Warrior Diet. Reviews and weight loss results, before and after photos, menu

One of the popular methods of losing excess weight is the warrior diet. This diet, which spread at the beginning of the third millennium, receives many positive reviews due to its simplicity and effectiveness.

Its result is not just getting the body in shape, the warrior diet involves increasing muscle mass both through regular physical activity and through bodybuilding. This technique is conventionally called a diet, but in fact it is a restoration of the way of life of ancient warriors adapted to modern realities.

Basic provisions

A book about the warrior diet of the same name was released in 2002, immediately becoming a top seller and causing heated discussions among nutritionists.

Its author, a qualified artist, Ori Hofmekler, a former Israeli special forces soldier, during his service became interested in the exceptional strength and endurance of the soldiers of the Roman legions, who trained several hours a day and at the same time energetically participated in military campaigns and battles.

After serving, Hofmekler devoted several years to studying this phenomenon, conducting research in the fields of history, physiology, biochemistry and nutrition.

The book "The Warrior Diet" not only contains recommendations for a daily diet, it also introduces the reader to the lifestyle and philosophy of strong people. The diet of legionnaires, Cossacks, samurai and Maori was based on controlled fasting.

According to research results, it breaks down fats, regulates metabolism and promotes overall cleansing of the body. However, the warrior diet differs from most diet-based diets.

The characteristics of this regime, which refutes the popular belief that obesity is a consequence of evening eating, lies in its name. The warriors did not prepare food in the morning and afternoon, being busy hunting and serving.

The main meal was in the evening, night time was reserved for sleep, and during the day the soldiers ate light and non-cooking foods such as vegetables, nuts, berries and fruits.

Hofmekler personally tested all the nutritional rules outlined in the book. He noticed a surge of strength, vigor and concentration when refusing food during the day while serving in a special forces detachment.

The Warrior Diet is based on intermittent fasting.

According to reviews from specialists in the field of nutrition, this style of eating contributes to a general increase in the productivity of the body and its cleansing. The effect of intermittent fasting can be called a reboot of the body.

By increasing endurance, we mean not only the ability to withstand physical activity longer; an organism that has adapted to the phases of fasting is able to go without food for a longer time and tolerate stressful conditions more easily.

In addition to losing excess weight and improving your health, this diet has a beneficial effect on the functioning of the brain, heart and other organs , however, fasting can be harmful to health in some diseases, characteristics and conditions of the body.
The diet is indicated for adults with average health indicators.

A little about Ori Hofmekler, author of the book “The Warrior Diet”

Ori Hofmekler is not a doctor, not a fitness instructor, but... an artist who once served in the Israeli special forces. It was there that he began to become interested in the incredible endurance of the legionnaires of Rome, who could train for hours and then immediately go into battle. After serving in the army, Ory independently studied the basics of biology, nutrition, military history and physiology with anatomy.

The result of such “private” studies was the conclusion about the advisability of properly carried out fasting. If food refusal is controlled, then this process cleanses the body even at the cellular level, starts and then accelerates the process of burning fat, and corrects metabolism.

Ori Hofmekler

In 2002, Hofmekler published a book called “The Warrior Diet,” which immediately became popular. Despite the fact that the author’s philosophy implies following the principle “If you want to have the body of a wine, you must eat like a warrior,” the effectiveness of such weight loss is real. The book emphasizes that obesity and diabetes develop against the background of:

eating the “wrong” foods;
eating too often;
lack of balance in the daily routine;
eating in the absence of a pronounced feeling of hunger.

Ori experienced the diet himself, he refused the daytime meal and ate a hearty dinner, exercised regularly and did not experience fatigue or muscle weakness.

We recommend reading the article about Solovyov’s diet. From it you will learn how Vladimir Solovyov lost weight, his menu for the week, nutrition recommendations, and sports exercises for weight loss. And here is more information about Hayley Pomeroy's diet.

