The Warrior Diet

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 8/15/03 5:29:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> --> OK, now I'm confused. First you say (2) that fasting doesn't lower

> insulin

> (per the mouse feast/fast studies) then you say (1) that insulin IS the

> factor.

> So ... in the case of the feast/fast mice (which I don't think are really

> " fasting "

> either, and I admit I should not have written " fasting " because I meant

> feast/fast) -- are you saying that you think insulin IS the factor there?

> Given

> that all the mouse studies involve less-than-ideal food.

If you eat less, you are going to produce less insulin. Especially if your

diet is carb based. Eating less means less carbs means less insulin.

What I was saying was there's no evidence, so far that's been presented here,

that fasting increases insulin sensitivity, or decreases fasting insulin.

IOW I believe the fasting mice are lowering their insulin, but there's nothing

saying its from the fasting versus just eating less carbs. So, if one mouse,

person, or whatever, eats a diet that is moderate in calories for their size,

but is overall very low in carbohydrates, and another mouse, person, etc, eats

a carb-based diet but eats half as much, I don't think the calorie-restricted

person/mouse is going to have an advantage over the low-carb person/mouse. In

fact, I think she/he would have a severe disadvantage by not having nearly as

many nutrients, etc.

Eek, I think I'm talking about two issues at once here. Ok the first, dealt

with above, is whether or not insulin per se is operative. Now, as to the

specific question of whether or not fasting can lower insulin, I think it can,

but

as yet in this discussion, there's no evidence that fasting lower's insulin

any more than eating less food/carbs. Since the Warrior Diet is

fasting/feasting, it offers a good test of this-- if you are eating the same

amount of food

and perhaps even more carbs, following your meal of course, does this giant

meal throw your insulin out of whack, or does it improve from the fasting. If

this improves insulin sensitivity and you are eating the same food, same carbs,

etc, than that IS evidence that insulin benefits can be attributable to

fasting per se rather than just less food or less carbs.

That will be the evidence I'm claiming isn't there. So if you test your

blood sugar over the next few weeks and find it to be improving, there's an

anecdote. I've only read part 1 of 3 of the WD interview that posted,

but

in there it sounds like he has some science behind the idea of fasting

increasing insulin sensitivity. So far he's asserted it. That fact alone,

which

shows he's conscious of the issue, makes me think he might be hiding some actual

evidence of it. Maybe, hopefully, he talks about that in part 2 or 3... we'll

see. If so, that will be evidence that will satisfy the gap that I'm claiming

exists in the fasting reduces insulin argument.

> Oh, give me a buzz if you are. I'd like to know!

>

> --> It's a date!

>

Great! Hey, you know that other who's been working out since he was

115 might have some pointers for us ;-)

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 8/15/03 5:08:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

slethnobotanist@... writes:

>

> And here is part 3 of the interview with Ori Hofmekler, author of the

> Warrior Diet

>

Mmm... nope, both parts 2 and 3 were included in part 1! Is there actually a

part two and 3? Hoping...

Chris

[Guest guest]

From what I've read CRed mice actually continue reproducing even after

ad lib mice are dead.

-

> Heidi-

>

> And see, I think you're making an unwarranted assumption again.

We're all

> told that the calorie-restricted mice (and chimps, and so on) are

healthy,

> but torpor and lack of sexual function don't fit my definition of

health.

>

> >Point is, they got healthy mice

> >even WITH a less than ideal diet.

>

>

>

> -

[Guest guest]

Here is an interview I found on the web with Ori Hofmekler, author of

the Warrior Diet.

Some interesting insights into the author, his ideas, and why he wrote

the book.

***warning - it is long - and he uses some " colorful " language a few times

The Warrior Diet

An interview with Penthouse editor Ori Hofmekler

By TC

Every once in a while, I'll run into someone with a new idea about how to train

or eat that's so contradictory to everything I think I know that I'll want to

close my eyes, plug my ears, and bury my head in the pillow so I don't have to

listen. After all, I'm just getting comfortable with what I think I know. I

don't like having my world shaken up any more than necessary.

Once in a while, though, I'll listen. I may not buy—lock, stock, and barrel—what

the person is saying, but if what they have to say makes me think, then I've

been more than rewarded for my time.

Such was the case in my conversation with Penthouse health and fitness editor

Ori Hofmekler. Ori is a bodybuilding fiend—a hound, if you will. I've never met

him face-to-face, but from what Poliquin tells me, the guy is an

absolute physical rock, and I listen to rocks. After all, nature doesn't just

confer " rockdom " on people—they have to earn it through hard training and

rigorous dieting.

What Ori told me was so different, so open to criticism by 99 out of 100

nutritionists, self-proclaimed or otherwise, that I didn't know if I wanted to

print it. Still, what he said intrigued me on certain levels. He discussed not

only diet, but also history and anthropology, with some healthy doses of

psychology and biology.

I'd like you guys out there to read this and tell me what you think. And, if you

have enough questions and there's enough interest in general, I'll talk to Ori

again.

T: Okay, Ori. Lay it on me. What's your " Warrior Diet " all about?

OH: This is more of an opinion or a concept rather than completely scientific

research, but it's based on opinions and a lot of science, which I hope to

verify in the future. The idea is very simple. It's based on my own experience

and somehow, because I was so interested in the effect, I did my own historical,

anthropological, and scientific research. It's largely based on the romantic

notion of the warrior. In fact, my diet is called the " Warrior Diet. "

T: Warriors? Are you talking about modern warriors or ancient warriors?

OH: Ancient warriors, actually. What I'm talking about is a way of life where,

basically, the main goal is to follow your instinct—not to go according to any

authority or what people tell you to do, but to reach a very effective response

through your instincts. I'm talking about hunger and satiety. No diet that I'm

aware of today is really working on that. Most of them are designed according to

some kind of a theme or a goal that's based on control. Whether it's counting

the calories or the balance between the macro ingredients, from the Zone to Dan

Duchaine's ketogenic diet, just about every diet you can think of is about

control.

This diet is based on the assumption that your body has the instinct, like any

other instinct, to control itself and to manipulate it very well. The other big

advantage of this diet is that it takes advantage of something that no other

diet does—the empty stomach. Exciting things can happen when your brain barrier

is open and you can manipulate your hormones.

We already know that working out on an empty stomach in the morning stimulates

more weight loss than if we ate before. This diet basically guarantees you six

to eight hours a day of fat-burning hormones running in your body. Only in the

ketogenic diet do we have a very similar affect, but the ketogenic diet has a

lot of downsides to it. Again, it's based on an unnatural denial of instincts.

Mentally, it can fuck you up completely, and it could really fuck up your

ability to deal with stress. I think the mental deprivation plays a big part in

what I should talk about.

In essence, the " Warrior Diet " will guarantee you a fat-burning hormone in your

system for at least six to eight hours, which no other diet does. And last

thing, the diet is based on a one meal a day principle. It's against all the

rules. The meal is to be eaten at night. It could even be late at night; it

doesn't matter. Ideally, it's right after a workout. It sounds kind of

bizarre—you could raise a lot of questions about resting metabolism and basal

metabolism, and you could argue that most people won't be able to handle it, and

stuff like that.

T: I'm flabbergasted, and some sixth sense of mine is telling me to run, but I'd

like to hear your explanation.

OH: Okay, I'll try to run through the introduction. A hundred thousand years

ago, we reached the peak development of our body, genes, and instinct. Human

beings haven't changed at all since then. The only thing that has changed is

that we're living in a much more crowded civilization. In order to control

civilization, you have to create rules. The side effect of these rules is that

you basically control a very primitive instinct of every human being. And, of

course, there are two main instincts: to survive, and to multiply. They're very

well connected, and every time you deprive a human being from expressing his

instinct, he's fucked up. I mean, I'm not the first one to talk about this.

