A Complete Guide To What And How I Eat.. And Why. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years writing stuff designed to help you put together the diet and workout that is going to work best for you and your goals. However, one question that keeps coming up over and over again regardless of the topic I’m writing about is? How do I put everything together? When, why and how do I eat it? And on and on and on. Today I’m going to answer all of those questions and more by giving you a full breakdown of every single relevant aspect of my diet that I can think of. Let’s begin at the beginning. My Calorie And Macronutrient Intake. Hmmm, let’s see, how shall I put this? Because that one- sentence description of my diet should be the one- sentence description of your diet, too. Now let’s get slightly more specific. How many calories do I eat? ![]() Can you indulge and enjoy life on a bodybuilding diet? Here's how the 5/2 solution allows you to achieve a great physique and still engage in all the debauchery of. Shorter answer: a lot. My calorie needs have always been way above- average regardless of how skinny, fat, lean or muscular I’ve been over the last 1. I’ve never met a maintenance calculator that has ever been accurate for me. I’ve also never met a friend/family member/girl/waiter/waitress/random- person- I- happen- to- be- eating- with who hasn’t looked at me in disbelief upon observing the amount of food I easily eat in a single meal and/or over the course of a day. I blame NEAT (non- exercise activity thermogenesis). Longer answer: it depends. Just like you and every other human, my daily calorie intake depends on a bunch of factors specific to me (age, height, weight, activity level, NEAT, genetics, current goals, the use or non- use of a calorie cycling approach, etc.). ![]() And while most of these factors remain fairly consistent, others (like my goals. Didn’t see that coming, did ya? If my goal is fat loss (without losing muscle), I create a small to moderate deficit, typically somewhere between 1. I am at the time, how lean I want to get, and how aggressive I want to be in getting there. If my goal is muscle growth (without gaining excess body fat), I create a small surplus in line with the “Group D” surplus recommendations I lay out in Superior Muscle Growth. As for macronutrients, my protein, fat and carb intake are all in line with the protein, fat and carb intake recommendations I’ve given 1. But that’s probably a good thing. My Calorie/Nutrient Cycling. Another thing you probably won’t be surprised by (even if you ignore the fact that I just kinda mentioned it) is that I use a calorie and nutrient cycling approach within my diet. This is something I’ve consistently mentioned being a big fan of over the years. Why is this? Among a handful of reasons, primarily for the small yet meaningful positive effect I’ve seen it have on calorie partitioning (more muscle, less fat) and thus body composition as well. Got my 2nd day of Intervals in this week. Usually I only do Intervals once a week, but I need to change things up. Saw that the Smith was free so I skipped push ups. Veganism is both the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products, particularly in diet, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of. Previous Advocare 24-Day Challenge Review (Updated October 10, 2014): 24-Day Challenge: What You Should Know. The 24 Day Challenge is a certain regimen to help people. Learn how to eat right to fight harder, gain lean muscle weight, burn fat, or just look sexy! This isn’t just a boxing diet plan, it’s a common sense diet plan. So. Calorie cycling in a deficit has officially become the new most common thing I’m asked about, so hopefully this simple “reversed” explanation is enough to hold some of you over until SFL is here. My Meal Frequency. Ah yes, meal frequency. As I’ve lovingly alluded to before, I’ve spent some time experimenting with eating as few as 2 meals per day to as many as 8 meals per day. And literally everything in between. And the conclusion that I (and every other unbiased, evidence based person. Additional details here. Which means, a person’s meal frequency should be dictated entirely by what’s most preferable, enjoyable, convenient and sustainable for them (which, by the way, are four words that I just now discovered become the acronym PECS). So? This is partially because I have an above- average calorie intake as it is, and partially because that aforementioned calorie cycling approach I use entails putting more calories on my training days than my rest days. For both of these reasons, I find that trying to get all of my calories in with anything less than 5 meals is pretty damn hard/uncomfortable/just plain ugh. So, 5 meals just ends up being most PECS for me on these days. On my typical rest days, I will usually end up eating 3 meals. This is again partially due to the fact that the calorie cycling approach I’m using has me eating fewer calories on my rest days than my training days, so it’s easier for me to meet my daily calorie needs in fewer meals on those days. And it’s also partially because it’s just more PECS for me (getting tired of it yet?) to spend less time eating more meals, and more time doing whatever the hell else I’d like to be doing on those days. Technically, I feel this way on my training days as well, however those days require me to eat more meals to avoid. More just a minor beneficial