• The Hunter-Gatherer Diet: Overview and Spiritual Implications

    by Alexander Becker

    [Jump directly to the outline of a hunter-gatherer diet.]

    Following a vegan diet, I consciously decide what to eat and why. The primary reason to eat vegetarian and consequently vegan is -- for me -- a matter of health. Avoiding the killing of animals to feed me was at best a secondary consideration, yet not unwelcome at all. Eating vegan is an ongoing experiment, as long as it lasts and as long as there are no superior alternatives. Whatever is beneficial to health and well-being, short-, mid-, and long term, I'll consider it and give it a try.

    I am aware of the spiritual implications and prescriptions regarding the adherence to a vegetarian, herbivore diet and the explicit advice against eating carnivorous.

    Vegetarianism: A Spiritual Imperative? Vegetarianism is a spiritual imperative for Jews today because of the many ways in which the realities of animal-based diets and agriculture sharply deviate from Jewish values, teachings, and mandates.

    And --

    Vegetarianism and Religion: Some adherents of Eastern religions, such as Mahatma Gandhi, claim that spiritual awareness and experiences are greatly enhanced on a vegetarian diet. [...] vegetarianism helps an individual to explore deeper levels of consciousness, find inner peace and establish a connection with the Divine, through such practices as meditation, yoga or whirling.

    But then again, consider this --

    The Ethics of Eating Meat: A Radical View by Charles Eisenstein: To live with integrity as a killer of animals and plants, it is necessary for me in my own life to live rightly and well, even and especially when such decisions seem to jeopardize my comfort, security, and rational self-interest, even if, someday, to live rightly is to risk death. Not just for animals, but for me too, there is a time to live and a time to die. I'm saying: What is good enough for any living creature is good enough for me. Eating meat need not be an act of arrogant species-ism, but consistent with a humble submission to the tides of life and death.

    Now, based on my ongoing research and studies of various ways of eating and the results of followers of many of them, I am not convinced anymore that a vegan diet is the optimal choice regarding health and nutrition. It may still be the optimal diet for peacefulness, compassion, and achieving advanced spiritual realms although I am going to explore this topic as well. I am certainly not giving up my levels of consciousness and awareness only to indulge in meat. I do not even crave meat. I am open to eventually concede either outcome.

    The question is whether the carnivore has a different experience consciousness-wise than the herbivore. The carnivore is a predator to be sure. The carnivore is a potential hunter and has to make decisions that an all but vegetarian eater doesn't face. Does hunting and ultimately eating meat and animal produce negatively influence my state of consciousness?

    I feel attracted to the eating habits and style of the hunter-gatherer tribes. It is basically pre-agricultural eating with everything being cultivated and domesticated afterwards left off the diet. The proponents of hunter-gathering state that these post-agricultural foods are the cause of many of our civilization's diseases and pains --

    On the Benefits of Ancient Diets: For a typical Westerner at least 70% of calories are provided by foods that were practically unavailable during human evolution, namely dairy products, oils, margarine, refined sugar and cereals. These typical western foods are low in minerals, vitamins and soluble fibre but high in fat and salt. There is much evidence indicating that some of these dietary factors are important causes of common western disorders like Coronary Heart Disease, Stroke and Diabetes which furthermore appear absent or rare in populations pursuing a traditional subsistence lifestyle.

    My objective is mimicking the hunter-gatherer diet in a sensible way, I am not intending nor do I recommend to copy habits and behaviors that are obsolete from a modern nutritional point of view or that have only marginal effects on overall well-being. The challenge is to combine the best of both worlds, archaic habits and decisions on one side and modern technology and civilization on the other side.

    I am particularly interested in the archaic, the warrior's and the hunter's freedoms and advantages all within the context of our evolved cultures and high-tech civilization. The basic assumption is that modern civilization could possibly benefit from adopting some of the hunter's eating habits. After very positive experiences with the Warrior Diet, a diet which also focuses on an ancient habit, eating only once a day, it seems only natural to look at what and how is eaten in hunter-gatherer tribes.