Freud started a revolution with his theory about the inhibition of sex drives

and stuff like that. But it's not just about sex.

Now (I'm trying to jump forward a little bit here) we are living in a culture

that basically teaches you how to live a straight line—that means in a very

equal, almost mathematical equation. We are told the good things, the bad

things, and how to act. But the most dangerous person in a society is a person

who is open to expressing his instinct. Then you're going to fuck anyone who is

moving on the streets with a nice ass. You say anything that you have on your

mind. And you beat the shit out of people who piss you off.

T: We know people like that.

OH: Yeah, and we sometimes kind of like them. There's one more instinct that

combines them all together, and I shall have to try to explain it. Nobody, ever,

in any dictionary, accurately defines the term " romanticism. " There's a Romantic

period in history. There's the word " romance " between people. There's a romantic

attitude, romantic music, and we still don't know exactly what it's about. So

this was one of the things that intrigues me all the time, and I think true

romanticism is an instinct. And it's almost parallel to what I call the " warrior

instinct. " It's funny. The kids have this romanticism more than anyone else, and

it's often killed during the process of growing up. But when you break the rules

of any established set of rules, you're often displaying romantic sensibilities.

People who are against the rule have this romantic aspect to them. If you, as a

writer, go and write something completely anti-industrial and create something

new, you committed a romantic act. Romanticism is not just between men and

women. The last love between Romeo and t was so romantic because their

families were enemies, because they had to break the rules. If they did not have

to break the rules, nobody would know about Romeo and t. But again, it's

not just between men and women or relationships; it's simply going against the

rules to create a new set of rules, because you believe in what you're doing.

That's what makes a figure a romantic hero.

T: But can you give me some examples of modern romantic figures?

OH: I would say, in a way, that I see Einstein as a romantic hero. Again, he

went against the rules, created some theory that nobody believed. And when later

asked, " What would you do if years later they would find out that your theory of

relativity does not work? " you know what his answer was? He said, " Then I'll

feel sorry for God almighty that such a beautiful theory does not work. " It's

not just that he went against the rules and created a new theory; he also

believed in the classical Greek tradition, the Roman tradition that what's

beautiful is good, what's good is beautiful.

And that's basically the same philosophy behind bodybuilding, which makes it

different from any other sport. Any other sport is about achievement of a

competitive goal. You run faster. You jump higher. Or you're a better player in

some kind of a game. It doesn't really matter how you look. In bodybuilding,

it's an absolutely classical example of this Roman classical or Greek classical

thought. When you're beautiful, you're good, you're strong.

T: Can you then give some examples of modern warriors?

OH: There are no modern warriors. That's the problem. I think that even the

Army, as far as I know it, is a short-lived kind of atmosphere for warriors with

the assumption that, if you want to train people to be warriors, you have to

give them war, or a feeling of war. So basic training is about abusing the body,

making it hard, getting you to go through a time of starvation, deprivation of

sleep, shooting above your head, and making sure that you really are ready to

encounter real war itself. Eventually, it does work because it triggers the

basic instinct of the warrior of survival. But you don't need a war to be a

warrior. All you need is to trigger the instinct, maybe from a different

direction. Instead of shooting at people and jumping through the typical martial

arts that millions of people are doing today, maybe all you need to do is

trigger a completely different mechanism that would give you the feeling of a

warrior and the mechanisms to make you feel alert all of the time.

I want to give you one more example. One hundred years ago, there was still a

semblance of chivalry left over. People were born to an aristocratic family.

They're trained to do sword fighting, fencing, whatever, and what defined a

gentleman was his ability to defend his honor. If somebody offended your wife or

girl, you offered them a duel with a sword or a gun. They had to be ready at any

time physically, and personally, to defend their honor. Allowing themselves to

degenerate into couch potatoes was unthinkable. Of course, that phenomenon has

disappeared forever. I don't mean that men have to go to war. But the ability to

fight for your honor is something that's disappeared today, and so, too, has the

need to stay in some semblance of shape to be able to fight and protect your

honor.

For many years, I've been obsessed with the first drawings done by simple

cultures. You look at the Egyptians. You look, for example, at the Minoans. The

Minoans were ancestors of the Greeks and the Romans. Even the Philistines in

Israel who came to Islam, which is a very interesting story by itself, are part

of the Minoic people who escaped through the sea and penetrated the

Mediterranean, and actually conquered and beat all Egypt for a while. They were

very strong people, but a different culture than the Mediterranean and the

Egyptian. The main difference is that the Egyptian drawings and sculptures, with

the exception of just one pharaoh, are all very soft. And some of them look

completely feminine with big tits. Especially Tutankhamen—you know, the husband

of Nefertiti, the most beautiful queen in Egypt.

Ramses was the only pharaoh who looked like a warrior in the ancient drawings.

He wasn't such a great warrior. He gave himself more credit than he deserved.

But his life was different. The other pharaohs used to sit at home. They were

grain eaters, almost modernist in comparison with today, and they suffered from

the same diseases that people suffer from today. I believe they also suffered

from a lot of high estrogen as a side effect of the high amount of gluten that

they used to eat, but that's another story. You look at the Minoic people, and

the Greek people after that, and the Romans after that, and you see only hard

bodies on men. Very athletic. And it's not just a coincidence. You can say,

" Well, maybe it's a style of drawing. " I don't think so. If it appears again and

again for hundreds of years, it means something.

This issue of grain is a big clue. Grain, and especially wheat, was a bigger

thing in Egypt. It appears in the Bible. So while the soft aristocrats ate grain

and bread and cakes, it was the slaves who ate meat. And the Minoic—and then the

Romans, Greeks, and Israelis—were mostly shepherds. They used to wander with

their sheep. So their basic nutrition was meat, olive oil, and wine. It's a

different concept, but it leads to another thing. Look at the Islam religion,

for example. Every Muslim fasts for one month, but what they call " fasting "

actually is eating only once a day, and at night. I truly believe, according to

my experience and research, that it's left over from a very old tradition of

warrior armies—like Mohammed, who was one of them and conquered North

Africa—tribes of wild Arabs completely wandering. They didn't have land. They

wandered and conquered and stole from one another until they united together and

conquered all of North Africa and created the whole Muslim empire.

These Arabs were wanderers. They usually didn't have land. They moved from one

place to another with camels. They were all warriors and ate only at night. When

the Israelis left Egypt, the first thing they complained about was the lack of

food. They could've crossed the desert in two months, but it took them 40 years

because God wanted to teach them how to be free. But to be free, they had to

adopt the concept of a warrior life. You defend your life or yourself. You pick

up your own food, and you're deprived most of the day. You camp only at night.

You eat only at night. Look at wild Arabs today in the desert—they look like

rocks. Same people. When they move to the city, they look like rolly pollies. I

always wondered about the reason. I believe that I now know.

T: But to be a true warrior—someone who needs to endure physical hardship, or

even an athlete who needs to compete—you need some sort of glycogen storage,

right? And that's hard to do when you eat only once a day.

OH: You're reaching a very important point. You've got to eat in such a way that

you're capable of fighting for two hours straight, or wrestling or marching for

hours on end, or being without food, or whatever. When I was a Navy SEAL, that's

what we trained to do. By not eating, we learned to stretch our glycogen

reserves. Those who train on empty, more and more and more, will find out that

they have more and more glycogen reserve ability in their muscles and liver. The

last time I looked up the research—I think it was a year ago—sedentary persons

with what was thought to be about 200 or 300 calories of available glycogen

reserve could stretch it up to 2,000-3,000. Some people even had 5,000 calories

of glycogen reserve. There's a whole area of science about the situation of a

body under glycogen depletion, and it's so relative. But one thing's for sure,

as long as you are glycogen depleted—what I call fasting—your insulin

sensitivity gets higher and higher, as does your protein efficiency. Sometimes,

it goes 30-50% higher. That means that, after fasting, your protein efficiency

could be 30-50% higher. You can eat less than 30% and still digest as much

protein.

