The Science Behind Cheat Meals (Post 30k Calorie Challenge)

Yo, what is up everyone? Welcome to today's video. Now I just want to give a quick thank you for the last video, the 30,000 calorie challenge. You guys were super supportive of that, you hammered the like button, and you seemed to really enjoy it. And with those videos, those kind of viral ones, you know, the ones that are more kind of entertaining and fun, I hope to rope people into the channel with that stuff, and then they stick around for the more informative content on training, nutrition, recipes, and whatnot. So that's what we're going to be getting up to today. I am actually bulking at the moment, so we're gonna do probably a full day of eating. Eating, you know, all my main meals and stuff like that. And we're gonna hit the gym, and I'm also gonna pick a topic to go into in this video. So either way, sit back, relax, enjoy the video, leave it a thumbs up, and let's get the day started. So got a few new bits, some more stuff from Douchebags, which is a company that I work with regularly, really like them. This is the Jay Alvarez collection, so less human, more being. Pretty cool. And then today I am gonna wear this. And of course, link for all Alpha League gear is in the description box as As always, there's a new line coming out soon. Later in the month we should be getting some dope photos. I'd love to shoot with Nabil or someone. We'll see anyways, but there is a launch on October 13th. 13th. 13th. Right, so first meal of the day is just gonna be probably one of these protein bars. Body First Nutrition in Ramallah actually hooked me up with a load of protein bars. They have like really good snacks and everything in there, and they do also stock Ghost. I go to the one in Ramallah, but I often talk about this on my channel, okay? I kind of scale my breakfast on how calories I'm on. So right now I'm still lean bulking. I'm on about 3,200 to 3,500 calories, which is very easy for me to get in. So I still don't have a large breakfast. If I was struggling to eat a lot, if I was, you know, a young guy trying to put on muscle, I would actually start my day with a very large breakfast. And it goes to the opposite end of the spectrum when I'm cutting. I intermittent fast most days and save my calories for later in the day. So just a little tip is You know, gauging on how much you struggle with appetite should kind of decide on what type of breakfast you have. Also, disclaimer, some people do great by having a large breakfast. It keeps them full for the entire day. But this is just me speaking personally. When I work with clients, they find this is kind of the same as well. And it is, you know, and when you think about it logically, if you eat a large portion of your caloric intake first thing of the day, you're kind of like, it's like spending all your money first thing in the day and if you have a daily budget. So we are quickly gonna smash some pre and then make our way to the gym. So let's go! Okay, so just finished up this workout here. I gotta run off to the bank. Uh, so today's workout Main compound was dumbbell flat press. I'm trying to work up to the 60s at the moment, but today I was just not feeling it. So I did some auto-regulation and went a bit lighter. Then went on to incline press, went on some dips for the third compound of the day. Did shoulder raises and lateral raises, chest flies, and then some triceps as well. So 3 compounds, then on to isolation work, and that was today's workout. Feeling pretty good, pretty pumped. Losing a lot of vascularity and shreds, but you know, that's what I signed up for doing this bulk. I'm over 170 pounds, now as well. Height is 174 centimeters to be exact. 26 years old, been training about 5 years consistently, and then a couple years before that non-consistently. So they're kind of my stats, they're my updates. Uh, getting maybe 5 more pounds on this bulk and then see what happens and get ridiculously, uh, stupid shredded for summer again. That's the plan. So right, we gotta run. Also, I didn't record every single exercise I did today because the gym is absolutely empty. Where are all my friends at? That is the question. I just kind of record the main things I did today so I hope you guys forgive me. But what is actually in the process of being sorted out is I'm gonna do what I did about 2 years ago and do a full— not only a full program, I'm gonna do 3 full programs and put them in a playlist day by day. And it's gonna be the highest quality YouTube training videos you've ever seen, all for free as well. So that is my coming plan for kind of October, November. Alright everyone, so I'm breaking out the whiteboard. Let me know if you'd like me to do more videos like this, but please excuse my 10-year-old handwriting. I've taken a lot of pre-workout, so I've got a shaky hand. And the top To top it all off, my pen even ran out of ink halfway through. So this is not whiteboard goals right now, but the information still stands. So let's get into it. Today I want to talk about the science behind cheat meals and