I've read tons of books from very old Shelton clinical fasting books and Bircher Benner live diet to Gotshall's SCD diet.
I'm still trying to tweak all the plans I know to find something "perfect" when applied subjectivelly
I've been said that I should stop overthinking everything and make things easier, I tried but I really can't ... I have to overthink and tweak, period.

Everything I've been reading as always come from two different positions that seems antithetic to each other: the more spiritual, natural, instinctive and anectodal side of Bircher-Benner raw foods healing power, Shelton's fasting, Vetrano's life extension, Vonderplanitz's raw diet, Wai's diet, the 2 pounds veggies healing power of E2L diet, Dr Beddoe's Biological Ionization, Dr. Gian Cursio blended salads and Dr. Bass raw diet
and then the more concrete side, more materialist, cynical, planned with a focus on real life and physical appareance like many low carbs books, SCD diets, CKD diet, TCD diet, Body for Life, BodyOpus, Homo Optimus, South Beach diet

I have to be honest: I don't want to choose one position over the other ... I need what both approaches offers or in other words I can't exist just with my spiritual, alternative style without my materialist drive for better physical appareance and social magnetism and I couldn't live with everything the materialist side can offer without the alternative, spiritual side as well: the hopes of superior health, the expectation of a longer life, being in harmony with nature and its cycle, unleashing the secret power of the minds and the body through one's diet.


Of all the approached from both sides I've always like the Body For Life approach because of its focus on improving your physical appareance and your self-esteem, on building a better looking body being lean, toned and defined. It also suits other facets of health like eating small meals through the day to keep sugars stable, avoid refined foods that are generally unhealthy, focus on micronutrients as well.

But all my readings on Gian-Cursio, Shelton, Vetrano, Bass have also convinced me of the healthful impact of food restriction.
For example studies on animals show that eating one day and fasting the other improves their hormonal profile and health and increase their life expectancy. The authors I cited showed the same process works with human too. This has lead many of these alternative writers to suggest one day of water fasting per week
The warrior diet seems to work from the same principle but point is it's impossible to obtain the physical tranformation one would get from a weight lifting well planed routine as in BFL, just the before and after workout would ruin the warrior diet concept and the author himself admit that you can't build that kind of body with his diet which focuses only on strength and speed. That's why the Warrior's diet exercises routine does the opposite of what weight lifting is supposed to do by pushing lower weights and higer reps with frightening sets of 9-10 mins

My spiritual side besides tells me that cycling is the most natural side of humans, the most human aspect they have and have lost.
We cycled the foods we had available, we cycled the small groups we used to live with, we cycled our food intake, we cycled the places where we used to live. Even though our wester modern way of life is antithetic to everything which is human in us the natural link we have with cycle is still there and it's no surprising to me that most people who are getting wonderful results are somehow cycling their lifestyle especially their diet
Low carbs. high carb phases, anabolic vs catabolic phases, cutting vs bulking, calories deficit vs. maintenance, diet vs non-diet and so on

So this is my idea to cycle both good aspects of two perspectives and still get theoretically the best of both worlds: muscle building days of BLF 6 very small meals per day with an emphasis on consuming carbs before and after training (the warrior style of diet would never be able to sustain such intensity level of training) to make sure all carbs will be used and will not have bad sugar spikes or fat gaining effects

Then on the next day will be a fat burning day, a rest from workout day and a warrior diet day. Over the day will be emphasized vegetables and fruits, juices and blended salads suiting the E2L (2 pounds of veggies a day)Bircher-Benner and Gian-Cursio principles of stuffing your body with antioxidants and phytochemicals to improve your health and looking healthier (in other words a Mosseri's mild fast) and night will the feast it must be but lower carbs and the next day is still a BFL day.

