Transcription
I'm a 231lb prostr who's currently locked in and leaning out. This is what I eat, how I prep it, and how to apply it to yourself.
My diet is currently split into two separate days. What I eat on a training day and what I eat on a rest day. My training schedule looks like two days on, a rest day, two days on, a rest day. With that, I'm currently carb cycling. So, what that means is on my training days, I have a lot more carbs. My calories are a lot higher, somewhere around that 36 to 3,800 mark. And then on my rest days, my carbs are a lot lower and my calories are a lot lower, a lot closer to that 23 to 2500 mark. The idea behind this is to give me that energy and those calories on the days that I need it most while also helping me keep my overall calories lower so that I can recomp and lean out.
I do not think that most people need to do carb cycling. I think it's a lot easier and a lot simpler to keep your calories and macros the same across every day of the week. That's just currently what I'm doing. I'm working with a nutrition coach who kind of does all of that for me. I just do what I'm told.
On both days, I have three real meals. And then on my rest days, I have a smaller snack. And on my training days, I have a larger pre-workout meal to give me that fuel for my training.
One thing that's a staple on both days is the white rice. So, I use a rice cooker to cook that up, usually doing two to three cups. You're not going to want to keep rice for long periods of time. I'm a little bit more tolerant to older rice. A lot of people will tell you don't take it if it's been in the fridge for more than 3 days. Do what your risk tolerance will allow. You are going to want to wash it. I don't usually wash it. Do as I say, not as I do, right? You can also throw some seasonings in here with the water as you cook your rice. Not really going to add any calories, will probably make your rice taste a bit better.
The next big staple for me is the beef. If you've been watching any of my stuff, you know that I have beef, tortillas, and guac pretty much every single day. So, with that, I get the 93/7 lean ground beef. It's just going to have less fat. This is a little bit more pricey than like a fatter cut of beef, but it's going to be worth it over your macro level. Step one of prepping the beef, throw it in a pan and brown it.
Another meal I have every single day is Greek yogurt. So, what I'll do is I'll take Greek yogurt. I mix it in with some chocolate protein powder. And then on training days, it has honey and almond butter in it. On non-training days, it just has the almond butter and some granola in it. But either way, I mix that up. Tastes like fro yo to me. I do use Podium Supplements for literally everything. You can use code Vince for 25% off all of their stuff. Um, but when I mix that up, tastes like fro yo to me. It tastes like a snack. I usually like eating it um on my rest days. I eat it at night cuz I like it like a treat at the end of the day. On my training days, I eat it with my pre-workout meal, which also consists of cream of rice. This stuff pretty much just taking 100 grams of carbs from cream of rice, rice to the dome piece before my lifts. Um, this brand Rice and Grinds, I have nothing to do with them, but they are much better than the stuff I originally bought from Publix, which is a lot harder to eat. This stuff has different flavors. Pretty good. If you need a quick carb source before a workout, cream of rice is going to be pretty solid for you.
The proteins in the rest of my meals either come from steak, lean steak, or salmon. So, steak I'll generally cook kind of with each meal cuz I think that's one how steak tastes the best rather than trying to heat it back up in the microwave. Um, it also doesn't take very long to cook. Like a this kind of thinner steak takes about a minute, not a minute, it takes like two max like five minutes to cook. So, I don't really care about prepping this so much and I prefer it not prepped, if that makes sense. If I get the thinner like sizzle steak, I'll prep that beforehand because honestly, it's not going to change the way it tastes. But, I will prep my salmon a little bit cuz if I'm going to cook a little bit, I might as well cook a lot of it. So, I usually like to prep at least as much as I can fit in a pan because why not, right? So, with my salmon, I throw some salt, pepper, paprika, and this is Creole seasoning, which is probably just more salt, but I think it tastes pretty good. So, I throw all this on there, both sides. Do whatever seasonings you want. Doesn't really matter. Um, not really going to change anything as far as that goes.
So those meals um on my training days I will have 6 ounces of steak or salmon for two meals. So two separate meals has that and then either with rice or potatoes. And I've been mostly just doing the rice because it's a lot easier to prep. And I prefer it with the guac just because it kind of turns it into a bowl I can mix around rather than trying to like I don't know just have potatoes. Potatoes are just more of a hassle. But that is a different way you could mix it up. Throw potatoes in there instead. It's a lot more intensive to like prep potatoes. One good way I found to prep a bunch of potatoes at once is obviously just using the oven. Either diced is like preferable because it's going to taste better, especially if you season them diced, but I'm kind of lazy, so I was just throwing like whole potatoes in there and then just cooking them up that way. Again, not going to be the best end result for the potatoes as far as taste goes, but if you're just trying to do something quick and it's easier for you, that's how I did it. Right now, I prefer rice.