T: So what you'd do is take somebody who's used to eating six times a day, and

then have them start stretching the amount of time between feedings?

OH: Exactly.

T: So try not eating breakfast until 10 o'clock in the morning?

OH: Exactly. Believe me, I do understand the logic behind six small meals a day.

I completely understand the logic and respect it. That's probably about what

slaves used to be fed when they worked. But what you miss by doing that, I

think, is much greater than what you gain. There's also a lot of science, and I

will come to it later. But the one thing diets tell you is to not overeat or

undereat—especially over eat. In my concept, overeating and undereating are very

natural cycles of a human being. As hunters, predators, and maybe collectors,

human beings used to overeat and sometimes, of course, undereat. There's more

and more research supporting that overeating is very anabolic, especially after

the state of fasting. Besides insulin sensitivity and the ability to stretch

protein efficiency, simply the volumizing effect of a muscle pump and everything

else is much stronger after overeating.

T: So is the ultimate goal of one phase of this diet to actually work down to

one meal a day?

OH: That's the ultimate goal, yes, but there's room for some leeway, depending

on an individual's goals or circumstances. For instance, even I introduce small

protein meals during the day at times.

T: So you can eat a little during the day?

OH: Absolutely. You can eat whatever you want, as long as you don't eat any

carbohydrates that will drive up insulin. Moreover, I'm just working out another

aspect, which is the brain. How many real diets are working on your brain?

Furthermore, many supplements are far more effective on an empty stomach. For

example, two to four grams of glutamine on an empty stomach can boost your GH in

one hour by 30-50%. I mean, if you don't have an empty stomach, you can't do

that. In any other diet, you basically shut down your brain and make yourself

much more stupid than you should be. Much less alert and much more stupid. The

biggest problem with the diet, at least initially, is the cortisol. People who

start it immediately will feel distress and an accumulation of cortisol. But the

funny thing is the adaptation to cortisol like to anything else.

T: Let me address what seems like two apparent contradictions. You said that

this diet is more targeted toward being instinctive, but eating less frequently

doesn't seem to be instinctive. Does it?

OH: Okay, that's the biggest argument. You're right. I truly believe, and I will

try to prove, that after two weeks of trying it, you won't be hungry during the

day. And instinctively—when you really reach this time of eating at night, not

just when you want to eat—you know exactly what you want. Your priority will be

right, and it's not because you have a notebook telling you what you should eat

today. Naturally, you first want to have a lot of protein—veggies and carbs will

come after that.

T: So it's your contention that this instinct is there, but we've lost it and

need to be retrained.

OH: Exactly. I think that's the way we were meant to be. I mean, we are very

similar to predators. Predators—wild, free predators—don't eat when they're not

hungry. Take the same predator. Put it in captivity, whether it's a wild cat or

a wolf, and it gets crazy. They eat non-stop, like human beings. They have no

instinct to stop.

T: And they act like prey.

OH: Yes, they act like prey. I believe that, historically, humans are the same.

They were very busy during the day. It's the " fight or flight " instinct. The

brain was in peak operating efficiency, adrenaline was high, and they were lean

and mean. They were hunting and surviving, fighting for their life. When they

hunted the food, they made sure in the evening, when they were rested, that was

the time to eat.

T: So initially, you categorize many of the other popular diets as being diets

of denial. But this, too, is a diet of denial. But only initially, until you get

used to it...

OH: Well, yes. Of course, there's always an assumption that they're in a kind of

denial because you have to go through some kind of discipline in order to adapt.

But my emphasis is, whatever conventional diet you go on—even six meals a

day—you're never, never satisfied. Show me how, on the six meals a day plan, you

can eat as much as you want. No, you have to stop. You have to stop after

reaching a certain amount of calories or a certain portion has been eaten.

Yes, the warrior diet is based on the idea that you should have the instinct to

be busy and productive and alert. And, if you decide to sit the whole day at

home, that means you gave up the ability to be alert; you no longer fight to get

money or food, and you no longer hunt. This is what happens to men when they

become civilized, when they lose the romantic flavor.

T: I do notice that, most of the time, because I'm so busy, I have to remind

myself to go eat something. I mean, it just escapes my mind. So what I'm getting

from all of this, as you train your body—if your theories are correct—in time,

you will train your body to be able to not feel these needs to eat, and you'll

be able to work through those because your body systems will have adapted to

this concept. And because of our intensely busy day, and the empty stomach, and

dealing with the energy levels that we derive from being a little bit hungry, it

will feel invigorating.

OH: That's exactly right.

T: I just thought of something interesting. At my feet, at this moment, is a

Staffordshire bull terrier. He's 50 pounds of muscle. Extremely powerful. Not an

ounce of fat. Striations everywhere, and he free eats. He eats whatever he

wants, but he'll eat about once a day...usually at night.

OH: Okay, you've got the answer. He's a free animal. I believe that truly free

people do not usually eat more than once a day. In classical Roman times, for

the 300 years from 100 BC—which is the classical time of Julius Caesar—until

almost the decadent era of the 2nd century, the Romans used to eat once a day.

You can see it also in the figures and drawings of the emperors. Romans used to

be lean and mean, including Julius Caesar himself. When they crossed the 1st

century, the decadent period started, and they started to behave like people do

today. You can literally see the difference on the size of the emperors. It's

very interesting.

T: I have one more question, otherwise I'm approaching overload. I get the gist

of this. I understand. So this diet would then be a diet for life, essentially,

and not just a short period of time?

OH: I truly believe so. The other day, I watched a TV program featuring great

champions and fast runners and sprinters from the '70s—Olympic champions. They

all look like shit now. They look like shit because they didn't have a way of

life. As long as they needed to get results, they were in good shape. But after

that, they got tired and out of shape. So here I'm offering an alternative that

anyone can do. I know that it's going to be hard, and what I want to do is lead

them step by step. First of all, break the breakfast. And then we show them how

to find an alternative to lunch.

T: It's all very interesting. I'm wondering, though, if things like meal

replacements have a place in your diet.

OH: Listen, I'm actually eating more protein now than ever. When I'm talking

about one meal a day, it's a triple dinner. I sometimes get home, let's say

10pm, and eat three meals, one after the other. I have no problem with this.

Besides, I'm not talking about the complete cessation of food during the day. It

depends very much on you and your individual needs. Your body, however, will

tell you exactly what it needs. If mine, on the rare occasion, tells me that I

can't wait until evening to have protein, I may eat like half a chicken during

the day, or drink a meal replacement.

T: So what you're saying is that, as long as I had my protein, I could follow it

up with three pizzas?

OH: Exactly. I'm telling you, TC, it will work. It's not a diet that's ketogenic

or based on suffering and you count the hours. With the " Warrior Diet, " every

day has a happy ending.

T: Well, I'm intrigued by it, because it would certainly make my life easier.

I'm always worried about finding the time to eat. I forget all of the time.

OH: In the future, I'll show you that, as you forgo these useless meals, your

insulin sensitivity goes up, as does your protein efficiency. Furthermore,

there's another aspect that I want to discuss with you. It concerns lactic acid.

Lactic acid is a big enigma. Up 'till now, the industry's been against it. They

give you all of these products to buffer it. Lactic acid—I'll prove, and now I'm

really serious—is going to be the miracle drug. Like Pyruvate was going to do

for fat burning, lactic acid would do much more than that. Also, lactic acid—we

already know, especially on an empty stomach—could boost growth hormone much

higher.

