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I've tried every diet under the sun and something I've realized is that finding your eating rhythm is one of the most important factors to getting lean, increasing focus, and sustaining high energy levels. This is what works for me when it comes to all of those and let me know what you think in the comments below.
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So ever since I got into fitness, I have been searching for the perfect way to eat
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Now, when I was a trainer, eating healthy and staying lean were incredibly easy
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I was in an environment where eating healthy was the norm, it was the standard
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And also, during client sessions and between client sessions, I was moving around a lot
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It was extremely easy for myself to just stay lean, stay energized, and stay focused
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But, when I turned into an entrepreneur, it all went to crap
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And the reason being was because I was starting to sit in front of a desk for about 5-6 hours
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a day. I found myself going to the fridge and going to the pantry and just snacking uncontrollably
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It was a big adaption from me being super active and being in an environment where being
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healthy was norm, to working on my own at home and trying to produce content and do
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deep work. So, I struggled with this for a little bit. I've tried everything
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I've tried keto. I've tried fasting. I've tried low-fat. I've tried even a diet where you do nothing but drink protein shakes every single day
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for 30 days straight. I highly recommend to not do that. So, after a lot of testing, I found what works for me and my entrepreneurial schedule
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And I actually posted a semblance of what my diet looks like on Twitter and even Andrew
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Huberman liked it, which I consider to be a good sign. So, before getting into how I eat, I want to set the context for you
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So, I work out daily. I get about 8 to 10K steps a day
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I sit in front of a desk for about 5 to 6 hours every single day
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And sleep is a major priority for me. It is the lead domino where all good things come from
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My goals for myself are to keep my body lean, to maintain energy and focus throughout the
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entire day, not just through my workday, but also after my workday when I go off and spend
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time with my family. And those are my specific goals. So, the things that I do for myself inside of my own eating schedule and the way that
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I eat, these are specific to me. I have found that they do work well for most of our clients that we work with
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But I want to preface this by saying that not everything will work for everyone
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This is something that is specific to me. It's something that I feel that works well for people who sit at desks, for people who
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have entrepreneurial schedules. But again, what you may want to do is take bits and parts of what we do and apply it
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to what you're doing and see exactly what works. And then that's probably the best way
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Probably everything that I'm going to be talking about today is all of it's not going to work
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for you. And it's very specific to me. So, I just want to preface that by saying that. Okay
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So, if you're ready, this is how I eat for maximum leanness, for energy and for focus
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If you're ready for it, let's go. So, I wake up anywhere between 6 a.m. to 6.30 a.m. every single morning
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And I always start my day off with water. I have about half a liter of water or two liter of water and I add a pinch of sea salt
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to my water. So, sea salt is a great source of electrolytes
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You get magnesium, potassium, you get sodium and electrolytes are vital for your muscle
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and nervous system. So, I drink water first thing because you've basically spent about 8 hours to 10 hours
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without water throughout the entire night. I feel that for my energy and my focus, it's better to hydrate myself first thing in the morning
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I also make sure that I delay my coffee about one and a half to two hours upon waking because
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when you're going to sleep, your body produces this thing called adenosine and it's what
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makes you sleepy, it's what makes you groggy. And we're finding that it's better to allow your body to remove the adenosine from your
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body in a natural way. The two hour delay of the cup of coffee is to allow that natural process to happen but
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also what I found is that it allows me to get rid of the afternoon lulls that usually
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happen around 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. So, again, coffee is like a tool and a lot of people drink it right first thing in the
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morning when their natural processes have not gotten rid of adenosine. So, what we want to do is we want to make sure that we delay coffee or I delay coffee
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so I can actually have energy throughout the entire afternoon. So around 8 a.m. I have a light breakfast
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This is around two hours or so after I wake and the reason I do this is because it is
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in line with my natural circadian rhythms. And it's also great for me because it helps me maintain or actually keep my appetite regulated
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throughout the entire day until the evening. So again, just to put things in context, I have had problems with nighttime eating
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due to not feeling full from eating dinner. So one of the things that has actually helped me get rid of nighttime eating or to eliminate
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it is to eat breakfast first thing in the morning to regulate my appetite
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So the meal itself, it's one of two things. It's either a double scoop protein shake with a greens powder or it is about four eggs with
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an egg white and omelet and I use that, usually do that with broccoli or some form of vegetable
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And personally for me, I like to eat low carb throughout the entire day because it allows
