The Warrior diet is a diet and fitness program.

The diet is based on a cycle of under-eating (or fasting) during the day, and feeding at night.

Much like the Paleo diet, the Warrior diet is based on the Ancestral diet theory with several key differences and applications.

Unlike other diets that require counting calories, points, or other adherence to strict controls, the Warrior diet is based on the premise that the human body is programmed to control its own feeding.

^[1] The one rule regarding feeding is one meal per day, ideally two hours before bed.

The diet can be modified for those who work at night, or travel frequently, by altering the under-feeding phase to coincide with the working hours (whether day or night) and the over-feeding phase to align with the end of working hours.

The Warrior diet draws many parallels to Stone Age and other ancient cultures in regards to nutrition and meal timing. The idea being that most of the labor was performed during the daytime hours with little or no food consumed until the evening meal. Some argue that humans were more rugged and responded better to stress during the Paleolithic Era, but no scientific evidence exists to directly support this. The other rule of thumb in regards to nutrition provided by the diet, is that a person should stop eating once his or her desire for water is greater than their desire for food. In other words, a person should stop eating once you feel more thirsty than hungry. ^[1] Although human instinct plays a large role in food choices under the Warrior diet, there are some definite dos and don't's including:

Exercise is done during the under-eating phase of the Warrior diet.

Whole body workouts are recommended, including squats, chin-ups, high jumps, frog jumps, kicks, punches, sprints and presses, as opposed to exercises that isolate one particular part of the body.

The other guidance for exercise is short and intense workouts, no longer than 20–45 minutes.

^[1]

Controlled fatigue training is an important part of the exercise outlined by the Warrior diet.

CFT means that a person continues to exercise when they are already fatigued, using workout sets that mimic the 'fight or flight' responses caused by the sympathetic nervous system, and that prehistoric people needed when they had to fight or hunt while hungry.

The first edition of the Warrior Diet book was published in 2002 by Dragon Door Publications.

Prior to that, in 1999, Hofmekler while still employed as health editor for Penthouse magazine, gave an interview with T Nation where he outlined the Warrior diet as well. ^[4] The Warrior diet was one of the first documented diets to incorporate the idea of intermittent fasting as a core concept of its nutrition plan, advocating that 'when you eat makes what you eat matter'. The premise of the diet is based on Hofmeklers personal experiences in the Israeli Defense Force, as well as studying the eating and training habits of warrior societies throughout ancient history, such as the Spartans and Romans. ^[5]

Eating cycles are broken down into two phases, the feeding phase and the fasting (or under-eating) phase.

These phases are influenced by the biology of the human autonomic nervous system, particularly the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. ^[5] The Warrior diet attempts to align feeding and exercise around these biological systems to maximize energy utilization, efficiency and metabolic functions around the circadian clock. ^[6] Under normal conditions the human body's sympathetic nervous system kicks in during the day and puts the body in an energy spending activity mode while the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in at night and puts your body in an energy replenishing, relaxed and sleepy mode. ^[7] Following the science of how these 2 systems ideally work, the Warrior diet aims to keep these systems operating that way by requiring an 18-hour under-feeding phase, ideally during the day, and a 4-6 hour over-feeding phase, ideally at night. ^[1]

The Warrior diet argues that eating at the wrong time, such as at a big lunch in the middle of a workday, interferes with the autonomic nervous system.

^[10] Specifically by inhibiting the sympathetic nervous system and instead stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system, making individuals sleepy and fatigued rather than alert and active during work hours.

^[7]

While the Warrior diet doesn't claim to be an entirely anti-oestrogenic diet, it does encourage reducing estrogen levels by reducing foods with phytoestrogenic content and other endocrine disrupting effects.