Basic principles

The Warrior Diet (reviews and results of this regimen often cite its varied diet as one of its main advantages) works through the following principles:

food intake is carried out at a certain time of the day;
the result of the diet depends not only on its content, but also on regular exercise;
despite its richness, the diet has some restrictions;
evening meals prevent diet failure;
in addition to the combination of products, it is necessary to take into account the method of their preparation;
the absence of the need to digest food during the day promotes detoxification of the body and a daily excess of energy, expressed in vigor and increased concentration;
the feeling of hunger sharpens the senses;
the process of oxidation and breakdown of fats is accelerated against the background of increased sensitivity to insulin, without requiring a reduction in food calories, which frees those on the warrior diet from counting calories, proteins, carbohydrates and fats;
The rate of protein absorption by the body after a day of fasting increases by 160%.

Benefits of the Warrior Diet

The biggest benefit of the warrior diet is its simplicity. No need to count calories, proteins, fats and carbohydrates. There is no need to weigh something, alternate something...

Other benefits of the diet include:

When a person is hungry, his senses become more acute, he begins to think more clearly and quickly.
During a diet, a person will always feel a boost of energy throughout the day, and concentration increases.
The body will not waste energy on the process of digesting food.

Rules

The main points of a diet that brings the body into military shape:

Rule	Peculiarities
Physical activity is required. One of the conditions of the military diet is to perform exercises on an empty stomach.	After playing sports, you can eat a few boiled eggs or drink a glass of yogurt or kefir.
The warrior diet consists of two phases - fasting and overeating.	4 hours a day are allocated for food, the remaining 20 hours are occupied by the fasting phase.
The main meal is taken in the evening.	Products are consumed in the order determined by their food category.
The fasting phase does not imply a complete abstinence from food.	Throughout the day, you can have up to 4 short snacks of nuts, fresh fruits and vegetables, and also drink fresh juices from them.
The body should receive a sufficient amount of water, amounting to 1.5-2 liters per day.	In addition to water and juices, you can drink unsweetened tea and coffee.

Recommended types of loads are:

strength exercises;
cardio training;
stretch marks.

If you can’t play sports due to your daily routine or for other reasons, you can increase physical activity in your daily life. For example, give up the elevator and transport, getting to work and climbing the stairs to your floor on foot.

A popular way to kill hunger and speed up metabolism for weight loss is split meals, when instead of 3 main meals you eat little by little at least 6 times a day.

The fasting phases of the Hofmekler method are a more effective remedy, since with a reduced interest in food due to this diet during the day, the number of obsolete and unhealthy cells in the tissues decreases.

Instead of processing constantly arriving nutrients, the body will begin to utilize old and diseased cells to form new tissues. In addition to general cleansing of the body, getting the body in good shape and reducing the risk of tumors, it ensures a healthy and fresh appearance.

Warrior Menu

The diet menu can be anything. It is allowed to eat any natural products; even baked goods and pasta are not prohibited. However, sweets should be consumed in reasonable quantities. The fact is that all confectionery products that are produced on an industrial scale contain a lot of sugars, trans fats and harmful additives. Therefore, the diet war requires giving up sugar and refined foods. In this case, it is allowed to eat any homemade desserts. After all, there is no doubt about their quality.

There is also a wonderful technique in the book on how to determine when you are already full. It is known that the body receives a signal about this with a delay. This often happens when it is already difficult to breathe and move. They haven’t eaten enough, but they’ve already eaten too much. And the technique is this: do not drink while eating. And as soon as you feel like drinking more than you eat, stop eating.

A sample warrior diet menu for one day might look like this:

In the morning after waking up, you need to drink fruit tea with lemon.
After physical training, you should take a protein shake.
Throughout the day you can only drink water and tea without sugar. If it is very difficult to adhere to such a menu, then at the initial stage of the diet, during the addiction phase, it is allowed to eat vegetables and fruits, but only in raw form.
From 6 pm to 10 pm you can eat the following dishes:
Soup made with fresh vegetables.
Fried meat, salad with tomatoes and eggs, vegetables with rice.
Cottage cheese with berries and a glass of mineral water.
Nuts.

