The Warrior Diet: Switch on Your Biological Powerhouse For High Energy, Explosive Strength, and a Leaner, Harder Body

Thank you, Thank you Mr. Ori Hofmekler! I very much enjoyed reading The Warrior Diet. This was an exceptional read. There was plenty of helpful advice, great tips and knowledge found throughout this work of art. In March 2018; I had decided to really make an effort at improving my physical health and overall wellness. When I started exercising and had been experimenting with different styles of eating; after a few months, I found myself doing my own version of this diet before I even started reading. Once I picked up this book, I was surprised at how much freedom this diet was able to give. Working my way through the book, I have slowly incorporated and tweaked my diet to a more well-rounded one. Since doing so, I feel better and better; and more like my authentic self every day that comes. I thoroughly enjoyed the information, the guidance and Ori's humor as he explains his craft. I have been doing my own bodyweight training routine for almost a year now but will be incorporating more of CFT training and working with my medical care team to improve my use of proper supplements and suggested things to use in this book as well. This diet, this book; has easily changed my life. I feel more and more like a warrior in my everyday life. It feels so strange but empowering nonetheless. It's also fun to watch people gawk at how swiftly I move now and even more so how much I eat in one sitting during my overeating phase. Thank you again, Ori!

I give the diet - meant in the broadest sense as a lifestyle/eating pattern - five stars, but the book three or four. I (male, early 30s) successfully lost and kept off 30 pounds of body fat using the main principal explained in the book - controlled fasting consisting of 16-18 hours, including sleep, of little to no food during the day/active cycle, then a generous portion(s) of healthy food in the evening/rest cycle. I usually drank water throughout the morning (when thirsty), a handful of mixed nuts and/or an apple in early afternoon, whatever the family is having for dinner, then breakfast food for second dinner (usually bacon and eggs). I followed a minimalist strength and conditioning program Kettlebell Simple & Sinister 3-4 days a week as well. The book has its own "workout", but I didn't follow it. The book starts with two chapters on the general philosophy of the diet: cultivating a Warrior Instinct and patterning one's life on the Warrior Cycle. For the former, it contrasts the predator/scavenger instinct of mindful, purposeful, useful eating (Predator) against mindless eating (Scavenger), and how the modern Western diet is basically a Scavenger diet of mindless fast and processed food designed to be highly palatable, feel good, and deliver quick but "empty" energy. The Warrior Cycle describes the daily pattern of energy out and energy in: day time is for expending energy, being creative, being productive and useful, and fueling only as much as needed for that (less than you think); night time is for recovery, healing, taking in energy (food), and resting and relaxing. In contrast, a pattern of constant eating minimizes the upside (and maximizes the downside) of both phases. Chapter 10 ("The Warrior Diet Idea") offers more on the philosophy and "why" of the diet. The next several chapters go into greater detail on the Undereating and Overeating phases. The Undereating phase is characterized as "less than a full meal" throughout the day (so around 400-500 calories total), eating only "live" foods such as raw vegetables, yogurt, and light protein such as whey or raw nuts (almonds are recommended). The Overeating phase is typical healthy eating fare: cooked vegetables, meat, and low-glycemic carbs such as rice (generally, it does talk about cycling high-fat and high-carb days). The rules are simply to begin with vegetables, end with carbs (if wanted or needed for performance reasons, though not if one is looking to lose fat), and stopping when more thirsty than hungry. This last trick is a neat hack; I would use it to pace myself by not drinking water during the meal, stopping when I was more thirsty than hungry, drinking a glass of water, and maybe (more often than not) coming back for more 20-30 minutes later. The meals I gorged, scarfing it down, I had an upset stomach. There is a brief chapter on "stubborn fat", which has it's own ebook that I would recommend. Chapter 8 compares the Warrior Diet to other diets. Chapter 9, "Lessons from History", is the historical background underlying the undereating/overeating pattern. It is interesting enough, but lacked references to historical documents, sources, etc. to substantiate the picture he's laying out. It's not a huge deal, I just took it with a grain of salt. I don't doubt the information, and the principles of undereating/overeating make sense even if they weren't widespread practice in ancient times. The remaining chapters on the diet include a Q&A, a discussion on sex drive and potency, and a chapter on women on the Warrior Diet. The second to last chapter is "The Warrior Workout", which is focused on joints and back strength, explosive movement (strength, speed, velocity), training to resist fatigue (but not training to failure), and keeping the session short (but intense). Lots of pictures, exercises, and routines to follow. For an untrained person, almost any exercise will benefit you; for a trained person, there are probably still things to learn here. Being a student of StrongFirst and Kettlebell: Simple & Sinister (referenced above), many of these training principles align with the philosophy of StrongFirst. The last chapter includes recipes and meal ideas, including desserts. So to summarize: The idea is simple (straightforward), but is counter-cultural; you will seem odd to your friends, family, and coworkers for not constantly "fueling" all day. Yet, when you adapt to this eating pattern, they will marvel at your seemingly endless supply of energy, focus, and productivity, while they remain in a fog from "grain brain", ride the sugar high/crash, or just are constantly focused on food. You will enjoy a daily pattern of retiring from the day with a hearty meal (or two), relaxation, recuperation, deep sleep, ready to rise and "get after it" the following day. The flaws of the book are some "quackery" about supplements (conveniently for sale on the author's website), lack of references throughout, particularly in the first two chapters, Chapter 8 (historical), and Chapter 10, and the Warrior Workout program (not principles, which are solid) being overly complex.

