Herschel Walker's Diet: One Meal a Day, Explained

Published November 9, 2026 · 15 min read

The Herschel Walker diet is one meal a day, eaten at night. In a 2009 Atlanta Journal-Constitution interview, Walker said that meal "normally consists of bread or salad and soup," and that he had quit red meat years earlier. In a 2011 Strikeforce media call, he said he'd been eating this way for 20 years.

His diet only worked alongside serious daily training. If you want structure for your own sessions, get the free Superhuman Strength app.

This guide sticks to what Walker has actually said, when he said it, and what the research says about copying him. For the training side, see the full Herschel Walker workout plan.

Herschel Walker's Diet at a Glance: The Evidence

The pattern holds across decades of reports: one meal, late in the day, light on meat. The details shift by year, so treat each claim as a snapshot.

What Herschel Walker Eats in a Day

The meal: soup, salad, and bread

In his 2009 AJC interview, Walker said, "I eat a lot of vegetables and breads," and added, "I love soup." On The Howard Stern Show in 2010, he gave the same answer: salads, soup, and bread.

In a later Muscle & Fitness interview, he said he still eats sweets, but only with his one meal. So the common claim that he avoids sugar isn't backed by his own words.

Timing: one meal, late

During a January 2011 Strikeforce media call, Walker said he eats around 8 or 9 at night and nothing else, apart from maybe some water or juice. On Stern, he described eating late, close to bedtime.

That means no breakfast and no lunch, which matches Fowler's account from the Cowboys years.

What he avoids or ignores

He has said he quit red meat, doesn't like fish, and doesn't track protein. "I don't think about proteins," he told the AJC in 2009. He told Stern he doesn't count calories either.

There's no reliable source on supplements, so any claim either way is a guess.

The Cowboys years: burgers and fries

This is the detail most articles skip. Former Cowboys running back Todd Fowler told author Jeff Pearlman that Walker ate one meal a day, and that the meal was often a double burger and fries from Carl's Jr.

So the one meal habit goes back a long way. In his 2020 Muscle & Fitness interview, Walker said, "I was doing this in high school, in college, in pro football." The meat-free version came later.

The "fasting for days" claim, checked

Several 2010 articles said Walker sometimes went days without eating. Those lines come from reporters summarizing him, and I couldn't find Walker saying it himself in a primary source. Treat it as unconfirmed.

Was Herschel Walker Vegetarian?

For a stretch of his life, mostly yes. Around 2009 to 2011, he said he had dropped meat, and CNN described him as a vegetarian in 2010.

Even then, the details are fuzzy. In the same 2009 AJC piece, the reporter wrote that Walker had stopped eating chicken, while Walker himself said, "I don't eat much chicken at all." On Stern in 2010, he said he didn't eat meat anymore.

He wasn't vegetarian for life. As a Cowboy, a teammate described him eating burgers. And in his later Muscle & Fitness interview, he said he doesn't eat "a lot" of red meat, which suggests some.

The fairest summary: the Herschel Walker vegetarian diet was a long, mostly plant-based phase, not a lifelong identity. If you want to eat this way, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics says appropriately planned vegetarian diets are suitable for athletes. The key word is planned, which Walker has said he doesn't do.

Herschel Walker Diet and Workout: How They Fit Together

Walker's workout and diet look mismatched on paper. He has described doing thousands of push-ups and sit-ups a day for decades, and in 2018, at 56, he told Fox Business he was still doing around 2,000 sit-ups and push-ups as part of his routine.

You can see the numbers in how many push ups he reported. In 2010 and 2011, he added full MMA training on top, which you can read about in his MMA career.

High volume bodyweight training on one meal worked for an elite athlete with rare genetics and decades of adaptation. In the 2011 media call, Walker himself said it works for him but he couldn't say it would work for anyone else.

What you can copy is the consistency. If you want a structured version of high-rep bodyweight training, follow a training plan in the app and build up gradually.

Does One Meal a Day Work? What the Research Says

Fat loss

The only controlled trial comparing one meal with three meals at the same calories ran for 8 weeks in healthy, normal-weight adults (Stote et al., 2007). The one meal group lost a little fat. They also reported more hunger and showed higher blood pressure and cholesterol. Only 15 people completed it, so treat it as a pilot.