    Outline of a hunter-gatherer diet:

    Before agriculture and domestication took over, there were --

    • no excessive starches in the diet, no potatoes, no rice, no grains, no flour, thus no dough and no bread nor pasta, no legumes either;
    • no sugar, especially no refined sugars;
    • no dairy or dairy products.

    Also, everything that was eaten could theoretically be eaten in its raw state, which doesn't mean that cooking is not allowed, it is merely a simple way to determine the edibility of a given food: If you need to process it in order to make it edible, you wouldn't eat it altogether.

    This leaves you, and me for that matter, with --

    • fruits and vegetables, berries as well as nuts and seeds;
    • fish, meat, and eggs;
    • honey.

    Oils, spices and seasonings are available and should be part of the diet. Instead of listing every conceivable exception, I'd like -- for the time being -- to allow common sense to decide whether something counts as hunted or gathered or not.

    This is an ongoing experience and while I am sure that the plan is not set in stone and definitely will evolve over time, the above outlined way of eating is, revised or not, a superior alternative to the standard western or American diet.

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  • The Secret Connection between Loosing Fat and Eating Healthily

    by Alexander Becker

    Do you intend to resolve to eat healthily or do you want to lose the fat without the hassle of thinking about eating and exercising habits and the lack of it in your current lifestyle?

    Here is the big secret: One doesn't work without the other, there is no losing fat without a healthy, sustainable diet -- at least not in the long run.

    There is one recurring theme with people wanting to lose some or many pounds of excess fat. They want to lose the fat. They want to look good. They are even ready to deprive themselves of basic nutrients, only to see some results, and see them as fast as possible. These same people, with this exact attitude, do not care at all about their health. There are people fasting for many days in a row expecting to reverse years of gluttony, there are obese people who, all of a sudden, start to run in the morning, even regularly, all heading for that one -- wrong, completely false and misguided -- goal: Looking better, losing fat, becoming more attractive, ...

    Do not get me wrong, looking better is a great motivator and a powerful inspiration -- I want you to look as beautiful as possible and I even show you how to do it -- but as a goal in itself, it doesn't really work. Looking good and especially looking better are relative statements that may change over time and definitely change with increasing age and changing circumstances and growing competition.

    Losing fat quickly is about willpower -- and willpower is cheap -- but achieving sustainable and permanent health and fitness requires persistence and discipline -- rare virtues involving hard work.

    Take care of the sequence of goals -- you cannot go from fat and unhealthy and ignorant to beautiful and conscious in a single, giant leap. Set an initial goal of becoming healthier. Please note the gradual nature of the goal, become healthier than you are right now. Everyone can do this. Resolve to eat a little more healthily at first, then resolve to eat as healthily as possible. Make sure that your resolutions are long-term proof and you are truly convinced that conscious eating and a regular dose of physical fitness is the only way to achieve better looks, lose fat and become more attractive for the rest of your life.

    While it is no problem to design and have you follow a crash diet that makes you thinner and leaner and even more beautiful in a comparably short time, you are not going to be happy with the side-effects, let alone the yo-yoing back to where you are now and even exceeding your current levels of too much and too unhealthy.

    Losing fat, becoming even more attractive, healthy, sensible, and conscious regarding proper eating and exercising habits -- that you have to follow for the rest of your life -- takes time. Yet, your state of mind, your regained happiness, even joy, and the never before experienced levels of energy will more than make up for your investment of time and effort in your own life.

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  • Eat as Much as You Want: Experiences with the Warrior Diet

    by Alexander Becker

    One of the advantages of the Warrior Diet is the clear and simple distinction between what is allowed and when: Undereat for 20 hours and indulge in overeating the remaining four hours -- each and every day. It is easy to adhere to the principles and to defeat potential attempts to cheat -- refined sugars, for example just aren't allowed.

    Certain other diets prescribe exact times for exceptions or specific amounts that basically invite you to eat some more or some stuff that would be off, but... seems to be... with some stretching of the rules... and so on.