T: Sure, there's a direct correlation between lactic acid and growth hormone.

OH: That's true. But the important concept is lactic acid efficiency. Warriors,

even without a war, could build up lactic acid efficiency, turning lactic acid

into an energy-producing and fat-burning agent. It absolutely increases your

ability to react under stress. And lactic acid accumulates much more after

fasting, much more than after eating.

So basically, you have a lot of advantages here that no other diet could give

you. But I repeat the last thing. Even if you have a sense of freedom once a

day, which I employ at night, that will be good enough. I truly and honestly

believe that most diets have no sense of freedom at all. Yes, you eat six meals

a day. But do you really enjoy them so much? Do you stop when you really want to

stop? Does your body know what you really want?

Another thing that I want to emphasize is related to instinct. Every time you

fulfill an instinct, I believe that there is a feeling—not just a sense of

pleasure, you know—but some kind of high, whether it's satisfaction from food or

satisfaction from sex. It's funny...after an intense workout, you feel this kind

of high because of the endorphins. Could it be that just performing an intense

workout is based on the warrior instinct? Could it simply be that we're so

deprived of action that we're compelled to bodybuild?

By now, you're either ready to string Ori up and dismiss him as a heretic, or

put him on your shoulders and parade him around your room (after throwing away

your noon-time meal, of course).

Again, by no means do we advocate this type of diet...yet. It is, however,

intriguing, and I hope that you'll at least think about some of the things he

said and share your thoughts with us. After all, no free thinker would do

otherwise.

[Guest guest]

Here is part two of the interview:

T: We know people like that.

OH: Yeah, and we sometimes kind of like them. There's one more instinct that

combines them all together, and I shall have to try to explain it. Nobody, ever,

in any dictionary, accurately defines the term " romanticism. " There's a Romantic

period in history. There's the word " romance " between people. There's a romantic

attitude, romantic music, and we still don't know exactly what it's about. So

this was one of the things that intrigues me all the time, and I think true

romanticism is an instinct. And it's almost parallel to what I call the " warrior

instinct. " It's funny. The kids have this romanticism more than anyone else, and

it's often killed during the process of growing up. But when you break the rules

of any established set of rules, you're often displaying romantic sensibilities.

People who are against the rule have this romantic aspect to them. If you, as a

writer, go and write something completely anti-industrial and create something

new, you committed a romantic act. Romanticism is not just between men and

women. The last love between Romeo and t was so romantic because their

families were enemies, because they had to break the rules. If they did not have

to break the rules, nobody would know about Romeo and t. But again, it's

not just between men and women or relationships; it's simply going against the

rules to create a new set of rules, because you believe in what you're doing.

That's what makes a figure a romantic hero.

T: But can you give me some examples of modern romantic figures?

OH: I would say, in a way, that I see Einstein as a romantic hero. Again, he

went against the rules, created some theory that nobody believed. And when later

asked, " What would you do if years later they would find out that your theory of

relativity does not work? " you know what his answer was? He said, " Then I'll

feel sorry for God almighty that such a beautiful theory does not work. " It's

not just that he went against the rules and created a new theory; he also

believed in the classical Greek tradition, the Roman tradition that what's

beautiful is good, what's good is beautiful.

And that's basically the same philosophy behind bodybuilding, which makes it

different from any other sport. Any other sport is about achievement of a

competitive goal. You run faster. You jump higher. Or you're a better player in

some kind of a game. It doesn't really matter how you look. In bodybuilding,

it's an absolutely classical example of this Roman classical or Greek classical

thought. When you're beautiful, you're good, you're strong.

T: Can you then give some examples of modern warriors?

OH: There are no modern warriors. That's the problem. I think that even the

Army, as far as I know it, is a short-lived kind of atmosphere for warriors with

the assumption that, if you want to train people to be warriors, you have to

give them war, or a feeling of war. So basic training is about abusing the body,

making it hard, getting you to go through a time of starvation, deprivation of

sleep, shooting above your head, and making sure that you really are ready to

encounter real war itself. Eventually, it does work because it triggers the

basic instinct of the warrior of survival. But you don't need a war to be a

warrior. All you need is to trigger the instinct, maybe from a different

direction. Instead of shooting at people and jumping through the typical martial

arts that millions of people are doing today, maybe all you need to do is

trigger a completely different mechanism that would give you the feeling of a

warrior and the mechanisms to make you feel alert all of the time.

I want to give you one more example. One hundred years ago, there was still a

semblance of chivalry left over. People were born to an aristocratic family.

They're trained to do sword fighting, fencing, whatever, and what defined a

gentleman was his ability to defend his honor. If somebody offended your wife or

girl, you offered them a duel with a sword or a gun. They had to be ready at any

time physically, and personally, to defend their honor. Allowing themselves to

degenerate into couch potatoes was unthinkable. Of course, that phenomenon has

disappeared forever. I don't mean that men have to go to war. But the ability to

fight for your honor is something that's disappeared today, and so, too, has the

need to stay in some semblance of shape to be able to fight and protect your

honor.

For many years, I've been obsessed with the first drawings done by simple

cultures. You look at the Egyptians. You look, for example, at the Minoans. The

Minoans were ancestors of the Greeks and the Romans. Even the Philistines in

Israel who came to Islam, which is a very interesting story by itself, are part

of the Minoic people who escaped through the sea and penetrated the

Mediterranean, and actually conquered and beat all Egypt for a while. They were

very strong people, but a different culture than the Mediterranean and the

Egyptian. The main difference is that the Egyptian drawings and sculptures, with

the exception of just one pharaoh, are all very soft. And some of them look

completely feminine with big tits. Especially Tutankhamen—you know, the husband

of Nefertiti, the most beautiful queen in Egypt.

Ramses was the only pharaoh who looked like a warrior in the ancient drawings.

He wasn't such a great warrior. He gave himself more credit than he deserved.

But his life was different. The other pharaohs used to sit at home. They were

grain eaters, almost modernist in comparison with today, and they suffered from

the same diseases that people suffer from today. I believe they also suffered

from a lot of high estrogen as a side effect of the high amount of gluten that

they used to eat, but that's another story. You look at the Minoic people, and

the Greek people after that, and the Romans after that, and you see only hard

bodies on men. Very athletic. And it's not just a coincidence. You can say,

" Well, maybe it's a style of drawing. " I don't think so. If it appears again and

again for hundreds of years, it means something.

This issue of grain is a big clue. Grain, and especially wheat, was a bigger

thing in Egypt. It appears in the Bible. So while the soft aristocrats ate grain

and bread and cakes, it was the slaves who ate meat. And the Minoic—and then the

Romans, Greeks, and Israelis—were mostly shepherds. They used to wander with

their sheep. So their basic nutrition was meat, olive oil, and wine. It's a

different concept, but it leads to another thing. Look at the Islam religion,

for example. Every Muslim fasts for one month, but what they call " fasting "

actually is eating only once a day, and at night. I truly believe, according to

my experience and research, that it's left over from a very old tradition of

warrior armies—like Mohammed, who was one of them and conquered North

Africa—tribes of wild Arabs completely wandering. They didn't have land. They

wandered and conquered and stole from one another until they united together and

conquered all of North Africa and created the whole Muslim empire.

These Arabs were wanderers. They usually didn't have land. They moved from one

place to another with camels. They were all warriors and ate only at night. When

the Israelis left Egypt, the first thing they complained about was the lack of

food. They could've crossed the desert in two months, but it took them 40 years

because God wanted to teach them how to be free. But to be free, they had to

adopt the concept of a warrior life. You defend your life or yourself. You pick

up your own food, and you're deprived most of the day. You camp only at night.

