If you ever wanted to eat like Jeff Cavaliere and be ripped year round, this video is going to show you how. I’m going to cover my most important method for how to eat to be lean, and the best part is that it will work even if you don’t desire the low body fat levels that I have right now.
As always, nutrition is the main determinant in how lean you look. Cardio, while helpful in burning a few extra calories is not the determining factor for how ripped you can be. The biggest and most significant impact you are going to have is always going to be with your nutrition. That said, far too often people don’t take a calculated approach to how they eat and it leads them to carrying around higher body fat percentages than they should.
The key to diet success is going to be having a system in place. The meal plan that you are following to do this should first and foremost, allow you to eat foods that you enjoy. Too many people think that eating to get ripped means that you have to eat nothing that you like and only bland and boring foods. This is simply not the case. Taking the time to learn how to make foods that you already enjoy taste even better is going to change the way that you look at diets forever.
In fact, the word diet will never exit your mouth again. Once you settle in on a way to eat that you can live with, it is simply going to become your lifestyle and it is at that point that the long term changes can occur.
The second most important thing that you can do from here is pick a method of eating and stick with it. In other words, if you have to call them a diet plan to get lean at this point fine, just make sure it is one that can lose the diet tag after awhile and become just the way you eat. Whether this be keto, paleo, or just low fat like myself, it is important that you find one that doesn’t disrupt your life too much or you likely won’t stick with it for long.
As I said, my meal plan of choice was to lower my levels of dietary fats that I ate every day. In the beginning, my daily eating was already too high in fats so finding places to cut wasn’t even hard. I also realized that with dietary fats being twice as calorically dense as carbs and proteins on a gram per gram basis, I was going to have the greatest impact by doing this. This also was the easiest to do since it didn’t deprive me of the carbs I felt better consuming to meet the needs I had as a competing athlete.
From here, I advise you to eat at specific times of the day if you want to eat like Jeff Cavaliere. I don’t eat when I’m hungry, I eat when the clock tells me to. Now, this occurs within a window of time that is roughly 30 minutes. For instance, around 8-8:30am I have breakfast. Somewhere in the mid morning, I have a snack – roughly around 10:30-11am. Lunch follows as well as a mid afternoon snack. I keep these windows open for these short periods and they can fluctuate a bit from day to day, however I make sure not to eat outside of these windows.
Far too often, people that eat when they are hungry wind up finding it very hard to stay in a caloric deficit. This happens because even the hunger itself that they are feeling can be confused for other signals and they mindlessly graze themselves into too many calories.
To assist this, I add additional times and eating windows during the day to account for any periods that I seem to be getting consistently hungry. I started out just eating three meals a day; breakfast, lunch and dinner. The additional snacks that were added were done so out of necessity. At this point, I’m locked in and so will you be if you take the time to do this right.
Finally, if rule number one is in place and you are eating foods that build muscle and that you actually like, you will not need cheat meals. The name itself implies that you are eating foods that are a far departure from the ones that you eat on a daily basis and are somehow much more gratifying. Again, if you take the time to identify foods that can keep you full and happy you won’t need cheat meals or even more, cheat days.
If you are looking for a complete 90 day meal plan that reflects exactly how Jeff Cavaliere eats to stay lean year round, be sure to head to athleanx.com via the link below and get one of the programs. All workout plans come with a day by day eating plan.
For more videos on how to get ripped and the best way to eat to be lean like Jeff Cavaliere be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube via the link below and remember to turn on your notifications so you never miss a new video when it’s published.
Eat Like Jeff Cavaliere here – http://athleanx.com/x/my-workouts
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Chris Wright
*NEW “FAST ACTION” Q&A* – Leave your most burning question about this video or any other training, PT or nutrition question within the first 2 hours of this video’s release (AS A SEPARATE COMMENT!!) and I will pick 10 to get a detailed reply from me right here in the comments. Answers will be posted within the first 24-48 hours of you leaving the question. Good luck!
Question will you ever make a program or video on what exercises that work for gymnastics rings to build muscle? What weights are the best gymnastic rings? Thank
Surely you must go out for dinner sometimes or eat at a friend’s dinner party etc. How do you handle that?
Hi Jeff, if you could please and I mean PLEASE reduce the number of the animations where you ask people to subscribe, that would be amazing! ! !
Will you make video on nutrition for vegetarian for muscle gain
Is there any way lose fat from the glutes, since everything in my body is fine except the glutes which look disproportionate
Heiii Jeff! I was just watching an old video about how you talk about the roots of strenght ( mobility stability and flexibility) and i wanted to ask you if you could make a video with exercises on how we can improve in those things! Really appreciate your videos man! Been following you for almost 6 years now and you have really helped me with my training! Keep doing the great work!
A good one is building endurance and resilience withing your tendons, so that your strength work (1-5rep range) will drastically improve
Hmm interesting, so many replies with an advise and not a single question as of “how exactly” you injured your back. Or “are you sure it was a deadlift”? Is it a cramp? Did you pull a ligament? Compressed spine? Which vertebra? Before you start treating your supposed injury, the very list you could do is define it.
Hey Jeff! I reached a plataeu, and am trying to do a lean bulk to get out of it. I’m also trying for intensity, but have a hard time getting there. Any tips on making sure I am doing the right thing here?
Hi Jeff! Is it ok to feel tiredness and pain in muscles after EACH workout, if I train consistenly and always work to failure?
Btw, number of sets per week not very big very, so I don’t think that I overtrain…
And thank you for your videos, they are always amazing!