I've been asked a couple times why I'm not eating chicken. Chicken is a great option. It's going to be even more lean than like the meats I eat, and it's probably going to be cheaper, and you can prep it pretty easily. My favorite way of prepping chicken is with a crock pot, either doing like shredded chicken tacos or something like that because it's just so much easier to do it in a crock pot and then shred it up. However, I think chicken gets pretty boring and hard to eat as it's prepped and I would prefer to eat something like steak, salmon, ground beef is like phenomenal. Um, so really it just comes down to preference. But if you're trying to save money, um if you're trying to have a leaner cut, then I would absolutely recommend just ripping chicken.
Now, some other things while all the meats cook. This Fairlife milk is fat-free and it actually tastes pretty good. I was worried that the fat-free milk was going to be like trash or like just very liquid, like watery. Not at all with this stuff, which is weird. I don't know that I trust it, but it tastes pretty good. It's fat-free. Gets the job done. So, I definitely recommend subbing this in for if you're drinking whole milk especially or 2%. And I was drinking whole milk before I got into this diet. And it's it's just a way easier way to still drink milk but not have as much fat.
Additionally, I'm having some orange juice after my workouts with rice cakes. So, the idea there is just to get some quick carbs back in the system, fuel the body after the lift, and keep going on about the day. Nothing crazy. Just throwing some orange juice in there for those carbs.
People have also been asking me about eggs a lot. Now, I do eat eggs. I used to eat eggs a lot more. Right now, I'm only eating three eggs on my non-training days. So, only like twice a week will I have three eggs, which is a lot less than I used to do. But with that meal, I'm also having steak. So, that whole meal is steak. 4 ounces of steak, three eggs, oatmeal, and then 140 grams of some sort of fruit. So either banana, I like to do pineapple. So getting protein in from both the eggs and the steak, just not as many eggs as you might think or what I've done in the past. So, but eggs are a great source of protein. I would definitely incorporate I would definitely incorporate them into your diet. Um, that's just what I'm doing right now.
Once your ground beef is browned, you're going to drain out the excess liquid, the excess fat that kind of cooked out of that. Don't drain it into your actual drain. I pour mine into a bowl and then I throw it out with the trash. It'll mess up your drains pretty bad and clog them up once it like solidifies again. Once it's drained, that's when we season it. All right. So, I throw a little bit of water in there kind of so it just about covers all the ground beef. And then I throw in some Cholula seasoning packet. So, Cholula taco seasoning. Now, these have 15 calories per serving. Sue me. I don't count these really into anything. I do three because it's three pounds of beef. You're going to throw these over top of it. Let it simmer. And then just sit there for 5 to 10 minutes. All right. Salmon is cooking. Ground beef is simmering. Rice is rising. Um, not riceing. Rice's a poison.
Let's talk about supplements. So, right now I'm taking a multivitamin. Um, it's kind of hard to tell obviously what all of these little things, like how much you're actually getting from them, like benefit-wise. In my head, the way I like to think about it is like I would rather just make sure that it's not one of these tiny little vitamins or something that is the limiting factor to my strength, if that makes sense. Like if one of these little things could potentially be the reason I'm not making progress because it's the limiting factor, like taking the multivitamin is just a super simple thing to do to make sure that that's not the case.
Now I also take Ashwagandha. I don't really know that this is worth taking. It's supposedly helps boost natural test production. I think the uh the science is out on that one. But it's also one of those things that I'm like, I might as well. If I'm taking some supplements anyways, I might as well. It's supposed to help your health. It's supposed to help stress. It supposedly might boost test a little bit. So, I take it.
I also take a D3 supplement, vitamin D. I kind of forget why I started taking this, but it is supposed to boost your bone, immune health, some other stuff. Again, don't really remember what it was that got me to start taking that. And then the last one I take is magnesium glycinate, which is supposed to help reduce anxiety and stress throughout the day, but then also act as a sleep aid. I used to take them all in the morning. I've been convinced to take magnesium glycinate at night, so I keep that one on my nightstand. Um, but I would prefer to take them all at the same time just to make it super convenient because just like having your food prepped makes it a lot easier to stick to your meal plan and eat that instead of eating the garbage that you saw on the way home, having all of your stuff out in the open where you can see it and just take it easily all at the same time makes it a lot easier to actually do it.