go over a couple topics, okay? So first of all, what is a cheat meal? That is technically when you go off your plan, okay? And is when you have maybe something that you weren't meant to have. But the first thing I want to say is I don't actually like the phrase cheat meals. The reason I kind of use it is just because, you know, everyone understands what it means, and it also, it's good for putting in YouTube titles because what people search. But I actually don't like the term as it implies something negative, and it gives a kind of mentality that says you're on or off the diet. And I don't believe in any foods being exclusionary. I think all foods should be incorporated and inclusionary because you're gonna have a better relationship with food that way, okay? Because it is not realistic to say you will never eat out with your friends or you will never go off your diet, okay? And that is just a bad mentality to have. If you do fall off your diet, you shouldn't say, "Oh God, the whole week is ruined," and turn that bad day into a bad week. You should just say, "Okay, you know, I can incorporate that into my diet instead, and I'm still on track." The next thing I want to talk about is weekly average and total energy balance. One thing I see a lot is people are too strict on themselves 5 days a week, and then come the weekend, they go absolutely off the chains. But they tell themselves, "Calories don't count on the weekend." Or maybe they get so goddamn drunk drunk that they don't even remember eating said calories. Okay, oftentimes people come to me and they say, Rob, I'm following my plan like this, I'm doing this, doing that, everything's perfect. Okay, they're slipping up on maybe a Saturday or a Sunday, and the magnitude of those events of being too restrictive during the week, you just have such a blowout, and that will actually change your total weekly average. And that is what fat loss comes down to, because it's really easy to have a good day But what are you doing for your 6 days? It's really easy to have a good week. What are you doing for the entire month? Okay, so in any decent plan, any decent coach or trainer will tell you that consistency and sustainability are number one. So next is a really interesting topic. It's something I want to talk about as well. That's overfeeding, which is pretty much a cheat meal when you eat too many calories and you eat well into a surplus. And there's two things that this can affect— well, there's actually lots of things that can affect The two things I want to talk about is NEAT, which is non-exercise activated thermogenesis, okay? So that's basically all the moving you do that isn't exercise. So we have some people, okay, there's a really interesting study, I'll put this on the screen, okay, that some people when they overeat or they have a huge cheat meal, their NEAT goes right up and they end up moving so much. And so that explains the people that you see that are always eating cheat meals or whatever and they manage to stay slim because maybe they're really fidgety, and overfeeding causes them to move more. So they're very lucky people. And then there's also people that when they do overfeed, that their NEAT isn't affected much. So they have a real hard time trying to keep their weight down or trying to, you know, keep a steady weight. So I think that's a really interesting point there. And some people do also train much better when they overfeed, and that will negate some of the calories. It is all calories in, calories out, but there are a lot of factors that come into it. Another thing that feeding has an effect on is your appetite. And this kind of applies for hard gainers, okay? And this is something I really want to talk about. You get so much these skinny guys, okay, and they say, oh, this day I ate so much. And then, you know, they ordered like a pizza, you know, they ordered loads of rice, loads of carbs, loads of fat, everything. And then that, because they've overate so much, that actually kills their appetite for the rest of the week. So that's kind of both ends of the spectrum in terms of cutting and bulking. So if you're a skinny guy looking to gain weight, pick a caloric intake that puts you into surplus, also you can stay consistent with. Next is cheat meals when cutting and bulking. When cutting, untracked meals can actually have a psychological benefit and they can give you something to look forward to. And again, they may improve your training. Another option to look at is refeeds, and that's something I incorporate into a lot of my clients' programs. That's actually when you refeed on carbohydrates and keep fats low. There's a few things that come into play there, such as glycogen, your energy output in the gym, improving sports performance. But I have done full videos on that, but maybe I'll go into that in more detail. When you're cutting, sometimes an untracked meal or a cheat meal or a day of overfeeding can be strategically placed in there. But for the most part, I just recommend sticking with an intake that you can sustain and keep consistent. When