5 Things You Need to Know about the Warrior Diet

1. Training on Empty

One of the basic principles of the Warrior Diet is that you train on an empty stomach. On this diet you fast for 16 to 19 hours a day, every day. Your workout takes place during this fasting period. Ori Hofnekler, the creator of the Warrior Diet, bases his belief that fasting is key to fat burning on studies that show mice who fasted in regular intervals lived up to 30 percent longer than mice who were fed regularly. If you must eat during the fast period, the diet allows only raw fruits and vegetables and small portions of proteins.

2. A Diet that Allows Binging

The overeating phase of the Warrior Diet takes place when you eat three meals, but all at one time. For a four-hour timeframe in the evening, controlled binging is allowed. Hofnekler believes that controlled binging maximizes the body's Parasympathetic Nervous System, which regulates relaxation, digestion and the body's ability to use nutrients for repair and growth. Ultimately, he believes the binging controlled with fasting maximizes the body's fat burning potential.

3. Avoid Highly Processed Foods

The Warrior Diet focuses on whole foods, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables, and foods high in protein. Hofnekler recommends avoiding highly processed foods and refined carbohydrates. While this diet isn't high in carbs, it doesn't advocate carb deprivation either. Hofnekler believes that ancient warriors relied heavily on carbohydrates to stay strong and in great shape. The Warrior diet also recommends regular use of dietary supplements, particularly ones created specifically by Hofnekler.

4. Keep Warrior Workouts Short

On the Warrior Diet, workouts are hard, efficient and short. The idea is to train for strength and explosiveness in a 20- to 45-minute timeframe. The best way to accomplish this is through controlled fatigue training. The idea behind CFT is that a warrior would still have to fight even when he's tired or fatigued from a day's worth of marching and setting up camp and modern day men and women should do the same to reach optimal strength and fitness. Controlled fatigue training wears the body out using short but intense sets to work muscle groups for 3 to 5 minutes at a time with little rest between each set. You combine the sets with high intensity cardio and that's the basic Warrior Workout plan.

5. Don't Train for Failure

In conventional bodybuilding or resistance training, the goal is to bring your muscles to failure. Failure happens when you're working a set, with perfect form, and you can't complete another rep no matter how hard you try. On the Warrior Diet, the belief is such training is counter-productive to the life of a warrior, and that's what the diet is trying to emulate. Hofnekler believes training for failure breeds failure, and if you train for success then you teach your body what it needs to do to improve and become stronger.