This book is THE BEST book on how physical active people should approach their nutrition. I am a very active person and have read my share of nutrition books over the years, but the Warrior Diet is the only "diet" (if I may use the word "diet", I prefer the word "lifestyle") that I believe I can sustain for life. It is easy and sustainable. There are no forbidden foods on this diet, except for sugar and artificial sweeteners of course, which makes it easy to adhere to. You can eat pizza or burgers or whatever you like as long as you eat it as part of the "overeating" phase (4 hour window). During the "undereating" phase (20 hour window) I like to have 1-2 cups of coffee or tea before my early morning cardio workout, one apple around mid-morning, 2 hard-boiled eggs for lunch, one handful of nuts in the late afternoon-hours and then, after my evening strength-workout, I like to top off my day with a big, satisfying dinner with a nice glass of milk before bed. This is how I practice the Warrior Diet on a daily basis and it has become a lifestyle for me. Like I said earlier, I have read many books on diets/nutrition over the years, but the Warrior Diet is the one book that I keep coming back to. I don't want to eat any other way, but the Warrior-way!

I would like to start off by saying this life style diet is legit. Once you learn to be free, eat instinctively, and be satisfied you will learn so much about your body and be able to drop weight, gain weight, and lean mass, instinctively. Ori made this eating style popular it's not exactly fair to call it his diet. The book succeeded at was motivating me to eat this way. Constantly bringing up the same topic on a chapter really got it in my head. However nothing in this book is new information. If you have ever read a health book before then you won't benefit to much from reading this book other then learning the philosophy and the basics of this diet. I really don't like the writing style of Ori either. I think he has a small problem staying on topic, he repeats stuff to often to the point that it's boring and includes a bunch of useless information. Due to the small community of this diet there are not to many books about it. So if you have absolutely no background knowledge of this kind of eating this book is probably the best bet on this wonderful eating style.

"The Warrior Diet" offers a bold and insightful perspective on optimizing health, strength, and energy through strategic eating. The concept of intermittent fasting combined with nutrient-dense meals feels empowering and practical. The book explains the science behind the approach in an engaging way and provides actionable tips to implement the diet. Perfect for anyone looking to boost performance and take control of their health. Highly recommend!

