How (& why) I eat over 4000 calories a day

Instagram is one of my favorite places to ‘show off’ my workout progress.

It isn’t for flexing so much as it is for leveraging my followers as accountability partners. It’s harder to fold when a few thousand people expect you to update your progress frequently.

It’s also a great way to get feedback on my boxing, which I am self teaching.

It’s highly motivating.

I usually only post on my IG once a day, as I like to limit my usage. But yesterday, I logged in multiple times with the goal of showing my boys the daily work/workout schedule I follow.

Here was the end product.

But the post that got the most response was where I showed my total caloric intake for the day.

Many were in awe or confused why I eat so much.

They were further confused because I eat so much, yet maintain a three percent body fat.

So, I want to share how and why I do this.

Let approach the ‘why’ first...

It’s pretty simple, to be honest.

I burn almost every calorie I eat.

If I didn’t eat this much, I would be in a severe caloric deficit, considering how much I workout (this is something I used to my advantage when I was shredding my body fat earlier this year).

I burn about 1500 calories a day just working out.

But that doesn’t even tell the full story because your body spends an insane amount of calories cooling down from a workout. It takes your heart, lungs, brain, and skin a ton of effort to get back to a stable state after exerting yourself so much.

This is due to all the (good) stress you just endured. The advantage here is that you burn more calories than you actually think when you workout.

There are the actual calories burned during exercise. Then there are the calories burned in your body’s effort to cool things down.

This is known as the ‘Afterburn effect’ or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC).

The Holmes Place Health Blog explains this beautifully;

“Physical activity increases muscles’ demand for oxygen (VO2), which oxidizes carbohydrates and fats, producing the energy required for movement. The demand of the human body for oxygen increases proportionately with the intensity of your workout. During intense exercise, your body needs more oxygen than breathing could provide. This gap between the demand for oxygen in the muscles, and the actual amount of oxygen delivered is called the “oxygen debt”. In order to “pay off” the oxygen debt, restore balance and “cool off”, the human body usually needs a few hours. In that time, it consumes more than 10 liters of extra oxygen, thus burning more calories post–workout."

So, being modest, let’s assume that is costs my body 500 calories to cool down. This is an inaccurately low estimate (I’ve actually measured it at a doctor’s office before, so I know it’s much more), but for the sake of our example, it will work (NOTE: I have to approximate here because my Fossil Smartwatch cannot track these burned calories).

This puts me a 2000 calories burned - just from working out.

Now, we have to consider the calories my body spends to stay alive.

Humans are constantly burning energy, even if you are just sitting there watching TV.

Therefore, humans have to eat, even if you aren’t exercising. You literally need energy to live.

As stated on WebMD;

“When you exercise, you use muscle. This helps build muscle mass, and muscle tissue burns more calories -- even when you’re at rest -- than body fat. According to Wharton, 10 pounds of muscle would burn 50 calories in a day spent at rest, while 10 pounds of fat would burn 20 calories.”

As stated, I have a low body fat, meaning that the rest of my physical makeup is bone or muscle (mostly the latter, at this stage of my life).

If you take into consideration that I stand while working, take regular walks outside during the day in the blazing Houston heat, and run up and down the stairs whenever I’m moving around in the house, it’s easy to see that I can burn hundreds (if not thousands) more calories during the day just being in a ‘rested’ stated.

For example, I’m typing this blog right now on a Sunday which is a dedicated rest day (no working out). Despite this, I’ve already burned 900+ calories.

And it’s barely 4:45 PM.

So, on a day when I’ve done my workouts, I burn at least 3500 - 4000 calories.

Again, this includes;

• Working out
• Cooling down post workout
• My high muscle composition burning off excess calories
• My active ‘rest state’

So, if I am in a surplus calorically, it’s barely so (I’m more likely still in a bit of a deficit).

And honestly, I only increased my calories intake because of my new boxing regimen, which I literally could not maintain without the extra caloric intake for energy.

Oh, and as for the ‘How’...

Well, I simply eat quality whole foods with high caloric value and good macronutrient balance. Foods like;

• Oats
• Bananas
• Raw honey
• Chicken
• Blueberries

make up the bulk of my diet and help me easily achieve my diet goals without turning into a fat fucking slob.

If you want to know more about my whole diet (and workout plan) you can get my Saiyan Body Guide for free here. It’ll show you how I work and discipline myself in order to have a Saiyan worthy mind and body.

Until next time.

Stay happy, stay healthy, and always be creating. Just make sure it’s Dope Content Only.