Eating windows also don't seem to beat regular calorie control. In the TREAT trial (Lowe et al., 2020), a 16:8 window was no better for weight loss than three meals a day. The ISSN's 2017 position stand also found no body composition advantage for intermittent fasting over daily calorie restriction.

Your takeaway: one meal a day can help you lose fat if it helps you eat less. It isn't magic. For the training side, try calisthenics for fat loss.

Muscle and strength

With an 8-hour window and resistance training, results look fine. In resistance-trained men, a 16:8 schedule cut fat while muscle and maximal strength were maintained over 8 weeks (Moro et al., 2016). A 2020 systematic review reached a similar conclusion: fasting combined with resistance training generally maintains lean mass (Keenan et al., 2020).

Narrow windows are a different story. When young men ate within a 4-hour window on non-training days, they ate about 650 fewer calories a day, and the group eating normally showed a larger lean mass gain (Tinsley et al., 2017).

Herschel Walker OMAD vs the research: the protein problem

The real issue with Herschel Walker's OMAD habit is protein. The ISSN recommends 1.4 to 2.0 g of protein per kg (2.2 lb) of body weight per day for building and keeping muscle, ideally spread every 3 to 4 hours (Jäger et al., 2017). The 2025 to 2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans set 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg.

For a 180 lb (82 kg) person, that's roughly 98 to 164 g a day. A bowl of vegetable soup, a salad, and bread usually falls well short.

There's some good news for one big meal. A 2023 study found that 100 g of protein after a workout produced a bigger and longer muscle-building response than 25 g (Trommelen et al., 2023). That study used milk protein in a lab, not real-world OMAD, but it suggests a large meal isn't wasted.

Health markers and hunger

In the same one meal trial, people had higher morning blood sugar and a slower insulin response when eating once a day.

There's a mental side too. In a survey of about 2,700 people aged 16 to 30, intermittent fasting was linked with more disordered eating attitudes and behaviors (Ganson et al., 2022). The study can't show cause, but it's a reason for caution.

Should You Eat Like Herschel Walker?

Who it might suit

One meal a day may suit you if you're a healthy adult, rarely hungry in the morning, and prefer a big dinner. It's easier to manage on a fat loss phase than on a muscle gain phase, and only if you can fit enough protein into one sitting.

Who should skip it

Skip it, or talk to a doctor first, if you have diabetes or take blood sugar medication, have high blood pressure or cholesterol, have a history of disordered eating, or are pregnant or nursing. It's also a poor fit for teenagers and for anyone training hard twice a day.

Warning signs to stop

• You feel dizzy or lightheaded during training
• Your reps or strength drop for more than a couple of weeks
• You think about food constantly
• You binge as soon as your eating window opens
• Your sleep gets worse

If any of these show up, move to two or three meals.

A Herschel Walker Diet Plan: 3 Ways to Eat

These plans are built for a 180 lb (82 kg) adult and land around 1,950 calories. If you're very active or want to gain muscle, scale up the portions. For a full approach to eating for bodyweight training, see the calisthenics nutrition plan.

Option 1: Walker style one meal a day (protein-adjusted)

This keeps his foods (soup, salad, bread, sweets with the meal) and adds enough protein to meet the guidelines.

Vegetarian swap: replace the chicken with 7 oz (198 g) firm tofu and extra beans.

Option 2: 16:8 with two meals (noon to 8 p.m.)

Option 3: Three meals, same food quality

Numbers are estimates based on typical USDA values. Brands and portions vary.

Any of these plans works better with consistent training behind it. Pair your plan with structured progressions and download Superhuman Strength.

Tips If You Want to Try Time Restricted Eating

• Start gradually. Begin with a 12-hour eating window, then move to 14 and 16 hours over a few weeks.
• Hit your protein first. Aim for 20 to 40 g of protein per meal, in line with ISSN guidance, and build the plate around it.
• Fuel around training. Put your meal, or your bigger meal, within a few hours after your hardest session.
• Hydrate. Water, black coffee, and plain tea are fine during the fasting window.
• Keep a training log. If your reps or strength slide for more than two weeks, widen your window.
• Review after 4 to 8 weeks. Keep it if it's easy and you're progressing. Drop it if it isn't.

