Bill Ryan finds new energy with the Warrior Diet

A friend of mine recently wrote me an email regarding his experience with the Warrior Diet, which I have advocated in other posts. The diet basically consists of controlled fasting, along with natural foods of low glycemic index. With his permission, I’m posting a portion of his email.

Some things I’d like to point out, is that Bill specifically references pain and swelling in his ankle going away. Fasting has had the same effect on me: reducing inflammation. Inflammation is the prime reason for age-related disease, and our food is the primary cause of inflammation. Vegetable oils and transfats are particularly bad.

Bill also talks about vastly increased energy levels. Yet another thing that I experienced. Bill says he tried the regular prescribed way of dieting and losing weight; caloric restriction and cardio, but that the fasting is working much better. 

Here’s most of the email:

Hey Doug:

I started to write this on the blog figuring it might be good for other readers but figured I’d send it to you privately b/c of something at the end of it (if any of your readers want to give the Warrior diet a try – give them my email and have them reference your blog – and I’ll be glad to buy the first few folks copies of WD.  I’ve already bought several copies for some of my friends and I have a bunch of Amazon and B&N credits as an author myself).

I’m trying Kettlebells this week and am looking forward to it.  They were fairly pricey – I wasn’t sure what weight to get so I got 2 x20′ lbs a 30bl and a 45 lb – but man, everyone I know who’s used them raves about them.  Since I’ve been able to run again, I’ve gotten my cardio training in without going to the gym and this should cover the resistance training aspect so hopefully I’ll be able to do away with going to the gym and just incorporate this stuff in my house.

Regarding the WD, I have a really in depth post about it – with pretty much every pertinent detail I could think of. I was already recording this info so it’s great b/c I have the results from a 2200 calorie a day – complex carb – low fat, moderate protein diet with 4 hours of cardio a week – and then I dropped all of that and went on the WD. At first  I didn’t do any excercise on the WD – I was skeptical about getting catabolic just b/c I’ve had it beaten into my head so long – however I’m convinced know much of the conentioanl wisdom is garbage.  There are a lot of charts and graphs which really drive the point home so when I get it finished up – I’ll shoot the link over to you if you want – not trying to be a  linkwhore but you were the one who turned me on to WD and I reference several of your posts where I say “At this point I was skeptical – he seemed to know a lot about fitness but everything he was saying goes against what I had been taught throughout my life”, “I was getting more and more frustrated and figured Doug’s making gains left and right – not having anything better, I decided to dip my toe in the pool”  and finally “I was absolutely amazed – everything Doug said would happen happened, just like he said it would.  Theonly problem w/ this diet( rather lifestyle) is that  it’s almost too good to be true.  But that’s in large part b/c so much of what we have been taught about fitness and weight is crap”

So I’ve been doing the Warrior Diet for about 5-6 weeks now (6 weeks total but just over 4 of doing it really seriously and not cheating at all).  All I can say is I’m amazed.  The energy level thing is the most profound change.  For 2 years now, I’ve had tremendous trouble getting up and often slept in when I really needed to be at work or at a client’s office.  On the whole, it was a huge battle for me to get to work by 8:00 AM. Fortunately I have a flexible schedule but on the whole, I was pushing it and it was hard to get to work before 10:00 AM.  Now, it’s like the old days when I was younger – I’m bouncing out of bed at 5:30 and by 6:00 – I’m up and ready to roll and have no desire to sleep in.  I had a lot of problems with my ankle (I broke my leg a few years ago which is when I put on all of my weight) and leg, and was starting to have a lot of problems with my lower back.  All of it has dissipated.  With the pain and swelling goign away, I’m able to work out a lot more and b/c of the increased energy and getting up early, I don’t miss workouts and I’ve been able to do a lot more. So that’s helped me get stronger and work out harder – basically, it’s all a convergent virtuous cycle.  I know it’s very easy to make more out of initial gains than there really is and people frequently do that but everyone in my life, my wife, my step-daughter, my mom and step-dad, my coworkers, everyone has noticed the huge increase in my energy level (not to mention the weight loss).  I’m going to finish a blog post I have about it – where I have uploaded the GPS coordinates from my Garmin forerunner watch – my workout schedule, my bed and wakeup times and my weight. I was tracking all of that prior to trying the WD [which was really frustrating b/c no matter how hard I tried, I made very little progress and when I did, i would often just lose  it the next week] and the graphs all show a profound difference after the first week of doing it.  With that in mind – I can’t thank you enough for turning me on to it.  I’m going to start Kettlebells this week at your recommendation and man, every single fitness suggestion you’ve provided has worked amazingly well for me.  I was really getting frustrated b/c in high school, I could drop 10 lbs in a day or two like it was nothing to make weight for a meet.  In college I ran at least 40 miles a week so weight was never a problem then.  After I broke my leg though – it was all downhill and I was at my wit’s end.  I was skeptical at first just b/c the WD goes against what so many trainers and dieticians I’ve known have taught me – but I can’t argue with the results.  Second – to anyone reading your posts, particularly about WD and wondering if they should take the leap – all I can say is YES!  As a matter of fact, I’m evening willing to buy a few books for the first few readers of yours that are interested in giving it a try – if they email me and reference your blog – I’ll be glad to send out a few books.

I’d also like to point out that as I’ve said before, I’m not an ultra-orthodox about WD. I eat instinctively, which Hofmekler encourages.