This book is pack with a tremendous amount of technical information that has changed my view of exercising and dieting. The Roman allegory is not that useful for me. There were aspects of this approach that I was doing for a long time, but I can integrate the science provided into new habits and I have experienced results. I have never been overweight, but I would like improve overall fitness and health. I feel great from the controlled fasting method. I am 49 years old, solid 196 lbs with a 13% body-fat and dropped 6 lbs with an improvement in athletic performance. The real innovation in this book is the Controlled-Fatigue Training(CFT). I have always monitored my training to prevent over-training, but the CFT approach has assisted me to methodically increase my core strength. This is not the typical diet book. I wish that I read this book earlier. I continue to reread this book. Ori Hofmekler has a fan in me. This book has been a great companion with "Maximum Muscle, Mininmum Fat".

Currently I am 36 years old and since I am 19 I have been obsessed with finding the best diet for myself, in terms of nutrition, mental and spiritual wellbeing. So for the last 16 or so years I have been reading a couple of books a year on this topic, ranging from religious based veganism to strict carnivore paleo dieting. I not only read these books but try myself these diets, I convert myself into a human experiment in order to see the benefits these diets have brought to the table. So far I can say that diet proponents like, Atkins (Atkins diet), McDougall (Starch solution), Gabriel Cousens (Raw diet), Gary Taubes (Good Calories Bad Calories), Hiromi Sinya (Enzyme factor), just to name a few, but most of them have quite a radical approach on dieting. They have discovered a diet and nutrition method that have worked for them and try to convince everyone that is the way to go. Being a vegan makes sense, being an lacto-ovo-vegetarian makes sense, being a carnivore makes sense, being a frutarian makes sense, however it makes sense to the proponent of these diets, it not necessarily applies to everyone. In my case I tried the Warrior Diet, I totally agree with the intermittent fasting, it has worked for me so far, and I feel comfortable with it, however, the dieting method in the Warrior Diet emphasizes in overeating at night. In my case chunking over 1000 calories at night has been a bit stressful for my digestive system, it bloats me, creates a lot of gas and makes me feel a bit uncomfortable in my sleep. My digestive system cannot support sudden and heavy intakes of calories at night, that is my conclusion. It might work for some people but it did not work for me. I believe that the Warrior Diet is a bit radical into certain extent, specially because its claims are based on loose archeological evidence of ancient Roman dieting. For some reason feeding habits in modern society have been distributed throughout 3 daily meals, eliminating breakfast might work, it works for me at least, is the main feature of intermittent fasting, however having 1 meal a day and snack throughout the day might be taking intermittent fasting a little bit to the extreme in my opinion. The problem with this is that by narrowing your feeding window you compress the time for calorie intake which can produce stress on some people digestive systems. Anyways I believe that intermittent fasting makes sense in the hormonal and nutritional aspects of dieting, and the Warrior Diet might work for some, but in my case it has been hard to adapt to my digestive system. However in spite of this I rate this book 4 stars because it is an interesting approach to dieting that brings to modern life ancient dieting habits which explains today's eating habits in Italy for example, where Italians consider the night meal the most important of the day. This I discovered on a recent trip to Italy, where they emphasized a lot of importance on late dinner with heavy and caloric dense meals and very light breakfasts and lunches with just coffee and dolce. In spite of this the average Italian is moderately healthy and slim in comparison to the average American. I recommend this book for its informational value but I cannot assure the dieting method could work for everyone. In my case, the more I read about diet and nutrition the more I discover that the best diet, is the well balanced diet, the less radical the better and healthier.

This book is awesome if you are truly looking to change your life. I am empowered, energized and enthusiastic every day. No more energy drinks to get me through the day. No more excuses on my personal health. My first week I lost 7 pounds and have followed that success with many more pounds lost. I was very quickly wearing clothes I have not been able to wear in a few years because they were too tight. I now have to tighten the belt up 3 additional notches and this has just been 60 days. I have incorporated the Warrior Lifestyle into my own lifestyle with excellent results. I am a Registered Nurse and was always running on empty often relying on coffee or other forms of artificial energy to get me through my days. No more. I have enough energy to workout either before or after my work hours and not miss a beat. If you adopt this lifestyle and embrace his advice you will change your life and people around you will notice.