This kind of cycling is not new and resembles the succesful cycling of people who consume more carbs and eat more when they haveto lift weights and consume less carbs and eat less when it's a workout-free rest day (a modified Dr. Squat zig-zag diet)

My goal would be not faster results bot getting the best from both diets and knowing that one diet is compensating the errors of the other in case we'd discover eventually that one of this practice is very unhealthy (you never know)

I can get results with BFL or the Zone Diet but I'm looking for abnormal health for a vibrant health with it's not merely surviving and reaching the end of the day alive but real taking care of my bdy perfectly, giving it everything it needs to be as healthy as it was when I was few years old

What do you think?
Does anyone wants to give this a try and see how it works?
If it doesn't work we'll just forget about this bad experiment and will move forwards ... meaning I will keep overthinking issues and finding the answer to real vibrant health that you can both feel inside you and see in the mirror as well

Davide

I'm not quite sure what you're asking. You're all over the place.

Try a TKD maybe.

What I'm asking is what people think of a diet that cycles between a semi-LC warrior diet and a semi-LC BFL diet
The reason is to get the advantages of both diets by cycling them

The advantages of the Warrior diet is that if animal studies on longevity can indeed be applied to humans then one day of fasting and one day of eating may indeed promote health and longevity besides the undereating phase can be used to fill up on vegetables and fruits minerals, vitamins, antioxidants and phytochemicals
But such diet, as the author himself admits, would never be able to sustain the kind of physical activity required to buil the kind of body that BFLifers has as the Warrior exercise purpose is for strength and speed not physical appareance
The advantage of BFL is a better insulin and glucose levels control by taking advantage of the pre and post workout meals when you're sure all your carbs will be easily metabolized and used as fuel not playing havoc with your BGs and fat gains

This is the shortcoming of the Warrior diet which indeed spikes insulin because it's known that even beed raises insulin levels, low GI foods, protein rich foods, animal foods all of them raise insulin even if the Glycemic Index can't predict this

So by cycling these diets we would get the best from both worlds while really fasting one day (rest days) and eating the other day (workout day) which is what is known to really increase longevity in animals

I'm interested in the opinions of Warrior dieters or adventorous people that may give my cyclic plan a try

Davide

I think BFL and the Warrior Diet are mutually exclusive. That said, let us know how it works out for you.

Hi Davide,

I think it's very much OK to choose this cyclic approach, because your are educated and motivated on this. Others, like me, may prefer the 'mean and lean' body transformation from the WD alone.
For putting on a lot of muscle it is to much a 'normal' diet. Cycling may be an interesting option, seen the mentioned results of cyclic experiments I think you are right to assume this would work, Great Idea!

Thanks, I will let you know how this works
Unlike Dan I don't think different dietary strategies are exclusive, in fact as long as you cycle nothing is really exclusive: low carb and high carb can be cycled, low fat and high fat can be cycled, vegan and carnivorous can be cycled, high G.I low G.I can be cycled, fat loss and muscle building can be cycled and it seems consistent to me with the cycles of seasons which make our need and available foods very different and always cycling
I've observed that people that take advantage of cycles have success with what they do, even outside the nutrition realm is well known that cycling one study method is the better way to learn and memorize, in other words the body the mind learn better when it uses more than one approach cycling through them. In scandinavia there are experimental school where pupils learn three times as faster by cycling whole weeks of math, whole weeks of geography, whole weeks of language instead of having more matter each day and it does work
Even exercise works best through cycles, so it's always better to cycle between weight and cardio routine rather than following the same routine week after week.

I've also read the studies on fasting and longevity on monkeys and it seems to me that different longer or shorter cycles between WD days and anabolic more meals days might better mirror the results of alternating fasting days with monkeys.

If someone wants to give this "theory" a try let me know so we can monitor how it goes on

Thanks
Davide

Again, you seem to be confusing me. Do you want to get big or lean? Its notoriously difficult to do both at the same time.

As for giving the theory at try. You first, sir.