When is it recommended?

The warrior diet, reviews and results of which indicate an increase in its popularity, is used mainly for weight loss, detoxification and healing of the body, increasing energy, as well as functional strength and endurance.

According to critics of the diet, it can be ineffective and even harmful to health when playing sports, but the warrior diet is good not only for light physical activity and aerobics, it may also be of interest to bodybuilders.

In this case, the point of using this diet is not only to break down fats; the right choice of foods for dinner along with strength training during the day will help increase muscle mass and strength.

A good example is American bodybuilder Michael Ken, who practiced the warrior diet before setting the International Powerlifting Association eventing record.

Taming the Salmon

“The North Karelia project was carried out by a group of young doctors,” says Erkki Vartiainen, director of the department of the Institute of Health and Welfare . “They were given a difficult task - to convince the harsh inhabitants of villages and small towns to eat right. First of all, we turned to “authoritative citizens” - priests, teachers, store owners - and asked them to explain to their friends the need for healthy food. Finns have been accustomed from time immemorial that real men should eat pork, and vegetables are food for weaklings and rabbits. We argued: stop eating full-fat milk. People were indignant: “In the villages they feed lean milk to pigs, but you want us to give this crap to children?!” I’m surprised that we weren’t beaten for explaining “stop frying everything in Finnish butter, use Italian olive oil.” The project leaders met with large manufacturing companies and asked: make sour cream with less fat, reduce the amount of salt in salmon. At first, this proposal was met with hostility - it took time to convey the position.

Contraindications

One of the main disadvantages of the military diet is its imbalance. It is necessary to pay attention to the recommendations accompanying the diet, otherwise it may not only be ineffective, but also cause even more weight gain. This usually happens in the absence of physical activity.

The military diet is contraindicated for the following diseases and conditions of the body:

weak immunity;
cholecystitis, cholangitis, hepatitis;
pregnancy and lactation;
HIV;
diabetes;
heart, liver or kidney failure;
duodenal or gastric ulcer;
severe infections;
disturbances in the functioning and peristalsis of the gastrointestinal tract muscles;
diseases of the circulatory system;
anorexia and bulimia (including past);
age less than 18 years;
lack of body weight.

Raspberries instead of cows

“In Finland, cows were raised for hundreds of years and dairy products brought the main income to our peasants,” explains former director of the North Karelia program, Professor Pekka Puska. — We were told: if people stop eating cream and sour cream en masse, thousands of farmers will go bankrupt and fall into poverty. But this did not happen. Yes, we don’t have the right climate to provide ourselves with fruits, but they, as is well known, improve the functioning of the heart. And then we reoriented the peasant business to the production of berries - blueberries, lingonberries, raspberries. The same effect as fruits, and even more vitamins. People didn’t agree at first, but the government began paying subsidies and came up with a special competition: the village that donates the most berries will receive a cash prize. Some farmers were persuaded to grow rapeseed - Finland suffered from a shortage of its own vegetable oil, and as a result we were able to provide ourselves with it. Village businessmen quickly discovered that it is easier to sow and harvest rapeseed every year than to feed a cow for three years. Then many switched to producing vegetables: tomatoes and cucumbers are now only Finnish.

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Useful tips

Despite the benefits of the warrior diet in gaining muscle mass, the Hofmekler method is more intended to give the body a slim body and increase functional strength, as it is based on the most optimal physical indicators.

Huge muscles can be a hindrance in a fight, just like pumped-up thighs when running. Using the military diet to build muscle in bodybuilding will require more time, more careful selection of evening foods and daytime exercises.

The warrior diet should be introduced gradually; abruptly switching to it can cause bad mood, side effects and a state of shock in the body.

Lack of preparation for such restrictions when starting a diet is usually expressed by the following manifestations:

constipation or diarrhea;
disruptions in the gastrointestinal tract;
heaviness in the stomach after a heavy meal in the evening;
flatulence.

