Epic Warrior Diet
When you read the first page of The Epic Warrior Diet by Thomas Calkins, you get the sense that this is not your run-of-the-mill muscle building program, at least not where Calkins is concerned. It’s almost as if this program holds the essence of a physical and emotional process that Calkins underwent himself.
On that first page, Calkins talks about the 2 inner selves which you may have living inside of you: the “inner wimp” who is afraid of change and challenges and the “inner warrior” who works toward his goals without being affected by what other people say, who has the determination to strive toward a better body and a better life.
Following this short intro, the Epic Warrior Diet begins with an overall examination of the eating habits you need to adopt to grow big muscles and increase strength. This is called the Conqueror’s Meal and it’s a discussion of how processed foods need to be avoided and an eating plan which is comprised of healthy and lean foods must be adhered to.
Calkins recommends a 40-40-20 eating plan in which 40% of your calories come from carbs, 40% from protein, and 20% from fat. However, it is the sources of these calories that are the key to your success or failure. The Epic Warrior Diet is founded on the fact that unless you feed your muscles correctly they will not grow regardless of how much you train.
The rest of the main manual of the Epic Warrior Diet focuses on what you should and shouldn’t eat and how you can create a simple, affordable, and healthy eating routine for big muscle building. There is a chapter devoted to each of the 3 major macro-nutrients and two which deal with beverages (both good and bad) and how your body reacts to them.
After going through each macro-nutrient in detail, Calkins provides direction on how to create a 5 meals a day eating plan for yourself. He provides valuable tips to help fit this eating plan to your schedule.
He then proceeds to show you what you need to eat before and after your workouts are done. He also provides tips on how to find healthy and affordable food and to tell it apart from the mostly unhealthy food you may find at supermarkets.
All the manual is written in a “warrrior style” manner which may appeal to you or it may not. However, the thing to do is to go beyond the writing style and make use of the tips that Calkins provides.
Additional Material in the Epic Warrior Diet
While the main part of the Epic Warrior Diet is the nutrition guide, you also get a variety of other resources:
1. Meal plans – Thomas Calkins has created a variety of meal plans for various total calorie daily consumption. This is great because you can calculate your daily calorie needs and quickly find the right meal plan for you.
2. Workout guide – A 29 pages long workout manual which covers things such as injury prevention, the right way to create a workout plan, free weights and machine based exercises, etc.
This workout guide also teaches a useful goal setting technique which I recommend you follow. Goal setting is vital for your ultimate success.
3. Exercise guide – You get access to videos of dozens of different exercises that you can do to build more muscle mass. These will help you train correctly.
4. Supplement guide – A 31 pages manual which talks about various supplements, the good and bad things you should know about supplements, and where to find them at great prices.
5. Smoothies – A short manual which shows you how to prepare 25 smoothies for added nutritional value.
In Conclusion
The Epic Warrior Diet may not be the most advanced program you can find but it certainly shows you the right way to eat in order to build lean muscle and burn body fat. I think this program is right for the beginner-intermediate trainer who needs general guidance to get his muscle building quest going in the right way.
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