The following is from http://theomnivore.com/Straight%20o...inbox%2014.html

I also remember reading an interview back in the 90s with Serge Nubret, who IMHO had one of the most awesome bodybuilding physiques of all time, and he stated that ate only one meal in the evening. He derided the six meals a day theory, and was adamant that eating all his 3500 calories in the evening was superior. Yeah, yeah, I know, pro bodybuilders use other 'assistance', but as a drug-free trainee I have to agree with Nubret that infrequent meal schedules offer many advantages over the currently fashionable frequent meal schedules. I didn't experience muscle breakdown on 1 meal a day, nor on my current 2 meal per day regimen. I only experience muscle breakdown when I don't eat enough--regardless of meal frequency--or when I train too much.

http://www.schwarzenegger.it/mro/nubret.html

I guess Nubret managed to make the Warrior approach work okay.

I don't have a problem with Warrior Diet for bodybuilding. It makes sense that fasting throughout the day would "prime" you for anabolism when you finally get around to eating.

He's not proposing to just eat once/day. He's proposing to eat every other day and on his "feast" day to eat over 6 or so meals.

This study seems to suggest you will lose muscle on an alternate day fasting scheme. Granted, they may have eaten nothing but Twinkies on their feast day, but its not all that promising.

You can through cycling
For example in my case I would eat more and more often the weight training days and I would do a WD the days I rest from weight training.
It's a well known cyclic approach among bodybuilders to consume more food and carbs the day you train with weight and to consume less food and carbs the days you rest
I've seen that it indeed works to assure that after two month you have both lost fat and put on muscle weight
Or else one could overeat the whole week and undereat on the weekend this gain works in making sure to burn fat and build muscle all in the same week




Got it

Davide

So the question is: how do you consume 3500 calories in a sitting?
We may forget an essential limiting factor: the size of the stomach
Either we get all calories from refined foods (like McDonald stuff and it's the reason why there are not obese people where there are no refined foods) or if we eat foods with fibers (either plant or muscle) meat, fish, eggs, vegetables and fruits ... you would overfill your little stomach before you got a chance to consume one third of the amount you require ...

That's why I thought of the cycling, because the extra calories on training days can't be easily added to the same one or two meals because the stomach is limited to the same little amount of food per sitting it can handle no matter how hungry I am or my muscle are

Davide

The Warrior Diet doesn't require eating all the food in a single sitting. It restricts it to a 4 hour period. It's not difficult to consume 3500 kcals in 4 hours. The one-sitting approach is something I do (see my LCIF thread), but I'm no bodybuilder, by a long shot.

Having said all that, if you've been doing high intensity weight training for any length of time, you're probably at or near your genetic ceiling for muscle mass anyway, beyond which no diet and exercise regimen can take you. Only steroids can do that. Once you reach that ceiling you can cycle all you want through phases of "bulking" and "ripping" and you'll be chasing the same few pounds of muscle and fat back and forth.

Agreed, so the real problem is avoiding to waste or catabolize the muscles you have put on and if you undereat you will lose them faster than you may realize what's going on.
The problem is since I've always avoid undereating by eating more often through the day but in the meantime knows the benefits of fasting or lighter eating during activities (especially mental activities) I'm afraid I would undereat without cycling between WD and more meals a day
My daily caloric need is 2600 calories circa
Since I tries to eat healthy as well and I avoid refined foods and also prefer fatty foods over rancid oils and real foods over liquid meal replacement 2600 calories are an awful bulk of food four times as much volume as my stomach

What worries me about eating all those calories within 4 hours is that a full stomach takes more than two hours to empty itself if my memory serves me right. That would physiologically mean two chance of filling and refilling within 4 hours in other words 1300 calories per meal ...

I still can't figure our what to eat to get 1300 calories from an amount of food that it's not more than my stomach can physiologically handle
But of course if I cycle my caloric intake then I don't need to eat as much on the "rest days" and actually eating less on the rest days would assure I don't put on extra fat with the muscle (the zig-zag diet in other words )

Davide

If you can tolerate dairy, you could do 1 lb. of meat and a cup of heavy whipping cream.

Thanks, I will try this ... but I wonder if a lb of meat is enough protein for the day
I've also read of tweaked WD where you start eating at 6pm and have another meal at 7pm and another at 10pm, it's easier to decrease the bulk of a sitting in this way and basically you skip breakfast and lunch, but would that be an allowed and healthful way to do WD?

Davide