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me to maintain energy and focus. The thing about carbs is if I'm not using them in a physical sense, then they can actually
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induce sleepiness inside of me which causes me to lack focus and to lack energy especially
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in the beginning of the day. So I like to keep myself at a low carb pace usually for the breakfast and the lunch
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And when I say low carb, usually it's around like under like 25 grams of carbs throughout
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the entire afternoon and the morning. Now with the breakfast, one of the things that you may notice is that I either eat an
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omelet or I drink a shake. The reason I do this is because I want to break my fast with something that is moderate
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to high protein. Anywhere between 40 to 60 grams of protein I want to put into my body upon waking
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And then the reason why I do this is because when you wake up, you want to basically prevent
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your body from catabolism. And one of the best ways to do that is to start with a high protein breakfast
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And this also correlates with maintaining and regulating your appetite throughout the
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entire day. And that's one of the reasons why I start with a high protein breakfast
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Now when I get to the afternoon, the thing I eat is if I drink the shake, then I'm going
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to eat the omelet. If I eat the omelet, then I'm going to drink the shake. These two things, these two meals per se are interchangeable
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And again, the meal that itself, like I'm eating in the afternoon, that's going to be
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in between my dinner and my breakfast. For me, it's usually around 12 to 1 p.m
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Now I also get my workouts done around 2 p.m. or starting at 2 p.m
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And before my workouts, I like to have a little piece of fruit right before my workouts
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because I find that it helps me maintain energy throughout my entire workout, usually when
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I'm working out with weights. Now the middle meal is really important to me because it helps me, again, regulate appetite
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I find that if I eat breakfast and I don't have the middle meal or I forget to eat the
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middle meal, what happens as a result is I feel like my appetite is unregulated by the
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time I hit dinner. If I skip breakfast and I eat the second meal, I find the same thing, that my appetite
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is unregulated by the time I get to dinner. So this little sequence of meals helps me regulate my appetite for the end of the day
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And one thing I want to mention, I mentioned it briefly with the circadian rhythms as well
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is that when you put your body under a schedule of meals, sort of like I'm doing right now
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it acts as what we call a zeitberger. And this is like a signal to your body to entrain your body for the time that you are
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to go to bed. We want to put our bodies under a schedule of sleeping and also under a schedule of eating
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and a schedule of physical activity. So this is the semblance of the beginning parts of my schedule
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So by the time I get to dinner, I usually have my meal around 5.30 or 6
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I usually go to bed around 9.30 or 10. I like to have my final meal about 3 to 5 hours before I go to sleep because I find
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that it helps enhance the quality of my sleep. And the meal itself consists of a big portion of protein, vegetables, and single ingredient carbohydrates
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And I actually do most of my carbohydrate intake at night. So an example of this would be a 300 gram piece of steak or a 300 gram salmon, sometimes
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even larger than that depending on how much protein I need to put in my body
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It could look like steamed broccoli or steamed brussel sprouts. And I usually like to eat potatoes
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I love potatoes and I feel like they are actually one of the best ways to feel full after a meal
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If it's not potatoes, then I'm going to eat some piece of fruit
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And the reason I like to do this is because one, the big piece of meat allows me to hit
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my protein goals. Two, the vegetables act as a way to volumize my meals
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And the single ingredient carbohydrates or taking in most of my carbohydrates at night
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it actually helps me induce sleepiness. Like I said in the beginning of the video, carbs have this sleepy effect if you're not
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using them for physical activity. And I find that when I push my carb intake to the end of the night, it actually helps
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me induce a faster sleep. And then by 9.30 or 10pm, I'm usually reading a fiction book and then I am out like a light
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And to be honest, I love how my sleep is. I've been working on it for so long and this is one of the key pieces to getting me the
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sleep that I need for the energy and focus for the next day
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So a couple of things that I want to note about the schedule that I just told you about
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This helps me hit around 160 to 170 grams of protein. And that is the amount of protein that I need to keep my muscle and if I want to, to build
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some muscle. Usually with building muscle, you want to keep yourself to about 0.8 to about 1 gram
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per pound of body weight. And this allows me to hit my protein goals super easily
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Also when you have a schedule and a way of eating like this, your body adapts to it fairly quickly
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It takes about 7 to 14 days for your body to adapt to a way of eating
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And a lot of people are like, I don't like to eat breakfast because it slows me down
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or whatever. That's usually if you eat a high carb breakfast or you're eating a donut or something like that
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Usually if you're eating low carb, you don't necessarily deal with lack of energy or lack
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of focus. And also, let's talk about the schedule a little bit right now
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If you were to create the best schedule based on the way that you live life, I find that