The best option would be a gradual transition to the warrior diet, consisting of a gradual reduction in breakfast and lunch and an increase in dinner.

You need to change the amount of food consumed every 2 days for 1-2 weeks. This will also ensure better adaptation to the feeling of hunger, which usually becomes habitual within the first week. He will quickly begin to experience a feeling of lightness and cheerfulness; this surge of strength will be enough for sports.

The transition should be smooth

It is unlikely that you have adhered to such a regime before. This means that in order not to put the body into a state of shock, you just need to switch to a diet smoothly, gradually. Step one - giving up breakfast . Step two is to reduce the amount of food consumed during lunch (it is best to have a small snack).

Eat this way for one to two weeks. This is the beginning of your controlled fasting, which has a beneficial effect on the body: it cleanses itself, quickly burns excess fat and improves metabolism.

Possible complications

The warrior diet, reviews and results of which are negative mainly from those who have not practiced or were unable to practice it, usually receives negative ratings due to the difficulty of switching to it. It is easier for the male sex to get used to a simple but strict military diet and to tolerate the body reactions caused by starting a diet.

These include:

severe hunger;
insomnia;
irritability;
anxiety;
menstrual irregularities;
dizziness, malaise and weakness.

Full adaptation will require 3-4 weeks. To make it easier to get used to the diet, you should learn to distinguish between the feeling of hunger and the desire to eat something tasty. The thought of a hearty dinner will serve as incentive and moral support throughout the day, and the pleasure you get from food will also increase.

The book on the military diet provides an interesting method for preventing overeating in the evening. As a rule, the body’s signal of satiety does not immediately reach the brain, which is why the norm of what is eaten is exceeded. To prevent this, you should refrain from drinking any liquids during dinner. When thirst becomes stronger than the desire to eat, dinner should be stopped.

A simple and effective warrior diet requires strict adherence to rules, which can be complicated by the following factors:

This diet is not easy to get used to; at the beginning of the restrictions, hunger is accompanied by constant thoughts about tasty food, mood changes and fatigue;
the body may not receive enough nutrients, which can be compensated by taking vitamins and minerals;
It was not unusual for people in previous stages of civilization to go 20 hours without eating, but this does not correspond to the norms of current society.

Some of those on the warrior diet combine taking multivitamin complexes with amino acids and probiotics, although Hofmekler's method does not involve taking any drugs or nutritional supplements. If you can’t force yourself to follow the entire military diet, you can take a more gentle, but less effective approach.

Following the described diet regimen with physical exercise several days a week will also have an effect.

You should stop following the warrior diet as smoothly as when starting the diet. A good option would be to switch to similar less strict dietary restrictions. For example, one of the most popular intermittent fasting regimes is 8 hours of eating and 16 hours of fasting, half of which occurs at night.

How to start the warrior diet?

You need to start with a gradual reduction in the amount of food that a person eats throughout the day. You need to cut portions every 2 days. At the same time, the dishes that a person eats in the evening should be increased in size. After 2 weeks of this eating behavior, the daytime feeling of hunger will dull. However, this doesn't mean you have to give up snacking.

Already in 3-4 weeks the body will adapt to changes in the menu. It is important to listen to your body's signals and not confuse the feeling of hunger with the desire to eat something tasty.

Main menu

According to Hofmekler's dietary method, the daily evening meal menu should be varied and consist of natural, high-quality products, preferably home-cooked. When choosing food, you should be guided by products that were available to ancient warriors who were not familiar with pizza or cookies.

It is recommended to make the basis of dinner food high in protein and fat, which includes yogurt, meat and fish dishes, cheeses and other fermented milk products. For better absorption of food, it is better to start your evening meal with vegetables, followed by the main dishes. After fatty and protein foods, dinner ends with foods high in carbohydrates.

