Name: The Wild Diet
Rating: 4.1 (145 reviews)
Author: Abel James

What’s in it for me? Lose weight fast without spending all your spare time exercising.

If you want to lose weight, you’ll have to make sacrifices. You’ll have to stop eating your favorite foods and, what’s more, you’ll need to go jogging three times a week for at least an hour. Feel the burn!

Sound like a nightmare? Well, that’s because it is one.

Welcome back to reality, where despite what you’ve heard, you can do away with the myth that only time-consuming exercise regimens and self-sacrificing diets lead to weight loss.

These blinks will show you how you can continue eating what you like, limit exercise to conveniently short periods and still lose weight.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how to limit your daily exercise to seven minute periods;
why eating lots of protein is good for losing weight; and
why you’ll drink water at your next party.

Short and intense workouts are the key to burning fat and building muscle.

There’s one key maxim when it comes to taking on new challenges: quality over quantity. And this is definitely the case when it comes to working out. Your success depends not on how long you exercise, but on how hard you push yourself. In other words, intensity trumps endurance every time.

Compare the physique of a marathon runner to that of a sprinter and ask yourself which athlete has the type of body you want. Chances are, it’s the latter. While endurance athletes tend to be thin and wiry, sprinters are tough, toned and powerful.

There’s a biological explanation for this. Research shows that exercising in rapid, explosive bursts triggers the release of growth hormones and testosterone that burn fat and build muscle, while simultaneously inhibiting the release of stress hormones.

Along with sprinting, high-intensity exercises include pull-ups and squats. Squats are a great example of what’s called a compound full-body exercise. This means that they make muscles in several parts of your body work hard, from your legs and buttocks to your arms, shoulders and core. Sit-ups and bicep curls are examples of isolated exercises which, by contrast, only train muscles in a certain area, burning fewer calories as a result.

Structuring workout sessions around high-intensity, full-body exercises allows you to work out for a short time but still burn an impressive amount of calories. And when we say short, we mean it. The author’s “seven-minute wild workout” barely takes any time out of your day but is a real challenge for your body.

The workout begins with a one-minute warm-up – jumping rope or a boxer’s shuffle are good options here. This is followed by a set of 20-second sprints, with a ten second pause between each interval, for five minutes – that’s ten sets altogether. The workout concludes with a one-minute cooldown, which can be something like jumping rope or jogging at a more relaxed pace.

Once you’ve got the hang of the seven-minute wild workout, you can customize it to your heart’s content. Try doing your sprints up a hill to raise the intensity, or push your body in a different way by applying it to swimming. Whatever you do, be sure to exercise to the max during your 20-second sets. This is what will trigger the release of the hormones needed to burn fat.

Swap sugary processed foods and starchy staples for nuts, legumes and greens.

We’ve been on this planet for around 200,000 years. In this time, the world has changed a lot. You might think that our bodies would have evolved and adapted to this change, but the impact of diet on our physique says otherwise.

Humans still thrive on the plant-based diets that sustained our ancestors. Greens, raw nuts and fiber-dense fruits and beans provide our bodies with the right balance of nutrients to keep us healthy and lean. Why? Because the foods themselves trigger the release of fat-burning hormones and keep us full for longer.

Protein is a must, but make sure you pay attention to its source.

Our bodies need protein like cars need fuel. In fact, eating lots of protein is one of the best things you can do for your body. Why? Because protein requires so much energy to digest that you actually burn fat while your body processes it.

During digestion, your body breaks down food to convert it into energy. This process itself requires energy, but the amount varies depending on the food you eat. Proteins found in meat and eggs require three times as much energy to digest as rice or pasta, causing the body to burn off fat stores to meet this energy demand.

Staying hydrated will help you burn fat even faster.

The earth is often referred to as “the blue planet” because of the sheer amount of water covering its surface. In this sense, humans are “blue” too – 90 percent of our blood is water, 78 percent of our brain is water and 70 percent of our muscles are comprised of water too.

Water is essential for our health. Failing to drink water for a couple of days is enough to kill you since our organs require a certain amount of water to function. Even moderate dehydration has a profound impact on your body. Losing 5 percent of your body weight in water reduces oxygen transportation and muscular endurance by as much as 30 percent.

Key ideas in The Wild Diet