- Do you struggle to eat the “required” 6-7 meals per day?
- Do you skip breakfast because you’re not hungry in the morning or you just don’t have time?
- Do you want to spend less time preparing, planning, and packing your food AND still reach your goals of more muscle and less fat?
What if I told you there was a safe, healthy, and effective way to do this that keeps your body kicking in high gear ALL DAY?
Allow me to introduce you to Intermittent Fasting (IF) and variations of the Warrior Diet!
The Basic Premise:
Spend your day much as our ancestors did…fasting and letting our natural bodily rhythms use fat for fuel then feasting for a 2-3 hour window at night. The foods eaten should (of course) be grass-fed, pasture-raised or wild caught animal meats, fresh, chemical-free produce, nuts, seeds, berries, etc.
Why It Actually Makes Sense:
When we wake up, our body’s hormonal profile is actually aligned perfectly to preserve muscle and burn fat. Cortisol is the stress hormone that rises to help arouse us from our nighttime slumber. At this point 1 of 2 things can happen:
- You eat breakfast like you’ve been told all your life. This results in glucose and subsequently, insulin being released into the bloodstream. While great for anabolism (building processes), one must remember the fat storage is also an anabolic process. For people with blood sugar issues or metabolic syndrome, this could be a decision that starts the snowball effect.
- You don’t eat. This results in a cascade of the fat burning and muscle preserving hormones glucagon and growth hormone. While it’s true you need raw ingredients (nutrients) to build muscle, this hormonal profile will help your body oxidize (burn) fat for fuel during the day. Continuing to fast throughout a majority of the day lets us burn fat for a larger window of the day than traditional “grazing” meal plans. Also, the feast at night helps a “dieter” to achieve that much desired feeling of satiety and fullness!
- The first variation had me waking at 7:30-8am and not eating until about 11am. Some days I would lift around 10:30-11 due to my schedule and other day I would lift around 5-6PM. I preferred to lift in the evenings as it led right to my “feast”. Each morning I would have warm water and lemon juice to promote liver health (Are You Toxic) and a cup of coffee around 9am. I would feel ELECTRIC until about 11am, when I usually had to eat, not out of hunger, but just to be able to keep my hands from shaking like crazy. In hindsight, the coffee might have been too much stimulant, so I would reduce that to green tea or something else milder than Starbucks!
- The second variation was the T-nation Pulse-Feast plan. This involved 2 “pulses” of rapidly digesting protein during the day. The first was immediately upon waking and the other about 4-6 hours later. Another 4-6 hours after that, I would lift (normal workout nutrition) and then come home and feast on a day’s worth of calories in a 3-5 hour window. I really loved the progress I made in terms of fat loss, while still getting to stuff my face at night. I got away from this as I was simply not able to eat enough calories at night to promote the growth I wanted.
Drawbacks:
As written, the Warrior Diet is perfect for a sedentary adult who engages in little intense activity. But even, as great as Intermittent Fasting is for health, it has a few drawbacks for the serious athlete. First, I personally have a hard time eating enough calories in 1 sitting to achieve the size and strength gains I want. Second, not fueling yourself all day can leave you unprepared for your most strenuous activities. It also makes most followers feel the need to schedule their intense activities in the early evening so they can go immediately into the feast. If that fits your schedule, great! But what if your schedule demands intense activity in the early parts of the day? What if you need to gain 10-20 of muscle? What if you’re NOT THE AVERAGE FAT, SEDENTARY ADULT?
Solution:
Enter The Renegade Diet! Jason Ferruggia is a well-known, life long fitness guru. He’s been training athletes since I was in high school reading his articles in newstand magazines. And tomorrow he is releasing his time-tested, athlete-approved Renegade Diet. Jason has taken the principles of Intermittent Fasting and the Warrior Diet and morphed them into an athlete friendly, convenient, lifestyle of eating that packs on muscle, strips fat and leaves you looking and feeling your best!