Best Foods for the Warrior Diet

The warrior diet allows you to eat any food throughout the 4-hour dinner in sufficient quantities to satisfy you, but this does not apply to unhealthy foods that may interfere with the achievement of results.

You won’t be able to get your body into good shape by consuming synthesized foods, sweets and baked goods, processed foods, sweet soda, refined sugar, chips and other fast food, genetically modified products and those containing pesticides. Alcohol and cigarettes will also interfere with the military diet.

Useful video

Watch the video about the principles of the warrior diet:

When to expect an effect

The warrior diet, reviews and results of which have proven themselves well among supporters of a healthy lifestyle, athletes and those simply wanting to lose weight, is famous for its high effectiveness.

As with most other diets, the speed of manifestation of the results of the military diet is determined by the individual characteristics of the body, its metabolism and the selected products. The more excess weight you have, the faster you will begin to lose it.

By eating healthy foods, you can lose 3-9 kg in the first month. The subsequent effect of the diet stabilizes with weight loss rates of 1.5-2 kg per month.

Warrior Diet Results

Doctors are usually not supporters of the warrior diet , which is especially relevant for a sedentary lifestyle during quarantine, and are often opposed to it. In their opinion, this eating regimen is bad for health and overloads the digestive system, which is busy processing a large dinner at night.

Experts say the warrior diet can lead to weight gain, chalking up its successes to coincidence and pathology. However, those who practice this diet indicate the opposite.

The first positive reviews about the warrior’s diet appeared in antiquity, it was praised by Hippocrates and Pythagoras. The famous medieval physician Paracelsus, who revised the rules of ancient medicine, also spoke highly of it.

Example of a Warrior Diet Meal

The underlying pattern of fasting and fasting is present in many of the world's religions. As an example, we can cite Orthodox and Muslim fasting, and annual fasting for several days a week in Judaism.

Other results of the Hofmekler technique, which involves consuming healthy foods, include improving thinking and memory, preventing diseases of the circulatory system and lowering the amount of glucose in the blood.

Thanks to the military diet, sugar reserves from fat cells enter the blood, which not only promotes additional vigor and energy, but also prevents the development of inflammatory processes in the body.

Author: Cash Diver (Antihelper)

Reviews and results

Doctors warn everyone who wants to try the warrior diet that such a diet is harmful to health and also puts a strain on the digestive organs, which will be forced to work harder at night. Experts are firmly convinced that this type of nutrition will not lead to weight loss, but to weight gain. If a person does lose weight, it will be due to some pathology, and not due to diet.

However, the promotion of the warrior diet continues because it is interesting to the people. Negative reviews about the diet are left mainly by those people who have not experienced it themselves. Hofmekler's followers, on the contrary, zealously come to his defense. It is important to note that the author recommends eating only healthy foods. If a person eats fast food, processed foods and mayonnaise in the evenings, washing it all down with carbonated drinks with sugar, then he will definitely not be able to lose weight.

Each person's body is different, so the warrior diet will affect him differently. Also, the final result is influenced by what exactly a person eats. If you eat healthy foods, you can lose 3-5 kg in a month. Then the monthly weight will be about 1.5 kg. The more fat reserves a person who is losing weight has, the faster they will begin to disappear.

Author of the article:

Kuzmina Vera Valerievna |
Endocrinologist, nutritionist Education: Diploma of the Russian State Medical University named after. N.I. Pirogov, specialty “General Medicine” (2004). Residency at the Moscow State Medical and Dental University, diploma in Endocrinology (2006). Our authors

How to survive the day?

It's not easy to completely fast for 20 hours. And not necessarily. During the daytime, you can lull your appetite with small portions of dairy products, tea and coffee. You can also eat a couple of boiled eggs.

What if you are a “morning person”? In this case, there is no need to wait until evening! Choose your window at any time of the day, based on the time slot that suits you. You can have a 4-hour feast in the morning, and in the remaining 20 hours, as they say, tighten your belt. However, most people still move their holiday to the evening.