You eat only at night. Look at wild Arabs today in the desert—they look like

rocks. Same people. When they move to the city, they look like rolly pollies. I

always wondered about the reason. I believe that I now know.

T: But to be a true warrior—someone who needs to endure physical hardship, or

even an athlete who needs to compete—you need some sort of glycogen storage,

right? And that's hard to do when you eat only once a day.

OH: You're reaching a very important point. You've got to eat in such a way that

you're capable of fighting for two hours straight, or wrestling or marching for

hours on end, or being without food, or whatever. When I was a Navy SEAL, that's

what we trained to do. By not eating, we learned to stretch our glycogen

reserves. Those who train on empty, more and more and more, will find out that

they have more and more glycogen reserve ability in their muscles and liver. The

last time I looked up the research—I think it was a year ago—sedentary persons

with what was thought to be about 200 or 300 calories of available glycogen

reserve could stretch it up to 2,000-3,000. Some people even had 5,000 calories

of glycogen reserve. There's a whole area of science about the situation of a

body under glycogen depletion, and it's so relative. But one thing's for sure,

as long as you are glycogen depleted—what I call fasting—your insulin

sensitivity gets higher and higher, as does your protein efficiency. Sometimes,

it goes 30-50% higher. That means that, after fasting, your protein efficiency

could be 30-50% higher. You can eat less than 30% and still digest as much

protein.

T: So what you'd do is take somebody who's used to eating six times a day, and

then have them start stretching the amount of time between feedings?

OH: Exactly.

T: So try not eating breakfast until 10 o'clock in the morning?

OH: Exactly. Believe me, I do understand the logic behind six small meals a day.

I completely understand the logic and respect it. That's probably about what

slaves used to be fed when they worked. But what you miss by doing that, I

think, is much greater than what you gain. There's also a lot of science, and I

will come to it later. But the one thing diets tell you is to not overeat or

undereat—especially over eat. In my concept, overeating and undereating are very

natural cycles of a human being. As hunters, predators, and maybe collectors,

human beings used to overeat and sometimes, of course, undereat. There's more

and more research supporting that overeating is very anabolic, especially after

the state of fasting. Besides insulin sensitivity and the ability to stretch

protein efficiency, simply the volumizing effect of a muscle pump and everything

else is much stronger after overeating.

T: So is the ultimate goal of one phase of this diet to actually work down to

one meal a day?

OH: That's the ultimate goal, yes, but there's room for some leeway, depending

on an individual's goals or circumstances. For instance, even I introduce small

protein meals during the day at times.

T: So you can eat a little during the day?

OH: Absolutely. You can eat whatever you want, as long as you don't eat any

carbohydrates that will drive up insulin. Moreover, I'm just working out another

aspect, which is the brain. How many real diets are working on your brain?

Furthermore, many supplements are far more effective on an empty stomach. For

example, two to four grams of glutamine on an empty stomach can boost your GH in

one hour by 30-50%. I mean, if you don't have an empty stomach, you can't do

that. In any other diet, you basically shut down your brain and make yourself

much more stupid than you should be. Much less alert and much more stupid. The

biggest problem with the diet, at least initially, is the cortisol. People who

start it immediately will feel distress and an accumulation of cortisol. But the

funny thing is the adaptation to cortisol like to anything else.

[Guest guest]

And here is part 3 of the interview with Ori Hofmekler, author of the

Warrior Diet

T: Let me address what seems like two apparent contradictions. You said that

this diet is more targeted toward being instinctive, but eating less frequently

doesn't seem to be instinctive. Does it?

OH: Okay, that's the biggest argument. You're right. I truly believe, and I will

try to prove, that after two weeks of trying it, you won't be hungry during the

day. And instinctively—when you really reach this time of eating at night, not

just when you want to eat—you know exactly what you want. Your priority will be

right, and it's not because you have a notebook telling you what you should eat

today. Naturally, you first want to have a lot of protein—veggies and carbs will

come after that.

T: So it's your contention that this instinct is there, but we've lost it and

need to be retrained.

OH: Exactly. I think that's the way we were meant to be. I mean, we are very

similar to predators. Predators—wild, free predators—don't eat when they're not

hungry. Take the same predator. Put it in captivity, whether it's a wild cat or

a wolf, and it gets crazy. They eat non-stop, like human beings. They have no

instinct to stop.

T: And they act like prey.

OH: Yes, they act like prey. I believe that, historically, humans are the same.

They were very busy during the day. It's the " fight or flight " instinct. The

brain was in peak operating efficiency, adrenaline was high, and they were lean

and mean. They were hunting and surviving, fighting for their life. When they

hunted the food, they made sure in the evening, when they were rested, that was

the time to eat.

T: So initially, you categorize many of the other popular diets as being diets

of denial. But this, too, is a diet of denial. But only initially, until you get

used to it...

OH: Well, yes. Of course, there's always an assumption that they're in a kind of

denial because you have to go through some kind of discipline in order to adapt.

But my emphasis is, whatever conventional diet you go on—even six meals a

day—you're never, never satisfied. Show me how, on the six meals a day plan, you

can eat as much as you want. No, you have to stop. You have to stop after

reaching a certain amount of calories or a certain portion has been eaten.

Yes, the warrior diet is based on the idea that you should have the instinct to

be busy and productive and alert. And, if you decide to sit the whole day at

home, that means you gave up the ability to be alert; you no longer fight to get

money or food, and you no longer hunt. This is what happens to men when they

become civilized, when they lose the romantic flavor.

T: I do notice that, most of the time, because I'm so busy, I have to remind

myself to go eat something. I mean, it just escapes my mind. So what I'm getting

from all of this, as you train your body—if your theories are correct—in time,

you will train your body to be able to not feel these needs to eat, and you'll

be able to work through those because your body systems will have adapted to

this concept. And because of our intensely busy day, and the empty stomach, and

dealing with the energy levels that we derive from being a little bit hungry, it

will feel invigorating.

OH: That's exactly right.

T: I just thought of something interesting. At my feet, at this moment, is a

Staffordshire bull terrier. He's 50 pounds of muscle. Extremely powerful. Not an

ounce of fat. Striations everywhere, and he free eats. He eats whatever he

wants, but he'll eat about once a day...usually at night.

OH: Okay, you've got the answer. He's a free animal. I believe that truly free

people do not usually eat more than once a day. In classical Roman times, for

the 300 years from 100 BC—which is the classical time of Julius Caesar—until

almost the decadent era of the 2nd century, the Romans used to eat once a day.

You can see it also in the figures and drawings of the emperors. Romans used to

be lean and mean, including Julius Caesar himself. When they crossed the 1st

century, the decadent period started, and they started to behave like people do

today. You can literally see the difference on the size of the emperors. It's

very interesting.

T: I have one more question, otherwise I'm approaching overload. I get the gist

of this. I understand. So this diet would then be a diet for life, essentially,

and not just a short period of time?

OH: I truly believe so. The other day, I watched a TV program featuring great

champions and fast runners and sprinters from the '70s—Olympic champions. They

all look like shit now. They look like shit because they didn't have a way of

life. As long as they needed to get results, they were in good shape. But after

that, they got tired and out of shape. So here I'm offering an alternative that

anyone can do. I know that it's going to be hard, and what I want to do is lead

them step by step. First of all, break the breakfast. And then we show them how

to find an alternative to lunch.

T: It's all very interesting. I'm wondering, though, if things like meal

replacements have a place in your diet.

OH: Listen, I'm actually eating more protein now than ever. When I'm talking

about one meal a day, it's a triple dinner. I sometimes get home, let's say

10pm, and eat three meals, one after the other. I have no problem with this.

Besides, I'm not talking about the complete cessation of food during the day. It

depends very much on you and your individual needs. Your body, however, will

tell you exactly what it needs. If mine, on the rare occasion, tells me that I

can't wait until evening to have protein, I may eat like half a chicken during

the day, or drink a meal replacement.

