In this vlog, fitness creator Rob Lipsett explains his decision to eat at maintenance for a month to preserve his visible abs and reset metabolic health before a six‑week cutting phase. He shares his current body‑fat estimate (10‑11%), describes why this level is both athletic and socially sustainable, and outlines his macro targets (≈200 g protein, 350 g carbs, 60 g fat) tracked via MyFitnessPal. The video walks through a full day of meals—including a protein‑rich smoothie, chicken‑rice‑peas bowl, oat‑protein snack, and a dinner of egg whites with potatoes—highlighting portion adjustments rather than food changes. Lipsett critiques the hype around “metabolic damage” and reverse‑dieting, arguing that true metabolic slowdown is modest (≈10‑18 % in extreme cases) and that reverse‑dieting should be used mainly to re‑establish maintenance calories and provide psychological relief, recommending weekly carb increases of 30‑50 g rather than minute increments. He celebrates reaching 20 K YouTube subscribers, reflects on the global community, and expresses ambition to grow the channel further. The vlog concludes with a brief “gain‑taining” snack and a reminder of his upcoming shred phase.
Chapters
What's up everyone, we back. Kind of like in that video I talked about, to bulk or not to bulk, I've decided that I'm gonna eat at maintenance for about a month, and I'll show you my current body fat as you can see here. And now this, this is what I want to maintain. I want to keep a full set of abs. As you can see, you can see all my abs, and you can see my V-lines even. And this body fat right here is, in my opinion, about 10 to 11%, okay? And this is basically when you can see all your abs, but you're not, you know, they're not all vacuum tight, they're not all like sucked up. So this, in my opinion, is the most athletic body fat and the healthiest body fat to be at. You're lean, but your calories aren't too low. You're not like, you're nowhere near competition stage leanness, and you know, you can still have a social life and stuff like that while looking good. To be honest, this body fat is probably appealing to most people. It's probably appealing to most most girls. When you're all straight and shit, girls don't like that. But it's so anyways, okay, I decided I'm gonna bump up my calories to like maintenance for like 2 weeks, 3 weeks, and then do a 6-week shred. Am I planning on gaining any muscle in those 2-3 weeks? No. But going back up to maintenance will reset any negative effects that you get from dieting or being in a caloric deficit. So all your hormones will go back to where they were. Your metabolism will be raised slightly, it'll go back to baseline levels and stuff like that. And you know, it's enjoyable as well. The less time spent in a deficit from a bodybuilding perspective, the better. So anyways, I decided I'd do a full day of eating video. You guys like them. I don't know, you guys like them. But it'll be like, it'll be just be like the other vlogs, but I'll show all my meals in it. Because usually I just show like 2 or 3 meals, but seeing as I'll be eating more calories today, more carbs, bit more fats. I should make some better meals. So anyways, alright, let's get into it. Alright, so I have changed up my calories, macros, just on MyFitnessPal, best app ever. So still going to be hitting 200 grams of protein, 350 carbs, and 60 grams of fat. Just 'cause my FitnessPal says 206 or 344 or 61 doesn't mean you have to hit it to the gram. It's just easy to track it and you know, you can go over and under by a little bit if you want. All right guys, so meal number 1. I'm sorry, you know, you've probably seen me make so many smoothies on this channel, but it's just what I eat, you know. I'm not gonna change up my diet just for the sake of it. But you know, I will try and make some more interesting meals today. So it's just gonna be almond butter, cocoa, vanilla whey, some frozen fruit, and this is bananas and pears, protein milk, and creatine. Standard stuff, can't beat it. Also gonna do my little Snapchat thing for the recipe. Nice, Cleveland. Alright, so let's talk a little bit about reverse dieting. The whole kind of metabolic damage thing, the reverse dieting thing, it just, it all just got a bit ridiculous. Basically, metabolic damage, people, it doesn't actually exist to the extent that people think it exists. Like, in a lab, the most we've seen your metabolism, your BMR decrease, is something like 18%. And, you know, that was true like a starvation diet. But when you're dieting for prolonged periods of time, the most it's gonna go down for most people is about 10%. What happens is people just get so sick of dieting they just end up— they don't even notice. It's all psychological. They end up just eating more, binging. They get sick of dieting because they've been doing it for so long, or they're on too low calories and they're just not taking in as much calories as they say they are. A lot of people are like, "Oh, I'm only eating 1,000 calories a day and I'm not losing weight. I must have a broken metabolism." You're not eating 1,000 calories a day. Do you know how hard that is? When people diet for ages, something called homeostasis kicks in. The body wants to stay the same. The body does not want to change. The body wants to survive. So you will literally not notice when you're in starvation mode, when you've been dieting for so long. Your, your body will try to get food in its mouth. You will grab a handful of grapes, whatever, a biscuit off the table. You will shove it in your mouth and you will not even notice. This is documented. And so anyways, that's kind of the whole metabolic damage thing. And