the kitchen. This means that if I crash about with pans late at night, I wake up the kids and generally put my wife in a bad mood . So for the sake of keeping the peace, it isn't an option.

This week I've just been drifting from one meal to the next. I still don't get hungry in the day, but have been eating my main meal at lunchtime because I know I can't do it in the evening. Every day is a little different, but basically looks something like this:

07:30 Wake up, big glass of water
08:00 A couple of boiled eggs and a banana, tea, multivitamin
12:00 Lunch, whatever my wife cooks!
15:00 250g yoghurt with 15g flax oil
18:30 Small meal, enough to keep me going until I get home
21:30 Bowl of cereal or something else light
23:30 Bed time

No prizes for guessing that this looks more like frequent feeding, although it hardly provides what I consider to be nutrition packed meals. Like I say, more of a drifting through the day until I can work out what to do next. If anyone can help out, please do. I'm getting desperate!

[Renegade]

I've decided that this will be my last post for the time being, as I can't manage to fit the Warrior Diet into my daily schedule at the moment. Believe me, I've been trying to find a way to make it work, but it seems I'm fighting a losing battle and just getting run down in the process. Until I have more free time in the evenings to prepare healthy meals and eat well, I'll have to stick to eating during the day.

Not that everything is lost. Although I've always been a very health conscious eater, since starting WD I've learnt a lot about what my body really needs on a daily basis and have fallen into certain habits that I like. For example, I automatically eat my meals in the WD order, starting with either a salad or soup, then move onto veggies and protein, with either nuts or carbs to finish. Also, I've come to realise that breakfast simply isn't necessary, especially if I'm going to be eating a meal around mid-day. I've been eating in the morning over the past couple of weeks, and it really slows me down, something I never noticed before. White bread is evil and makes me downright nauseous if eaten on an empty stomach .

So now I have to decide on how I'm going to do things during the day. The mainstream would say to eat small frequent meals, starting with a big breakfast. We're not the mainstream, and I've already said what I think of breakfast. The obvious solution seems to be just do my overeating at lunchtime. I tried this before and found that if I eat early in the afternoon then hunger always resurfaces late at night, but I'm sure I could get used to this. After all, I could always have a little dairy or fruit in the evening if necessary. As for feeling stuffed during the day, most days would be OK as I only need to be physically active in the morning or early afternoon (before eating). In fact, having a post workout shake and then a big meal an hour or so after training might bring positive results . I could have a "real" cooked meal to look forward to rather than the packed meals I was taking to work with me on the WD. This might also help with the problems I was having with WD towards the end (strange disconnected feeling, weeks 14/15)

I'll see how it goes, and if I get good results with whatever I decide to do or manage to get back onto the WD proper, I'll start posting again. For now, thanks to everyone who gave good advice and helped out over the past few months. Keep up the good work .