T: So what you're saying is that, as long as I had my protein, I could follow it

up with three pizzas?

OH: Exactly. I'm telling you, TC, it will work. It's not a diet that's ketogenic

or based on suffering and you count the hours. With the " Warrior Diet, " every

day has a happy ending.

T: Well, I'm intrigued by it, because it would certainly make my life easier.

I'm always worried about finding the time to eat. I forget all of the time.

OH: In the future, I'll show you that, as you forgo these useless meals, your

insulin sensitivity goes up, as does your protein efficiency. Furthermore,

there's another aspect that I want to discuss with you. It concerns lactic acid.

Lactic acid is a big enigma. Up 'till now, the industry's been against it. They

give you all of these products to buffer it. Lactic acid—I'll prove, and now I'm

really serious—is going to be the miracle drug. Like Pyruvate was going to do

for fat burning, lactic acid would do much more than that. Also, lactic acid—we

already know, especially on an empty stomach—could boost growth hormone much

higher.

T: Sure, there's a direct correlation between lactic acid and growth hormone.

OH: That's true. But the important concept is lactic acid efficiency. Warriors,

even without a war, could build up lactic acid efficiency, turning lactic acid

into an energy-producing and fat-burning agent. It absolutely increases your

ability to react under stress. And lactic acid accumulates much more after

fasting, much more than after eating.

So basically, you have a lot of advantages here that no other diet could give

you. But I repeat the last thing. Even if you have a sense of freedom once a

day, which I employ at night, that will be good enough. I truly and honestly

believe that most diets have no sense of freedom at all. Yes, you eat six meals

a day. But do you really enjoy them so much? Do you stop when you really want to

stop? Does your body know what you really want?

Another thing that I want to emphasize is related to instinct. Every time you

fulfill an instinct, I believe that there is a feeling—not just a sense of

pleasure, you know—but some kind of high, whether it's satisfaction from food or

satisfaction from sex. It's funny...after an intense workout, you feel this kind

of high because of the endorphins. Could it be that just performing an intense

workout is based on the warrior instinct? Could it simply be that we're so

deprived of action that we're compelled to bodybuild?

By now, you're either ready to string Ori up and dismiss him as a heretic, or

put him on your shoulders and parade him around your room (after throwing away

your noon-time meal, of course).

Again, by no means do we advocate this type of diet...yet. It is, however,

intriguing, and I hope that you'll at least think about some of the things he

said and share your thoughts with us. After all, no free thinker would do

otherwise.

[Guest guest]

>Heidi-

>

>And see, I think you're making an unwarranted assumption again. We're all

>told that the calorie-restricted mice (and chimps, and so on) are healthy,

>but torpor and lack of sexual function don't fit my definition of health.

>

>-

??? I'm not sure where the torpor and lack of sexual function came in, maybe we

are reading different sources. There was a program about it on Discover, I

think,

and they made a point of saying the mice were very active (and they looked it,

too!) even in old age. So I'm not assuming, though it could be they were

exaggerating. The " old " mice were doddering, and the calorie-restricted ones

were doing normal mouse-clambering.

However, I'm not in favor of calorie restricting myself, which is why I liked

the second study better! I was on a very calorie restricted diet for about a

year

once, and I had plenty of energy etc. but my metabolism went south big time

and I gained weight immediately when I stopped it.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

>Ramses was the only pharaoh who looked like a warrior in the ancient drawings.

He wasn't such a great warrior. He gave himself more credit than he deserved.

But his life was different. The other pharaohs used to sit at home. They were

grain eaters, almost modernist in comparison with today, and they suffered from

the same diseases that people suffer from today. I believe they also suffered

from a lot of high estrogen as a side effect of the high amount of gluten that

they used to eat, but that's another story.

OK, now I like this guy! I just ordered the book.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 11:36:07 -0000

" paultheo2000 " <paultheo2000@...> wrote:

> Interesting discussion. Might the warrior diet have the same benefits

> as one with alternated fasting (shown to lengthen lifespan in mice)?

> It seems to apply the same principle. Perhaps there's a certain amount

> of hours necessary to fast before gaining any benefits?

>

Well that is why I decided to try the Warrior Diet in the first place,

since I was already fasting twice a week.

[Guest guest]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 08:09:34 EDT

ChrisMasterjohn@... wrote:

> In a message dated 8/12/03 8:50:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

> slethnobotanist@... writes:

>

> > Well the model for the " Warrior Diet " is actually someone who does do a

> > lot physically , i.e a warrior, thus the name.

>

> I understand that but obviously most people doing it aren't (hardly anyone in

> modern society works a fraction of what people did 1 or 2 centuries ago), and

> I frankly can't see how it would work unless you were chewing on coca leaves

> all day.

>

> Chris

>

Well obviously I can't speak to this long term, but I can share my own

experience. Also keep in mind that there is a " warrior " workout along

with the diet, even though we have been focusing on diet in this thread.

When I did my longest fast to date - 42 days - I continued in my same

lifestyle.

I was doing intense weight training 5 days a week and playing

competitive basketball 3 - 5x a week. It was a typical weights/aerobics

combo. I followed my normal work schedule.

The standard advice is to slow down your workouts when

fasting/undereating so that you are in maintenance mode. I didn't. I

just kept doing what I normally do.

But my energy level never decreased, in fact it increased. My strength

didn't go down either. Towards the end of the fast I found that my

creative juices were overflowing and I needed less than half the sleep I

normally required.

I broke the fast on day 42 because that was the first day since week one

that I had any significant hunger, plus Lent was nearly over, and I

would have lost my very convenient answer when people asked what I was

doing ( " I'm fasting for Lent " - it was nearly foolproof for ending the

discussion). I figured it was my body telling me enough.

It was a textbook fast, along the lines of much of what I had read at

the time. Previous to that a former roommate of mine had done one for

thirty days, with essentially the same results.

So I think there is much research that can be done in this whole area of

adaptation while fasting/undereating. And while I might not agree with

all the philosophical underpinnings of the Warrior Diet, clearly he is

not totally out to lunch either in terms of what can be physically

accomplished while undereating during the day on a regular basis,

especially given the big meal at the end of the day.

But, the experiment continues....

The Warrior Chef :-)

[Guest guest]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 11:05:45 -0700

" Christie " <christiekeith@...> wrote:

> So, the long and the short of it is, even though I try to raise my dogs as

" naturally " as possible, I have always minimized or avoided the wolf model of

" feast and famine " with them, with the desire to compensate for their unnatural

body shape.

>

>

For clarity sake, " feast and fasting " and " feast and famine " are two very

different things. For starters, one is voluntary and the other is not, among

other things.

[Guest guest]

>> Only in the ketogenic diet do we have a very similar affect, but the

ketogenic diet has a lot of downsides to it. Again, it's based on an unnatural

denial of instincts. Mentally, it can fuck you up completely, and it could

really fuck up your ability to deal with stress. I think the mental deprivation

plays a big part in what I should talk about. <<

I really have to say this strikes me as absurd. Not eating at Mc's is also

a denial of " instincts " ... it's not for nothing that fast food is loaded with

" flavors " designed to be so delicious that people crave them beyond reason.

There is an entire industry that does nothing but try to manipulate this!

Never in the history of humanity as anyone eaten the levels of carbs that

Americans consume now. To suggest it's " unnatural " or " un-instinctual " to go

back to levels that are more appropriate for our biology, our evolution, and our

hormonal health is just plain lacking in common sense.

We may not WANT to do that. We may not WANT to give up cookies or candy or

refined flour or high fructose corn syrup or Big Macs or whatever it is we feel

we cannot live without, but invoking nature and instinct to explain why those

things are so hard to live without? Doesn't work for me.

