During my brief sickness after one month of total immersion in BJJ, I thought

about diet.

Since mid-2016, I have been practicing "the Warrior's Diet" (by Ori Hofmekler),

a form of intermittent fasting. I skip breakfast and lunch and only have a big

dinner at the end of the day. Hunger often strikes in the afternoon and I'd have

one snack of nuts or fish. It has worked for me in that I have kept making

progress in weight-lifting without getting significantly bigger. Recently, my

weight has gone up to 157 lbs but my waist does not expand and therefore I have

still attributed the gain to muscle growth.

I started to observe, however and especially in the past month, that the over-

eating phase, i.e., the big dinner, often resulted in too much food to digest

which affected my sleep. I sometimes felt like a python after swallowing a deer.

This seemed to lead to poor energy levels the next day. Meanwhile, I couldn't help

noticing that some of my training partners, including the 50-year-old head coach,

were lighter and smaller but were very strong and full of energy on the mat.

As my neck and shoulders have adjusted to being squeezed and smashed, I feel my

eating needs to acclimate too. After all, a major part of my physical exercise

comes in the evening nowadays. One meal during the day, say around 1:00pm, would

prepare me for the 6:30pm grappling class and a small supper would improve my

sleep.

After long thoughts, I decided to give the Gracie diet another try. Developed by

one of the creators of BJJ, the diet has fueled the Gracies' phenomenal success

in the art over the past 100 years. The family patriarchs were noted for their

longevity and health. Till this day, the third generation of the Gracies, now

Americans, are still practicing it.

I first heard about it from Mr. Steve Maxwell, a close friend with the Gracies 

and an advocate for the diet. The main ideas include food groups, combination and

4-5 hours fast between meals. He had his first bite after 11:00am and his meals

were fruit-based, starch-based, or protein-based. He could breakfast on a bowl of

berries, have a sweet potato for lunch, and eat a chicken salad as supper. An

older person could not eat like when he was young, Mr. Maxwell often pointed out,

and systematic under-eating was the key to health.

A few years back, everyone who met him, myself included, marvelled at the great

shape the sixty-something was in and he claimed that he hadn't seen a doctor in

35 years. Recently, at 68, he invited his followers to a one-week Jiu-Jitsu For

A Lifetime camp. The guy is worth keeping an eye on. 

I would like to ease into the new habit but eventually, I might have to forsake

some of my beloved foods, including pork (It was never explained why pork is

banned in the diet, though.) and kimchi, for example. But I am hopeful either it

will still work with small portions or I can mold myself so that I would stop

craving for them.

On the other hand, the Gracies were from South America and might have known

little about foodstuffs elsewhere, especially those in Asia. So I would need to

experiment for myself. This will be a fun project.