Other supplements I take, this is morning collagen. I take collagen sometimes because it is um theoretically going to help your joints. Again, I think the science is kind of out on that. I don't always take this. These are all from Podium. Um but it's one of those things that I'm like, if it could help my knees and my joints, again, I might as well take it. You know, it doesn't hurt anything to take it. It's going to help your skin and your hair as well. I just primarily take it for the potential help to my joints. Do what you will.
This is the pre-workout from them. I try not to take That's a lie. I take it almost every day. I try not to, but I do. I like caffeine. And it's pretty good. Creatine. Everybody should be taking creatine. I take 10 grams. Recommended dose for the average person is five. Again, like I've said for everything, I would rather take more and be at the peak and maybe be wasting two to three to four grams of it every single day as long as I'm making sure I'm hitting the threshold for what is my body is able to use.
This last one is pump. It's a non-stim pre-workout. Just means it has no caffeine. I'll rip this one if it's a later in the day workout or if I've had like two pots of coffee. Um, and it's it's pretty good just to get the blood flowing and get into the workout. But that's pretty much all the supplements I take besides like the protein powder.
I also take this before my workouts with this is not before my workouts. This is what I drink during my workouts with a little bit of pink salt. This is just like a straight carb supplement. I can't show you because it's not from Podium, but if you look up carb supplement on Amazon, you can probably find it. Um, and it's just like 50 grams of carbs that I drink during my workout just to stay fueled up.
Last thing I take that I kind of forgot about is a hydration powder. I forgot about it cuz I'm out of it right now, but I'll take that in the morning. I don't think everybody needs a hydration powder. I think it's a little bit overkill, especially if you're not like a CrossFit athlete or running. It's probably overkill for me, but I still take it um just to make sure that I'm hydrated as much as I should be. If you're drinking a bunch of water, you probably don't need it unless you're sweating a ton during your training.
All right, the beef has simmered for a bit. You can kind of tell all the flavors getting absorbed into it, which is awesome. Um, and I'm getting ready to eat. I'm kind of stoked right now because it is 7:48 p.m. I kind of did a terrible job today eating because I didn't have this food prepped. So, I get to have two of my meals. So, the first one is 6 oz of this beef. 6.07. This is ridiculous. Six. Six flat. Let's go. So, six ounces of beef mixed with 45g of avocado. Not avocado. Guacamole. Pretty much a avocado. Uh two tortillas, then the other one is salmon, guacamole, and rice. So, I'm about to crush probably the biggest meal I've had in a long time.
Um, other huge hack I would recommend if you don't have one, if you haven't done this already, is getting a food scale. So, I had I wasn't doing it for a long time. I hate to admit it is the way. All right. You don't know how much you're eating unless you're you're using a food scale. You're not as good at guessing as you might think you are. And it just makes it a lot easier to I think it actually makes it easier to just weigh out your food, know exactly what you're eating, and not really have to think about it.
If I was going to do my own calories and macros instead of having a coach do it, I would plan out what I wanted to eat, calories and macros. Then I would plan out my meal plan. So, I'd make the meal plan in advance of what kind of works with those calories and macros. And then I wouldn't really think about counting calories and macros each day. I would just make sure I'm eating the proper quantities of the food that I planned out so that I know that's hitting the calories and macros. But it's easier because I'm just weighing out food rather than trying to count calories and macros during the day. Does that make sense?
For my beef meal that I do every day, my coach also gave me an option of straight rice, rice and beans, or tortillas. And I always choose the tortillas. And because I didn't have granola today, I actually get a third tortilla. Best day ever. These are tonight's meals. We got the three tortillas, beef, and guac. We got the rice, guac, and salmon. This is obviously a very guac heavy meal again because I have less carbs on my non-training days.
Another thing I like to incorporate is Sriracha. I just think it tastes like it just makes everything taste better. Especially this salmon. Um, I mean anytime I do the salmon rice and guac, I love throwing on Sriracha. Zero calories. You got to be on the lookout for the sauces that have a bunch of calories because that's going to throw off your whole plan and it's probably mostly going to be fat. I was obsessed with eating yum yum sauce for a while, which is literally just mayonnaise, which is literally just fat. So, definitely be careful about that. Be careful about cooking in butter or olive oil. Um, if you're worried about that or if you're trying to hit a deficit, I would definitely use like a zero-calorie cooking spray instead. And besides that, man, that's pretty much it. That's my meals. You just saw me meal prep them. Hopefully that was helpful to you in some way. I appreciate you watching. Life's short. Lift heavy. Go to the gym.