As to the ketogenic diet " fucking you up, " it is the first thing that UNfucked

me up in my FUCKING life <G>. And my ability to stress seems if anything

infinitely better, now that my energy levels have smoothed out, I'm sleeping so

well, and I am able to function so much better. This just doesn't match my

reality.

This doesn't make his diet right or wrong, good or bad. But I don't think it

really says a lot of his credibility on other diets.

Christie

[Guest guest]

>> For clarity sake, " feast and fasting " and " feast and famine " are two very

different things. For starters, one is voluntary and the other is not, among

other things. <<

True, but I promise, dogs only fast if they are sick. <G>

Christie

[Guest guest]

> I think the reason those who skip breakfast are fatter is two-fold.

>

> One, I think skipping breakfast is a SYMPTOM of insulin resistance.

> Those of us with insulin resistance often feel nauseated and

> inappetant in the morning.

Wow, I've had this problem since puberty. Major nausea when

contemplating a breakfast when I first wake up, with the exception of high

carb ones. =) Though pancakes and donuts would make me sick and

give me a headache.

Now that I am low carbing I am still bad about eating breakfast. I am

hungry when I get up, but I have to wait an hour after taking thyroid meds

and then forget to eat something. So, I've been ending up with a

moderate meal for " lunch " , no breakfast, some snacking, and a large

meal for dinner.

I hope to start my kefir shakes soon though. Never had a problem with

liquids or shakes in the morning.

> Two, skipping breakfast throws your metabolism off, causing a severe

> blood sugar drop that causes us to reach for carbs to boost it back up

> - say, the 10 o'clock coffee break of caffeine and sugar. <G> Or even

> just a big, carby lunch (try pasta). And then we get that nice burst

> of insulin that we can't assimilate, creating a fat storage syndrome.

That pretty much described me prior to low carb dieting! I'd pretty much

fast all day, not even usually eating lunch. But I'd have tons of coffee

with sugar when working, or sodas - Coca Cola. I could easily drink 64

ouncers twice a day.

> No, I don't think that skipping breakfast makes people fatter BECAUSE

> they eat more during the day. I think it's more involved than that.

I do as well. I think it is probably more of a symptom that something else

isn't right, as you said above. Now I handle breakfast a little better but

I'm still not very hungry and prefer a breakfast snack usually.

Dawn

[Guest guest]

>Never in the history of humanity as anyone eaten the levels of carbs that

Americans consume now. To suggest it's " unnatural " or " un-instinctual " to go

back to levels that are more appropriate for our biology, our evolution, and our

hormonal health is just plain lacking in common sense.

Some of this might depend on your history. There are SOME cultures that are

ketogenic (Inuit, for one) but most low-tech diets do include enough tubers or

other starch that they don't qualify as " ketogenic " , and I read once that the

Australian Aborigines actually had sweet potato fields 50,000 years ago.

Although a lot of people do really well on low-carb diets (and you sound like

one of them), for a lot of people they are very difficult, and it can be hard to

keep the levels of carbs low enough to " stay ketogenic " -- given a choice, the

body seems to use ketogenesis as a last resort. Most of us have non-ketogenic

ancestors going back at least 5,000 years, and even the Paleo people supposedly

ate a fair amount of vegetable matter, some of it no doubt containing carbs --

some people think about HALF their nutrition came from carbs (granted, it was

non-grain carb):

http://www.nutritionreporter.com/stone_age_diet.html

" Carbohydrates. Early humans obtained about half of their calories from

carbohydrates, but these carbohydrates were rarely grains. Most carbohydrates

came from vegetables and fruit. "

As for the levels of carbs (esp. rather dastardly carbs) being absurdly high at

the moment, no argument there!

But I have to say, from observing various low-carbers, that I agree with the

" Metabolic typing " people -- SOME people just love it and do great. Others

really struggle, and the quote you were quoting really does apply. They get

grouchy and really fight to stay on the diet, but it takes a lot of effort on

their part. I have not known anyone personally that has " stuck it out " more than

3 months, though they DID lose a nice bit of fat in the process. And gained it

all back, which is why I'm not trying it! But if it works for you, low-carbing

is an easy thing.

It might take a lot of effort for some people to stick to the Warrior Diet too

-- I talked to a lady who said her DH really LIKED to eat this way (one big meal

in the evening) but it made him really, really grouchy. Of course I don't know

what he was snacking on or how long he tried it or what his " meal " was in the

evening either.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 8/16/03 9:48:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

christiekeith@... writes:

> >>even the Paleo people supposedly ate a fair amount of vegetable matter,

> some of it no doubt containing carbs -- some people think about HALF their

> nutrition came from carbs (granted, it was non-grain carb): <<

>

> Hmmm, I do think that at some times of year, some cultures most likely did

> get as much as half their calories from carbs, but I think that as an overall

> trend, that's pretty high.

>

Me too. I'd like to see the evidence. The impression I got from

anthropology class was that there's not an enormous amount of evidence, but when

we

talked about the three sort of " big dig " archeological sites that are used for

information on paleolithic folks, iirc, only one of them had any evidence of

eating plant products at all. granted, animal remains are more likely to lie

around for tens of thousands of years than plant products. and my professor was

heavily biased towards showing that humans didn't evolve on just big game,

though the evidence he presented seemed to lean more towards big game than

anything

else.

Moreover, afaik, there aren't any modern hunter-gatherers that have been

studied that eat half their calories as carbs. If plants have changed time it

has

been a proliferation of more carb-dense, not the other way around, so it

seems that the max carb-load of modern h & gs should represent a max carb load, in

general of hunter-gatherers.

Plant to animal ratio increases with lattitude as you move towards the

equator. Tropical folks eat the most plants, but their plants also are the

highest

in fat and protein. Coconuts and nuts come to mind. We studied the San in

depth in anthropology class, who live in the Kalahari Desert, and their diet is

37% animal products, but the biggest plant product is the mongongo nut, which

is the plant that supposedly has the closest protein complex to an animal

protein. If the majority of their plants were mongongo nuts, and 37% were

animal

products, they couldn't possibly have had 50% carbs I don't think, even though

they have one of the highest plant to animal product ratios of

hunter-gatherers.

> I also was talking about low carb, whereas the quote was specifically about

> KETOGENIC diets. While there is overlap, they aren't always the same. I

> myself have been happily on a ketogenic diet for over three months now, but I

can

> see it's not for everyone. However, I do believe that LOW carbs (as in, half

> or less than the average American currently eats) is a much more natural

> diet for a human being and shouldn't have any adverse effects on anyone.

I don't think he was referring to the Atkins diet in the interview. I think

when he said " the " ketogenic diet, he meant the classic ketogenic diet that

preceeds Atkins by decades, or the modern MCT one, which has similarities to

atkins, but the modern versions have people mostly drinking MCT shakes with

little in the way of real food.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Hey , that sounds very interesting: what exactly did your

fasting consist of? My limited personal experience agrees with you.

When I slow down during a one day fast I don't feel well at all but

when I act normally I feel fine (I guess it also has to do with

staying distracted).

-

----

> Well obviously I can't speak to this long term, but I can share my own

> experience. Also keep in mind that there is a " warrior " workout along

> with the diet, even though we have been focusing on diet in this thread.

>

> When I did my longest fast to date - 42 days - I continued in my same

> lifestyle.

>

> I was doing intense weight training 5 days a week and playing

> competitive basketball 3 - 5x a week. It was a typical weights/aerobics

> combo. I followed my normal work schedule.

>

> The standard advice is to slow down your workouts when

> fasting/undereating so that you are in maintenance mode. I didn't. I

> just kept doing what I normally do.