I'm cutting, when I'm at my best, I usually consume the same calories every single day. When bulking, this This is something I do not recommend. If you're really craving something, you should definitely be able to fit it into your diet. You've often seen kind of, you know, pizzas on my channel that may be 600 to 800 calories, a burger. And if you're on, you know, high amounts of calories and you're bulking, you should be able to incorporate it. And if you're going too over your calories, too deep in that surplus, it just becomes dirty bulking and you're going to have a bad time. Okay, so that's something I do not recommend is cheat meals when bulking. and that's actually a question that I get asked quite a bit. Two points I want to finish off with is when a plan is too restrictive and then talking about untracked meals. Again, I just want to hammer this point home that if it is too restrictive, it's, you know, cutting out too many food groups for no certain reason— keto, paleo, veganism, I'm looking at you— if you can sustain those diets, then I'm all for them. But if you're finding them too restrictive, then I would not recommend them. You can look at all the videos that I've put on this channel over the past couple years My diet and the foods I eat have always been consistent and pretty much the same. So if you can't see yourself following a diet 6 months down the line, 1 year down the line, maybe you shouldn't start it. Maybe you should start something that you can stick with. Again, coaching and training plans are all available, linked in the description box. Thank you guys for watching. Let's get on to it. Update on how today is going. Basically, I haven't checked in a while because after the gym I went straight to the bank, uh, AIB Rathgar. Which is the bank I'm registered with, and we actually went over— it was— the members of staff there were so nice, by the way. We actually went over buying my first home. So you may remember on this channel, maybe 2 years ago, I spoke about how it's very hard if you're self-employed to get mortgage approved or even get a loan off the bank or even buy a house. So 2 years on, we're killing the game and we're all good to go. So you need to supply usually at least, you know, 3 years of bank statements showing you in business, and, um, of course we're just about to have that, like, you know, In terms of what I'm doing, it's still pretty early days. Like, I've really only been doing what I'm doing full-time since 2015, and we're now in 2018, so still very early days. I got a long way to go. But, um, so yeah, very successful meeting in the bank today. And one thing I would love to do is if I buy this home that I'm looking at is like completely make it my own, like do a whole series before and after, like John Olson, the vlogger I watch. He has his house in Marbella and did a before and after of it. It's just absolutely amazing. I feel it would be like a really creative thing to do. And actually, on that note, okay, that was a play on words, but on that note, okay, the next Creator Agency event, which is the events company that I own, is on. I've set the date for November 17th, so I put up a post on the Creator Agency page last night. Everyone is hyped for it. I've already locked in 3 speakers, and I want to get maybe 3 more. So a lot of the speakers right now, you know, they're male YouTubers and stuff like that, and I want to diversify it a little bit. So if you know any female bloggers or content creators, preferably in the UK, but doesn't have to be in the UK, that would be good at speaking and have a good story to tell, then I'd really appreciate some recommendations because I'm trying to think of people. So anyways, I am rambling on. That is how my day has been going. I just had dinner with me L1 there as well. L1 is what Irish people say for mother. I had a big tuna steak and some french fries. I didn't want to vlog because we were just chilling and she was just happy about the news from the bank. So I'm gonna go home now, chill for a little bit, work on my laptop, and then we're all gonna cook a big massive bulking dinner together. So I just finished doing some cardio around my neighborhood. I do that every evening, and I'll do a full video on cardio when bulking, but I mainly do it to relax myself, to get some fresh air, get away from my desk. I listen to music, I do phone meetings. I just really like it. It's enjoyable. Cardio when you're bulking does actually help. Again, I'll do a video on this in the future. So now, now, right, am I eating a whole goddamn rotisserie chicken and a full pack of rice for dinner? You're goddamn right I am. Almost forgot, along with that, I am having some low-calorie ice cream because Ben Jerry's will be bulking too much, but this stuff is perfect. Genuinely committing to this bulk and taking it seriously. Gonna finish up this video here. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Leave it a thumbs up if you did. See you in the next one. Keep it real, be sure to subscribe, and like I said, I'll see you in the next one. Bye-bye!