then, and then reverse dieting methods you want to add in, you basically want to go back to your maintenance calories as quick as you can to offset the negative effects of eating in a deficit. So your maintenance may have changed. That's one thing that reverse dieting use is useful for, finding your new maintenance. So let's say you lost 20 kg of fat, you your TDEE is gonna change dramatically because think about how much less calories you burn if you're carrying around a 20 kg dumbbell and then all of a sudden you stop carrying around that 20 kg dumbbell. How much less calories would you burn throughout the entire day? So, you know, reverse dieting is good for finding your new maintenance calories and then you would slowly raise your calories up to find that point where you're gaining muscle, gaining size, and keeping fat gain to a minimum. So reverse dieting is great for that reason. It's also great for psychological benefits, but the main thing in my opinion is finding your new maintenance and finding that point to where you're gaining some nice amounts of muscle. When you see some ridiculous reverse dieting protocols, something like adding 8 grams of carbs a week, do you know how hard it is to track 8 grams of carbs. That, that's like a spoon of rice. It's like a big spoon of oats. You'd have to be so neurotic— it's not even sustainable— you'd have to be so neurotic with your diet to be able to track that. So when I have clients reverse diet, I usually bump things up in 30 grams of carbs a week at least, even sometimes 50 grams, just getting to maintenance as quick as you can and going from there. So that's my take on reverse dieting. That's today's Lip Tip. That's the information You know, I'm not reverse dieting for these like 2 weeks. It's just like I'm just gonna go straight back up to maintenance. As you've seen, I bumped my calories up by 500 calories straight away. So that's reverse dieting covered without going too into things. Alright guys, having some chicken, peas, and rice, and I'm gonna put some sweet and sour sauce in that. What you want to do is you want to mix the peas the rice together. I just prefer doing it this way. Alright guys, so here's the finished product. A nice large amount of rice in there, and I'm also gonna drizzle some of this Weight Watchers Sweet and Sour Sauce on it. 100 grams is like 42 calories. So remember guys, you know, I may be upping my calories, but I'm keeping my abs for these few weeks, you know, and I'm not, you know, letting myself go. So yeah, let's put this on. Check that out. So 100 grams of sauce, all that flavor, just 40 calories. Just checked my channel there, 20K subs. That's just, mm, that's a good feeling. Obviously, you know, thank you. That's just like, ah man, I just love, like, you know, YouTube is what I love to do. I love this channel, you know, I love making videos, I love editing them, And I love talking to all you people all over the world. You know, someone was like, "Hey yo, what's up?" from Croatia, someone from Portugal. Like, that's crazy that in my head that like people all over the world are watching these videos. So that is just awesome. That's put me in a great mood. And I'mma keep going. I swear to God, yo, I'm not gonna stop until this channel is properly big, you know, over 100,000. Just gotta believe in yourself. You know, understand that this shit takes time. And most of all, like I said, is believing in yourself. So thank you. Alright, so you know what it is. It's just another Oat Bowl. Protein oats. They are just like my favorite snack. I have them every day. This is actually raspberry or strawberry whey topped with some nuts and seeds. When I'm upping my calories, I don't change my foods. I just up the portion size. There's no, you know, magical bulking foods or cutting foods or anything like that. It's just about amounts, people. Alright guys, for dinner I've gone for a pretty basic meal. It is 1 whole egg and then 250 grams of egg whites, 300 grams of potatoes, and seasoned with pepper. And then I'm also going to probably put some of this stuff on as well. And these 2 are obviously just such a good alternative to ketchup and mayo. Some Sriracha sauce too. And you probably noticed that all my food is kind of like bro food, especially for someone who, you know, practices flexible dieting, preaches if it fits your macros and all that. And This is just the food I enjoy. It's just the food I like. So, uh, yeah, that's it. What's up everyone? So I just realized there that it is Halloween night. I'm in Sarah's, as you can see. Two of us are just gonna sit on the couch and watch a scary movie and chill out. But how exciting are we? But, um, so anyways, when it's like my last meal of the day, I know I'm under on macros. I got about like 50 carbs left to hit. About like 20-30 grams of protein, 5 or 10 grams of fat. So, you know, when I know I'm under that and I'm gonna end up under that, I sometimes don't bother track my last meal. So I've got some leftover dinner here. Score! It is gonna be— and it is gonna be some leftover chicken curry. That was like 30 grams of protein there, and then there's a huge bowl of rice. I'm not gonna eat all that, so I'm gonna heat this up and put it together. All right, so that's it, a full day of gain-taining. And I'm just gonna eat like this at maintenance for probably about 2 weeks, get my strength back up, and then, you know, like I talked about earlier, reset some of the negative effects you get while dieting before I start the 6-week shred. But, um, I know that'll be the shred of all shreds. So anyways, right, Done. Back on the streak. Hope you enjoyed. Full day of game taming. Keep it real.
