The Truth About The Bruce Lee Diet

Bruce Lee is synonymous with martial arts. His lightning-fast moves, like the one-inch punch, are the stuff of legend, and despite his comparatively thin frame, he was as strong as they come. But just how did he get so strong?

It's obvious that Lee trained rigorously to become the ultimate kicking machine we all know and love, and as anyone who has even glanced at a dumbbell can attest, diet is a huge part of training. What on earth, then, could Bruce Lee have possibly eaten? What kind of diet could supplement the kind of training Bruce Lee went through, while helping him maintain his absurdly low-fat and muscular gymnast build?

Considering Lee was pretty much the ultimate martial arts specimen, many people have attempted to reconstruct the specifics of his calorie intake. As such, there are many versions of the "Bruce Lee Diet" making rounds online, some a lot more accurate than others. And these different diets seem to be at odds with each other.

According to Motley Health, Lee saw baked goods such as cakes as "empty calories," and tended to avoid refined flours as a result. He also stayed away from dairy, preferred Chinese food for its taste and balanced ingredients and, much like modern bodybuilders, ate several small meals a day. Insure 4 Sports also mentions that Lee's go-to drink was tea - either Lipton or a Chinese blend called Li-Cha.

On the other hand, Bruce Lee Training explicitly mentions that Lee's diet allowed him to eat pretty much whatever, that he was a huge fan of protein, and that his portion sizes were sometimes so huge that when he went to restaurants he tended to have two plates.

So what's the truth behind the Bruce Lee diet?

Well, it turns out the apparently contradictory accounts of the "Bruce Lee Diet" might not be quite as at odds with each other as it may seem. As the Bruce Lee official website tells us, Lee indeed watched what he ate quite carefully, and he liked to experiment with nutrition as well as other parts of his fitness regimen.

However, even though he didn't use alcohol, smoke, or drink coffee, he wasn't into abstaining as a general rule. If he really felt like having something, he had no qualms about eating it, because at the end of the day Bruce Lee believed in one, simple dietary rule: Eat what your body requires, and don't get carried away with foods that don't benefit you.

Of course, this diet may not work for everyone, because thanks to his rigorous training, Lee spent such giant amounts of energy on a daily basis that it didn't exactly destroy his six-pack if he treated himself to a nice steak on occasion.

When he got a hankering for red meat, though, he didn't always eat it - sometimes he drank it! Weird, but true. One notable part of Bruce Lee's diet was the fact that he owned a commercial juicer, which was a relatively rare gadget for the 1960s, and used it to make all sorts of weird blends - and according to CNN, that sometimes even included a nice drink of raw hamburger meat.

Lee enjoyed experimenting with foodstuffs in general, to the point that there was a period when he was super into offal because of its nutritional value. However, the one consistent part of his diet was always his juices and protein smoothies - which would make him fit right in with most of today's fitness enthusiasts. And he also used various supplements, including royal jelly and ginseng, to up the nutritional value of his concoctions.

He did have one habit that doesn' necessarily line up with modern dietary guidelines, though: weed. Yes, despite the fact that Lee tended to avoid things like alcohol, tobacco, and coffee, according to CNN he was quite fond of cannabis, and didn't think twice about lighting a joint after a training session or munching on hash as an edible.

Why? Lee didn't just hone his body, he also honed his mind, and Lee felt that marijuana, quote, "raises the consciousness level."

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