The Warrior Diet

I decided to refocus a bit - while this originally started out as an explanation as to why we drink 3 green smoothies a day it is ultimately my journey of losing the weight I gained with two nearly back to back pregnancies. My diet has played the largest part in losing weight, but working out has also played a significant role. I am going to continue the course I started, which was explaining how we got to where we are today with our diet, but I plan on making this a larger series and expanding it to fitness for moms. Or fitness for anyone. You don't need to be a mom, but it will take having little ones underfoot into account.

Note: I did utilize the use of a gym with a nursery but I am currently doing my fitness regime at home so the series will cover workouts for both home and gym.

And also note: I am in no way an expert in physical fitness. But my husband is so it will be pretty good information!

Without further ado..

The Start of the Warrior Diet

With 30 inches of fat off my body I felt incredibly energized but also increasingly aware of the heaviness of my body. 172lbs on my frame is a lot and I was feeling it.
In February I started following an eating plan that Paul has used off an on throughout our married life which is called The Warrior Diet. The Warrior Diet is a book written by Ori Hofmekler and the premise of it is the eating habits of warriors of old.

Ori Hofmekler was formerly in the special forces and developed the concept for his book through his special forces training.

The basic idea of the Warrior Diet goes against all of the commonly accepted diet advice.
It is, simply put, that you overeat once a day in the evening.
Of course it breaks down into something a bit more complex than that and I will share a bit more into the concept below. However if you intend to adopt this diet into your own lifestyle I would encourage you to read the book for yourself. It is a bit wordy (ok, a lot wordy!!) but there is a lot of important information in there on how to do this right and how to wean yourself on to this diet.

When I started this plan I jumped right in and did the entire plan from the very beginning, but that isn't necessarily the best way to do it and you want to make sure to not overwhelm yourself by going full force and causing yourself to get discouraged and quit.

The Warrior Diet encourages overeating at night and under eating during the day.
The under eating stage, which is done throughout the day and should be combined with exercise, triggers what the author refers to as "a primal survival mechanism." This in turn helps "the body cope with stress, burn stored fat as fuel for increased energy demand and improve endurance to better survive."

In other words; you are burning stored fat and creating more energy.

During the under eating stage there are limited foods you are able to eat including raw vegetables, fruit and light proteins.

The overeating stage is the fun part - you can literally eat whatever you want, you just have to follow the order.
The order being salad, cooked vegetables, protein, fat and then carbs.
In the beginning I was able to fit in a lot of carbs and then a bowl of ice cream at the end of the evening, but my body naturally regulated itself and would crave the healthy nutrients and I began eating the junk foods less and less.
I had never been more in tune with my body and it's hunger, full and thirst cues.

I found it relatively easy to follow the under eating and overeating pattern. I consumed a great amount of raw vegetables throughout the day and within the first 8 weeks lost 12 lbs. I was still working out but due to a several cases of colds and the flu I wasn't at the gym as frequently as I could have been.

By the beginning of April I was at the most fit stage of my life (note: I didn't say thinnest!) - I was under eating throughout the day and, following the recommended order of eating, would over eat in the evening. I felt fit and had a lot of energy - but I couldn't keep up with eating all the raw vegetables my body was demanding throughout the day. The day I ate through 16 ounces of carrots, 2 cucumbers and numerous amounts of fruit by mid afternoon I knew I had to change something. Eating all those vegetables was getting tedious! 

And that is when we got serious about buying a $400 Blender. 

To be continued...