>

> But my energy level never decreased, in fact it increased. My strength

> didn't go down either. Towards the end of the fast I found that my

> creative juices were overflowing and I needed less than half the sleep I

> normally required.

>

> I broke the fast on day 42 because that was the first day since week one

> that I had any significant hunger, plus Lent was nearly over, and I

> would have lost my very convenient answer when people asked what I was

> doing ( " I'm fasting for Lent " - it was nearly foolproof for ending the

> discussion). I figured it was my body telling me enough.

>

> It was a textbook fast, along the lines of much of what I had read at

> the time. Previous to that a former roommate of mine had done one for

> thirty days, with essentially the same results.

>

> So I think there is much research that can be done in this whole area of

> adaptation while fasting/undereating. And while I might not agree with

> all the philosophical underpinnings of the Warrior Diet, clearly he is

> not totally out to lunch either in terms of what can be physically

> accomplished while undereating during the day on a regular basis,

> especially given the big meal at the end of the day.

>

> But, the experiment continues....

>

>

>

> The Warrior Chef :-)

[Guest guest]

<< But I have to say, from observing various low-carbers, that I agree with the

" Metabolic typing " people -- SOME people just love it and do great. Others

really struggle, and the quote you were quoting really does apply. >>

Heidi, I do agree with you - I believe everyone is different, although I haven't

bought " metabolic typing " yet. <G> But without question, different people do

better on different ways of eating. I hope that I haven't said anything to

suggest I feel there is " one way " for all! I do not.

What I DO believe is that *as a blanket statement* the quote I included from the

interview is not correct. I believe it IS correct for some people, but it's not

correct for all.

>> even the Paleo people supposedly ate a fair amount of vegetable matter, some

of it no doubt containing carbs -- some people think about HALF their nutrition

came from carbs (granted, it was non-grain carb): <<

Hmmm, I do think that at some times of year, some cultures most likely did get

as much as half their calories from carbs, but I think that as an overall trend,

that's pretty high.

I also was talking about low carb, whereas the quote was specifically about

KETOGENIC diets. While there is overlap, they aren't always the same. I myself

have been happily on a ketogenic diet for over three months now, but I can see

it's not for everyone. However, I do believe that LOW carbs (as in, half or less

than the average American currently eats) is a much more natural diet for a

human being and shouldn't have any adverse effects on anyone.

Christie

[Guest guest]

>I also was talking about low carb, whereas the quote was specifically about

KETOGENIC diets. While there is overlap, they aren't always the same. I myself

have been happily on a ketogenic diet for over three months now, but I can see

it's not for everyone. However, I do believe that LOW carbs (as in, half or less

than the average American currently eats) is a much more natural diet for a

human being and shouldn't have any adverse effects on anyone.

>

>Christie

Yeah, I think that is the crux of the issue. My own diet is pretty " low carb "

but a long way from ketogenic -- I've heard " the Zone " described as " ketogenic "

but if you are getting 30% of your calories from carbs your body should not be

in ketosis! I also think it really depends on the carb -- my granddad said he

grew up on oatmeal and did great on it, but there is a lot of difference between

oatmeal porridge and pop tarts, though they are both carbs. And there are a

number of healthy active skinny tribes who traditionally eat a lot of yams or

taro, or in the case of the Dinkas, milk (which has carbs -- though the carb

status of lactic acid has been debated a few times!).

And ... Ori was obviously being purposefully " out there " and challenging (and,

it was a Penthouse article? hence the gratuitious F***'s?). Being controversial

is a good way to sell books, and with a name like " Warrior Diet " you need a nice

rocky persona. Now someone selling the French Riviera Diet could stress the

genteel aspects!

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 8/16/03 2:09:27 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> Yeah, I think that is the crux of the issue. My own diet is pretty " low

> carb " but a long way from ketogenic -- I've heard " the Zone " described as

> " ketogenic " but if you are getting 30% of your calories from carbs your body

should

> not be in ketosis!

I don't know who or why, but Barry Sears would heave at the description, as

he believes ketosis rips muscle apart and is an avid opponent of ketogenic

diets.

Chris

[Guest guest]

I would have to agree with you on this point.

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 10:47:15 -0700

Heidi Schuppenhauer <heidis@...> wrote:

>

> I kind of think the " common knowledge " in this case is like the " common

> knowledge " on cholesterol -- it just hasn't been challenged yet. Skipping

> one meal doesn't count -- it takes at least a couple of days for the body

> to adapt.

>

> -- Heidi

>

>

[Guest guest]

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 16:07:29 EDT

ChrisMasterjohn@... wrote:

> This might be an optimal way of eating FOR THOSE WHO CAN EAT ENOUGH eating

> that way. (i.e., you and not me). BUT it is NOT fasting. In true fasting

you

> have no

> a) protein-- thus no glucagon, thus no stimulation of the release of depot

> fat to burn for blood sugar

> small amount of carbs-- thus no carbs to burn for blood sugar.

Where did you get your definition of " true " fasting?

[Guest guest]

>I don't know who or why, but Barry Sears would heave at the description, as

>he believes ketosis rips muscle apart and is an avid opponent of ketogenic

>diets.

>

>Chris

LOL! I liked the Zone menus (not much different from good NT

meals or the way my Mom cooked) -- but I just am not that good

at arithmetic.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 16:15:30 -0700

Heidi Schuppenhauer <heidis@...> wrote:

>

> >Ramses was the only pharaoh who looked like a warrior in the ancient

drawings. He wasn't such a great warrior. He gave himself more credit than he

deserved. But his life was different. The other pharaohs used to sit at home.

They were grain eaters, almost modernist in comparison with today, and they

suffered from the same diseases that people suffer from today. I believe they

also suffered from a lot of high estrogen as a side effect of the high amount of

gluten that they used to eat, but that's another story.

>

> OK, now I like this guy! I just ordered the book.

>

> -- Heidi

>

I thought the Egyptian connection might get your attention :-) It certainly got

mine.

" Humans live on one-quarter of what they eat; on the other three-quarters lives

their doctor. "

--Egyptian pyramid inscription, 3800 B.C.

[Guest guest]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 19:40:53 -0700

" Christie " <christiekeith@...> wrote:

> As to the ketogenic diet " fucking you up, " it is the first thing that UNfucked

me up in my FUCKING life <G>. And my ability to stress seems if anything

infinitely better, now that my energy levels have smoothed out, I'm sleeping so

well, and I am able to function so much better. This just doesn't match my

reality.

>

> This doesn't make his diet right or wrong, good or bad. But I don't think it

really says a lot of his credibility on other diets.

>

> Christie

Well Christie,

Tell us how you really feel why dont'cha? LOL!!!!!

Actually, he is not talking about the Atkin's diet, and its very temporary

ketosis stage which Atkins labels " induction. " He is talking about bodybuilder's

ketogenic diets (which unlike Atkins, are usually cyclical), in particular Dan

Duchaines ketogenic diet which he mentions in the interview. Mr. Duchaine, the

steroid guru, who is no longer with us, having passed away at a fairly young

age, would garner a lot of emotion from a number of people in bodybuilding

circles.

The fact is, the ketogenic diet, as practiced by a number of bodybuilders, did

produce the kind of stuff that Hofmelker describes. Long term ketogenic dieting

(and by the way, technically speaking, a ketogenic diet is any diet which has

100 grams of carbs or less per day - one does not have to be in ketosis to be

eating ketogenically) does screw up a bunch of folks, particularly when it lacks

adequate fat. I have a read a number of articles that recommended low carb and

low fat for bodybuilders. That is a recipe for disaster.

" Humans live on one-quarter of what they eat; on the other three-quarters lives

their doctor. "

--Egyptian pyramid inscription, 3800 B.C.