difference worth adjusting for once you’ve already gotten the major stuff right. So. This would of course be “Protocol #1” from SMG (page 2. The Post Workout Protocol (page 2. On my most typical rest days, I’ll usually eat my first meal of the day around 1. No, this isn’t me intentionally doing any form on intermittent fasting. That’s purely coincidental. This is just me doing what’s most PECS for me on these days. And that just happens to happen sometime around 1. There’s absolutely nothing magical about this from a body composition standpoint. So, this could really be anywhere between 7pm- 1. Side note: Yeah, that’s right. I sometimes eat dinner as late as 1. I’ve done this for years and years. And it’s always a meal that contains a nice amount of carbs, thus meaning I eat a bunch of carbs between 7pm- 1. Now, if you’re still living in a world where eating anything – especially carbs – at night like this is some scary thing that is guaranteed to instantly cause your muscles to fall off and be replaced with body fat, please allow me to bring you into the reality of this world and tell you that’s all horseshit. The one and only thing I’ve experienced as a result of eating carbs at night is an improvement in sleep quality. Well, that and more enjoyable dinners.)Beyond that, all of the meals in between my first meal and my last meal are basically just spaced out in whatever the hell way is most PECS for me on that day. Now let me give you an idea of what I eat. I guess the first thing you should know is that I am the world’s most basic and boring eater. I’m also the world’s pickiest eater. There are also a few very common/popular foods that I avoid strictly due to having digestive issues with them. Quite the combination there, huh? So um, if you’re expecting me to dazzle you with “delicious recipes,” or “new and interesting foods,” or “fun meal ideas,” or maybe just make you jealous of the awe- inspiring amount of variety in my diet. Often repeating certain foods multiple times over the course of the day. In similar combinations. As part of similar meals. And I legitimately like it that way. Getting a little more specific, here’s what I eat categorized by macronutrient: Protein: My most common protein sources are chicken, turkey, eggs and whey protein powder. Fish and beef from time to time, but less so. Fat: My most common fat sources are nuts (especially almonds) and olive oil, with fish oil providing my omega- 3’s. Carbs: My most common carb sources are white rice (here’s why I prefer white rice over brown rice) and white potatoes, as well as fruits and vegetables. No, these are not the ONLY foods I EVER eat. They are however the foods I eat most often (by far) on a day- to- day basis (e. Because these are the foods that A) I like best, B) I have no issues digesting, C) provide what I need, and D) are most PECS for me. And guess what else? Your food choices should be based on the exact same criteria. You know, in place of the more typical criteria of “some idiot used a combination of pseudoscience and their own personal biases to create a list of foods (or a list of “superfoods”) everyone supposedly either MUST eat or MUST avoid. And my diet is no different, as there are actually not one but TWO entire food groups that I avoid! Although, they’re probably ever- so- slightly different from the usual “food groups” you might be expecting to see: Group 1: Foods I don’t like. I hate cheese (I don’t even want it on the same table as the food I’m eating). I also hate milk (I was the kid who ate his Lucky Charms and Fruity Pebbles in a bowl with no milk, or just bypassed the stupid bowl altogether and took handfuls right out of the box). Sweet potatoes are a lovely food, but I think they taste like white potatoes that have something very wrong with them. Oatmeal is a fine carb source, but I don’t enjoy eating a food that looks and feels like it has already been eaten. For similar reasons, I like every fruit except bananas (basically, if you can describe a food by using the word “mushy,” keep that shit away from me). So despite the fact that every food I just mentioned can potentially be a “high quality” part of a person’s diet, I don’t ever eat a single one of them due to the fact that I just don’t want to. Simple as that. Group 2: Foods I don’t digest well. Not only do I hate cheese and milk, but I also don’t digest them (or dairy in general) well. So, even if I did like them, I’d still avoid them for this reason alone. Wheat products and brown rice are somewhere in the middle for me, as I don’t purposely go out of my way to avoid them entirely like I do with dairy and oats, but I definitely do go out of my way to significantly limit them/avoid them the vast majority of the time. I find I physically feel better when I do. Your diet should also be designed around avoiding both of these “food groups.” Just, you know, fill in each “group” with whatever foods meet that criteria for you and you alone. My Dietary Variety. So, I kinda covered this already, but I want to address it directly because people specifically asked me to. I guess I’ll just state what should be pretty damn obvious at this point, which is that my diet has very little variety in it. It’s largely the same handful of foods that I like the most and digest the best (at rest, or with zest, and then brush my teeth with Crest) eaten over and over and over again.
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