Journalist Gregory Ferenstein calls it “The Wolverine Diet”: eat everything without gaining weight, because, he explains on Vox, not all calories are the same. I love this kind of news and the experiments that some people do on themselves, often with useless or not sufficiently appreciable results, other times arriving at some correct reflection on nutrition. Here, for example, Ferenstein is inspired by carbs cycling : that is the alternation of carbohydrates in the diet, which together with physical activity with high intensity but short exercises alternating with repetition exercises, allows you to eat much more without gaining weight.
Let’s see specifically this “Wolverine diet” inspired by the training and diet that the actor Hugh Jackman did to prepare for the new Wolverine movie and become much leaner and more muscular, increasing the metabolism so much that it takes up to six thousand calories (also of sweets and complex carbohydrates) without gaining weight.
THE WOLVERINE DIET
– Physical activity that combines aerobics and high-intensity exercises every other day : every other day, for a few hours of aerobics plus various, high-intensity exercises with weights in a short time, as per the Tabata protocol: for example two hours of treadmill + high intensity exercises.
– Intermittent fasting for 18 hours on days of non-physical activity(it means 18 hours of prolonged fasting and then being able to eat within the following six hours. For example: you fast from 18.00 in the evening until noon the next day, even if the most appreciable results are obtained by eating in the evening and fasting the day , so: sleep eight hours from midnight, skip breakfast, arrive until six in the evening without eating, then eat from six in the evening until midnight. In the six hours you can eat as much as you want, being careful to eat very few carbohydrates (only fruit and vegetables) and eat more protein and fat instead .
– Diet based on carbohydrates on days of physical activity: even sweets are tolerated in this regime! The important thing is to make the days high in carbohydrates when doing physical activity.
My opinion? The name also says it, the Wolverine diet is a useful diet for men who want to be in training during the holidays or on occasions where two or three days of feasting are planned, perhaps not consecutive. By fasting for eighteen hours straight on other days and trying to train when you eat too much, you not only don’t gain weight but lose it even if on days when you eat too much you feel like a whole cake.