    After eating according to the rules of the Warrior Diet for more than five weeks now, here are some impressions, in no particular order:

    • Weight: Although I don't follow the Warrior Diet to actually lose weight, it definitely works to get rid of some bodyfat (Hofmekler calls it "stubborn fat" in the book) if you combine the diet with physical training.
    • Undereating: Absolute undereating; only water, coffee, and fruit juices seem to work best for me in terms of alertness, energy, and overall well-being throughout the day.
    • Overeating: I eat as much food as I ate during the first half of the year all in one month and I still lost some weight; in excess of four pounds over the first three weeks. Overeating, and especially the included compensation feels very real and converges with my take on moderation.
    • Coffee: I stopped drinking coffee, the compulsive, repetitive, hourly coffee, half a year ago. Since then, I only drank a cup or so once a week. Now, on the Warrior Diet, I drink coffee again daily, one small cup in the morning and another one in the afternoon. Drinking that black bitter dervish on an empty stomach feels great, in contrast to what you and I expected. It really supports the undereating phase.
    • Food groups: I am still eating vegan, no meat, no dairy -- all warrior... My eating vegan is an ongoing experiment and I am happy with the results so far. As of now, I experience no deprivations or deficiencies. (Note: The Warrior Diet is not about eating vegan.)
    • Diet composition: A week on all veggies and almonds feels great. Extraordinarily great. I ate an average of 200g almonds each day and I even lost weight. (I even felt great after eating more than 400g on one single day -- don't try this on any other diet, you probably don't want to try this at all...)
    • Exercises: An intense workout on an empty stomach, right after work, in the evening just before preparing the big meal feels amazing and leaves me with even more energy than I brought home. I don't even feel hungry after exercising.
    • Cravings: The body seems to crave exactly what is nutritionally necessary. It's always amazing to see the vegetative functions working so well.
    • Instincts: Eating vegan, my instincts aren't too bloody... but I am taking care of the almonds and the fat intake and I believe that all instincts respond and react the way they should.

    Conclusion: I still and highly recommend the Warrior Diet for everyone, for physically active people as well as for the 24/7-in-front-of-the-screen crowd.

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  • How to Motivate Yourself with One Word

    by Alexander Becker

    Your own word: give your word. If you are a person of honor and integrity, you know what it means to give your word.

    One method is emotional motivation, pumped up at seminars or at group meetings where the participants leave with that smile on their face, only to have their motivation literally fade away over time, another method is Steve Pavlina's "sans chest-pounding motivation for smart people," intellectual motivation with the main idea to always set unreasonably big and thus intellectually challenging goals.

    There are ends to achieve that are important and may be emotionally lit brightly and furthermore intellectually founded and held up by logical reasons and even some scientific evidence... Some goals, the really big ones, can't get enough motivational support to be pursued and focused on, no matter what.

    Give your word to someone in order to complete and deliver on the promise whatever it takes. There are not many events that would make an acceptable excuse for yourself showing up with empty hands.

    This goes beyond intellectual or emotional motivation. If it is promised, it has to be done. Motivation through honor.

    Now, if you develop a similar sense of integrity in dealing with yourself, you may give your word to yourself in order to accomplish any given task even after emotional or logical motivational means are not available for some reason. The emotional momentum may be long gone and logic is hard to employ under certain circumstances.

    It doesn't matter why exactly you have to do it, you gave your word and that is more than sufficient to change the world around the issue at hand.

    Develop that sense of integrity and give your word to guarantee that things get done. Just make sure to be absolutely convinced that you are not going to give up before the defined and promised goal is achieved. Do not give your word if you are not willing or able to invest whatever you have in order to succeed.

    The beauty of this approach is that you do not have to continuously invoke the whole array of "whys" and "what ifs" and "what if nots" in order to stay focused. Your word is a shortcut that let's you switch to autopilot and enables you to work without any doubts or any further questions on the current obsession.

    The phrase because I said so now takes on a completely new meaning.

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