A HOT DEBATE QUESTION HERE:
As a physical therapy specialist, what are your thoughts on facial exercises? I have seen several videos claiming you can strengthen your jawline (with a ball or “mewing”) and even change the physical structure of it as well as your body posture.
Is this true?
Holy Sh!t…..lots of ‘physical therapists’ in the comments, lol!
It really only works 1 muscle & I’ve seen videos of people who went way too hard & they had this large non-aesthetic addition to their jaw.
Yes mewing works. takes time. and after puberty its slow
Murray Walker once said that David Coulthard got a square jaw from gritting down hard with his teeth during Formula One races. No idea if that has an basis in reality though.
When it comes to your body storing excess calories as fat, I understand it all comes down to calories in vs. calories out. Actually, I don’t understand, because sugar spikes insulin which promotes fat storage. So my question is, when it comes to getting lean, how much does calorie intake contribute vs. spiking insulin levels?
You can only store fat with excess calories. Even if spiking insulin promotes fat storage, your body can only store fat if it has the excess calories to do so. Cant build fat out of thin air so calorie deficit matters more 100%
Calorie deficit is the answer, now if you want to build muscle while losing Fat, get a good protein intake on a daily basis.
It should be noted that insulin makes many cells take in sugar. What those cells do with that sugar depends a lot. It doesn’t all turn into fat, only excess. It is also used to restock your intermediate energy reserves: the glycogen in your muscles and liver. Fat comes second, as those glycogen stores are limited.
Caloric deficit is important, but you’ll also want to avoid spiking insulin so much. In order to order to do that, you will need to reduce the amount of times you eat and avoid carbs. You can intermittent fasting.
Hey Jeff thanks for doing this Q&A. From May 2020 to end of 2021, I had quite a bad case of costochondritis. I went to a physiotherapist and she helped relieve the sharp pain that it was causing me. Now, I am trying to get back to working out upper body bit by bit using bands and light weights. However, I still notice a dull ache in my sternum and chest anytime I do any type of chest exercise. Do you have any tips on how I could fully heal from this?
@JP_L thanks man, yeah I hope it gets better soon
After I squat, I get some pain on my right hip, I followed your tips on the squat and getting rid of that hip tightness. I am also following my home version of your PPL trainings with some home equipment like dumbells, resistance bands and a TRX. Should I swap the order of the days and have either push or rest day in between the pull and legs? Also, can I combine for the deadlift a resistance band attached to the bar as I dont have anymore weights available at the moment?
Hey Jeff, been following you for years and have learned everything I know about fitness from you, thank you for all your hard work and dedication. I have a physically demanding job (regularly lifting and carrying 40-70 lb buckets, sometimes two at a time. I also typically walk around 3-6 miles per work day. My question is should I eat the majority of my calories in the morning and during work? I also do weight lifting in the evening after work 5-6 days a week. I also wanted to know if you have any tips on recovering my muscles quicker while still being able to perform at work? I feel like certain muscle groups aren’t recovering as fast (2-3 days of muscle soreness) because of my job. Thank you for everything you do Jeff!
I have the same problem. It causes my upper back to always be knotted up if I hit back twice a week. I found that the answer is to work legs and chest twice a week, back only once. I do- monday lower chest, shoulders, tris, bis. Tuesday- quads, hams, calves, abs. Wednesday- back, rear delts, hip hinge (Romanian dead lifts). Thursday- upper chest, mid delts, tris, bis. Friday- quads, hams, calves, abs.
I no longer have back issues from work and lifting, and my back isn’t lagging. You don’t need to hit it twice a week if you are hitting it at work constantly.
Magnesium/zma, plenty of sleep, more vitamins from vegetables than you think you should need, more water than you think you need and whatever foods work for you, for me its high protein, low carbs- early on and the king prince pauper method for eating, stretch/ use of a therapy ball. But depending on your age you may just be slowing down, happens to everyone unfortunately.
Great stuff Jeff! Question – how do you feel performing on lower fat intake over time? Healthy fats help modulate testosterone etc.
For the Q&A: Besides the obvious face pulls and external rotations, what sort of warm up/pt/bulletproofing should be done for the AC joint. Specifically for overuse/arthritis rather than separation.
Dead hangs are basically the best. Creating distraction on the joint. Allowing space and healing. Start slow, allowing feet to touch and work to fully hanging.
Uncle Jeff’s got you covered already:
https://youtu.be/7dT4KHtMM-A
So jeff, as a physiotherapist id love to see more videos relating to injury prevention whether that comes to how we should plan programs, or maybe a video on strength ratios. Ex: if you are overhead pressing X-number, youre bench should be around X-number. A video on imbalances and understanding what the balance of different moves should be
Bro, its as simple as using progressive load until failure. Dont try to overload your body, listen to it, and win at life
Hey Jeff, whenever i workout very intense and hard, I notice my right eye being bloodshot. Is it something to worry about? I don’t feel any other discomfort afterwards, maybe just a slight pressure in my head after the sets, but in 4 years of working out nothing bad happened yet and I am perfectly healthy otherwise.
Jeff, I just wanted to thank you, you have been a huge support for me, right now is the first time I have exercised and eaten well for 1 month out of a 6 year old long battle with clinical depression. Your videos did me a solid for coming back into exercising! All the best of wishes to you for 2022 and beyond.
Keep going, my man. Remind yourself how good you feel when you exercise and feed your body healthy foods. Do it because it’s good for you (do it for you) rather than because you want to look like someone else. Goals are great, but make them measurable as opposed to “I want to look like that guy” type of stuff.
I’ve been eating like this for about 15 years. Staying lean and fit without sacrificing good food. It seriously works.
This much more relaxed way of jeff giving us information is very refreshing and interesting to watch