If you want to know what realistic progress looks like, see the calisthenics progression chart.

A Quick Disclaimer

This article is general information, not medical advice. If you have diabetes or another medical condition, have a history of disordered eating, or are pregnant or nursing, talk to a doctor or registered dietitian before trying fasting or one meal a day.

The Bottom Line

Herschel Walker has eaten one meal a day for decades, mostly soup, salad, and bread, with a long meat-free phase in the middle. It worked for an elite athlete with an extreme training habit. For most people, two or three protein-rich meals will do the same job with less hunger and less risk.

The part worth copying is his training discipline. Read how Walker trained in the workout plan linked above, then get the app free and start building your own daily habit with structured calisthenics progressions.

Sources

1. Ho, R. Herschel Walker interview post Celebrity Apprentice. Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Apr 21, 2009.
2. Herschel Walker on Howard Stern: I Sleep Four Hours a Day and Only Eat One Meal a Day. Bloody Elbow, Jan 13, 2010.
3. Herschel Walker May Be in Better Shape Now at 48 Than During His Playing Days (quotes Todd Fowler from Jeff Pearlman's Boys Will Be Boys). NESN, Oct 11, 2010.
4. The Herschel Walker Experiment (quotes CNN). ESPN MMA blog, Oct 2010.
5. Rossen, J. The Herschel Walker Experiment. Sherdog, Oct 13, 2010.
6. Herschel Walker: Crazy Workout, Crazy Shape at 48. CBS News, Oct 2010.
7. Strikeforce: Herschel Walker MMA Conference Call Live Updates. Bloody Elbow, Jan 24, 2011.
8. Scipioni, J. Why NFL great Herschel Walker still does 2,000 sit-ups a day. Fox Business, Apr 19, 2018.
9. Interview: Herschel Walker Takes Fitness Mission To Washington. Muscle & Fitness, Mar 27, 2020.
10. Strikeforce Weigh-In Results. Bleacher Report, Jan 29, 2010.
11. Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Cyborg Live Weigh-In Results. Bleacher Report, Jan 28, 2011.
12. Stote KS, et al. A controlled trial of reduced meal frequency without caloric restriction in healthy, normal-weight, middle-aged adults. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007;85(4):981-988.
13. USDA Agricultural Research Service. Researchers Look at How Frequency of Meals May Affect Health. Feb 15, 2008.
14. Lowe DA, et al. Effects of time-restricted eating on weight loss and other metabolic parameters (TREAT). JAMA Intern Med. 2020;180(11):1491-1499.
15. Aragon AA, et al. ISSN position stand: diets and body composition. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017;14:16.
16. Moro T, et al. Effects of eight weeks of time-restricted feeding (16/8) in resistance-trained males. J Transl Med. 2016;14:290.
17. Keenan S, Cooke MB, Belski R. The effects of intermittent fasting combined with resistance training on lean body mass: a systematic review. Nutrients. 2020;12(8):2349.
18. Tinsley GM, et al. Time-restricted feeding in young men performing resistance training: a randomized controlled trial. Eur J Sport Sci. 2017;17(2):200-207.
19. Jäger R, et al. ISSN position stand: protein and exercise. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017;14:20.
20. Trommelen J, et al. The anabolic response to protein ingestion during recovery from exercise has no upper limit in magnitude and duration in vivo in humans. Cell Rep Med. 2023;4(12):101324.
21. US Department of Health and Human Services and USDA. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025 to 2030 (released Jan 7, 2026).
22. Ganson KT, et al. Intermittent fasting and eating disorder attitudes and behaviors among adolescents and young adults. Eating Behaviors, 2022. Summary.
23. Melina V, Craig W, Levin S. Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2016;116(12):1970-1980.
24. Resistance training performed in the fasted state compared to the fed state on body composition and strength in adults: a systematic review with meta-analysis. J Bodyw Mov Ther. 2025;45:99-109.
25. Herschel Walker fitness and martial arts feature. CNN, Oct 11, 2010.