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this is a formula that works best for a lot of people. The first thing is, you're having your last meal around 3 to 5 hours before you go to sleep
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This allows you to regulate your circadian rhythms, it allows you to get quality sleep
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And I always find that starting your meal schedule or finding your meal schedule starts
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at the end. Before that meal or before dinner, you would have your next meal around 3 to 5 hours before
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that and that would be your middle meal. And then you would have your other meal around 1 to 2 hours upon waking
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And then this gives you a schedule where you are training your body for when it likes to eat
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One of the things I want to also mention is that when you train your body to eat at certain
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times, it starts to correlate with those times. Let's use a dog as an example
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So I have a dog, he's a Shar-Pei, one of the cutest dogs you'll ever see in your life
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And our dog, Bally, he gets fed around 1pm every single day
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Now with Bally, what we do is, he is already prepared at 1pm
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He has trained himself to know that his food is coming at 1pm
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It's almost like we have trained him to expect that food. So the same thing goes with humans
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We entrain ourselves through a schedule to find out when we are actually going to be fed
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And the more that we attune this schedule to our natural lifestyles, to our sleep and
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wake cycles, the more natural it's going to feel for you to eat
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And especially if you're trying to get lean, I find that this is one of the most underrated
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tips to follow when you're trying to get lean, which is to put your body under a schedule
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of eating that works for you. So I'd also like to mention the quality of the foods that go into my body
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I get 90% of my calories from single ingredient nutrient dense sources
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I get my nutrients from the greens powder and also from the protein shake first thing
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in the morning or in the afternoon, depending on when I choose to drink it
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Eggs are super nutrient dense. And also, I like to put broccoli or some form of greens in there to enhance the amount of
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nutrients going into my body. And the final meal is usually around steak or salmon
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The meats that I eat are high nutrient meats. Steak or salmon are incredible in terms of the micronutrient values
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I eat a lot of veggies and also in terms of single ingredient nutrient dense foods, potatoes
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are pretty underrated as well in terms of a single ingredient carbohydrate source
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I like to think of diet and I like to think of the way that we eat in various forms
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So the basic form is your calories and macronutrients. Calories you know what they are already
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Macronutrients are proteins, fats, and carbs. And also, I feel like the most underrated thing that a lot of people don't really consider
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is their micronutrient values. So you're not necessarily going to get a lot of micronutrients from processed sources
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That's why I keep myself to single ingredient sources because they usually contain the most micronutrients
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And again, micronutrients I feel are the difference between the focus and the energy and also
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just your mental health as well. It's a very simple statement, but the more micronutrients that we put into our bodies
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the better our mental health is going to be. And lastly, I keep my body around 15 to 17% body fat
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I know that from a influencer standpoint, probably like not the leanest dude
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I don't like to keep my body at 10% or lower because I feel like it's not conducive to
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my lifestyle or the way in which I like to operate in terms of my energy and focus levels
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So I keep my body, let's just say healthy lean, not necessarily men's health magazine
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or movie star lean, so to speak. So I find that that works for me
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If you want to get into men's health leanest levels and compare yourself to movie stars
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that's cool for you. Personally for me, this is what works for me and the way I like to keep my body
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So that's about it. If you have a situation that mirrors mine in terms of being an entrepreneur, having
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an entrepreneur schedule and sitting in front of a desk, then maybe you want to take parts
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of what I do and add it and see exactly what fits for you
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And the main lesson here is to do what works for you, to find your own natural rhythm of
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the way in which you like to eat that facilitates the best focus, productivity, energy, and
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leanness that you want to be in. And that is the main lesson right there
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Do what works for you. And once you find what works for you, what's going to happen is, is that you basically
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put your eating on autopilot. You don't really have to think. You're eating the foods that you need to eat
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You're eating at the times that you need to eat. And over the course of time, you do this enough, it becomes on autopilot for you
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So if you got this far, hope you enjoyed the video. If you're still watching, please like and subscribe to the video
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And also if you have any questions or if you have any feedback based on the way I eat or
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maybe even the way you eat, this is like very personal to me, but you know, maybe the way
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that you eat, you know, I love to hear it in the comments. And yes, if you made it this far, I really appreciate your attention
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I appreciate you and I'll see you on the next video. Peace
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