ROB’S ULTIMATE OFF SEASON PRE WORKOUT CAKE
Welcome to Rob’s Recipe Corner. We’ve brought you such hits as “egg white-cereal pancakes,” “bodybuilder chicken salad in the Vitamix” and “two-ingredient no carb protein muffins.” I am now proud to present what I feel is my greatest achievement, the Off-Season Pre Workout Cake!
Now that I’m in the off season, I have a little room to experiment and have some fun. This week I’m sticking with low carbs to even out from the weekend, so some carbs at breakfast, and then pre-workout. If you’ve been reading my log you know my typical pre-workout meal during prep is my cream of rice cakes. I also recently got into cold protein oats, and wondered if I could make a cake/brownie like item using similar ingredients. Yes. Yes I can. And it came out JUST. LIKE. CAKE. Not fake tasting stuff that you convince yourself tastes like real cake. I’m talkin’ about the real thing. Moist, chewy, cake goodness.
STEP 1 - make your proats
-1/2 (48g) organic rolled oats
-enough unsweetened almond milk to cover
-leave in fridge overnight
STEP 2 - add the rest when you’re ready to make your meal
-1 scoop Metabolic Drive Chocolate (gonna try Vanilla tomorrow)
-1TBSP nut butter (I used almond butter, but plan on incorporating some protein nut butters, like the Buff Bake stuff next week)
-15g peanut flour
-1tsp cocoa
-1TBSP liquid egg white
-1/2tsp baking soda
-(opt.) 0 cal sweetener, I used a stevia packet
STEP 3 - mix and microwave
-Pretty easy here. Mix it all together, mine took 2 minutes in the microwave.
Topped with 0cal Walden Farms Chocolate Syrup and a small handful of chocolate sea salt granola
MACROS: 460cal - 44c/42p/15f
Now that I’m in the off season, I can go back to enjoying healthy foods that contribute to my goals without going overboard, which, after a prep, really seems like feasting. I’m really not into binging and eating junk food (aside from the post show weekend of course), I just want to be able to eat large amounts of the good stuff. I ate 2,000 calories yesterday and it felt like 4,000. I’m not being super crazy strict prep-style, but I do keep a spreadsheet of everything I’m eating as I go through the day so I can make sure I keep cals under 2,000, and carbs capped at 70, which is where I was before the show. After things even out this weekend, I’ll slowly start adding more carbs next week.
This pre-workout cake is a great example of finding/making foods that fit your plan, help you achieve your goals and make you “feel” like you’re cheating, which at least for me, helps satisfy my needs and keeps me from going and scarfing down actual sugar filled cake, or feeling like I need to cheat. This pre-workout cake muscle gaining awesomeness.
I will say that starting in a couple weeks I will definitely plan on incorporating some legit cheat meals into my plan, probably one every couple weeks or something. A pizza, burger and fries, whatever it is, I’ve learned not to be food-phobic. As long as I plan for it, it’s all good. So if I decide I want to have a personal BBQ Chicken Bacon Pizza (what we got this weekend, incredible), I’ll just eat lightly during the day, smash legs or back or something, and enjoy my pizza without worrying about it.
Aside from this new amazing discovery, I’m slowly coming back to life and starting feeling normal again, it usually takes 2-3 weeks. Physically I have way more energy, mentally takes a little longer for the hormones to regulate and to feel “with it” all the time. Kind of hard to explain, but the feelings of normalcy are creeping back. Hit the gym hard yesterday for chest, quads and hams and it felt so good to have so much fuel in the tank. Going today for back and bis, and plan on training 5 days this week.
This week I’m going to do my usual split I did on my prep, and next week am going to start a new split, either 4 or 5 days, probably 5. I gotta figure out my program, I’ve been training arms twice a week for a year now so I may go back to hitting them once a week, and splitting up back into two sessions as I did last off season. So many possibilities!