The Foundation of a Champion's Nutrition
While many assume elite athletes cook every meal from scratch, Chris Bumstead, also known as CBUM, demonstrates a practical, hybrid approach to nutrition. His strategy prioritizes consistency, which is crucial for bodybuilding success. Rather than relying solely on home-cooked meals, he leverages a meal prep service to ensure he meets his exact macronutrient requirements, especially when traveling or on a busy schedule. This combination of outsourced convenience and personal customization allows him to focus on training and recovery without compromising his diet's integrity. The precise balance of his nutrition changes dramatically depending on whether he is in an off-season bulking phase or preparing for a competition.
The Macro Strategy: Bulking vs. Cutting
Off-Season Bulking
During his off-season, CBUM focuses on consuming a high volume of food to gain muscle mass. For his 2022 bulk, he consumed over 5,000 calories per day, prioritizing dense, nutrient-rich foods. A typical day includes:
- Breakfast: Protein-packed pancakes made with oats, egg whites, and protein powder, sometimes with added pumpkin for flavor and fiber.
- Mid-day meals: He uses MegaFit Meals for easy, calorie-dense options like steak and rice, which offer a high protein and carb hit.
- Post-workout: A shake combined with carbohydrates from sources like rice-based cereal.
- Evening meal: Ground turkey with crispy sweet potatoes, a favorite of his for its taste and dense carb content.
- Final meal: Another shake with oats and protein to ensure his calorie targets are met.
Contest Prep Cutting
As a competition approaches, CBUM's diet becomes much stricter, reducing calories to shed body fat while preserving muscle. His 2023 prep diet hovered around 2,800 calories per day. Key shifts include:
- Leaner Protein: Swapping fattier meats for ultra-lean options like chicken breast, whitefish (cod), and ground turkey.
- Modified Carbs: Utilizing white rice and white potatoes for fast, easily digestible energy, and adjusting quantities precisely.
- Strategic Fiber: Adding vegetables like shredded lettuce, cucumber, and asparagus, which are high in fiber and low in calories.
- Portion Control: Each meal is carefully measured and weighed to meet specific macro targets. A pre-cardio meal, for example, might be ground turkey and white potato.
- Adjusted Meals: He increases his meal frequency to six times per day during his cut to keep his metabolism high and manage hunger.
MegaFit Meals: The Strategic Partner
One of the most revealing aspects of CBUM's routine is his reliance on MegaFit Meals. He has been open about this relationship, explaining that the service provides a reliable and high-quality food source that helps him maintain consistency. The service's custom "a-la-carte" menu is particularly valuable during prep, allowing him to build meals with the exact protein, carb, and fat sources and quantities dictated by his coach. This eliminates the guesswork and prep time, which is essential for a high-level competitor juggling a packed schedule of training, recovery, and business endeavors.
Key Components of the CBUM Diet Philosophy
CBUM's overall nutrition philosophy can be broken down into several key tenets that apply whether he is bulking or cutting:
- High Protein Intake: Consistently consumes a very high amount of protein across all his meals to support muscle repair and growth.
- Strategic Carbohydrates: Uses different types of carbs at specific times to fuel workouts and aid recovery. For example, he prefers faster-digesting white rice before training and sweet potatoes or oats at other times.
- Healthy Fats: Incorporates healthy fats from sources like avocado and nut butter, though quantities vary significantly between phases.
- Superior Hydration and Digestion: Emphasis is placed on drinking ample water and using supplements like fiber and glutamine to aid digestion, which is crucial with such high volumes of food.
- Flavor Management: To combat the monotony of a repetitive prep diet, he uses low-calorie condiments like mustard, sauces, and spices to add variety without derailing his macros.
CBUM's Meal Prep: Service vs. DIY Comparison
| Aspect | CBUM's Approach | DIY Meal Prep |
|---|---|---|
| Convenience | High. Many meals are pre-cooked and pre-portioned, ready to heat and eat from a service like MegaFit Meals. | Variable. Requires significant time for shopping, cooking, and portioning. |
| Cost | High. Meal prep services are an investment, but the trade-off is time saved and guaranteed macro accuracy. | Lower. Ingredients are bought in bulk, but the time cost for prep is significant. |
| Customization | High. A-la-carte options allow for specific macros and ingredient choices. | Unlimited. The chef has complete control over ingredients, cooking methods, and macros. |
| Time Investment | Low. The main time investment is ordering and planning, not the daily execution. | High. Requires dedicating several hours each week to planning and cooking sessions. |
| Consistency | High. The service ensures meals are consistently measured and prepared according to the plan. | Variable. Consistency depends on the individual's discipline and ability to follow the plan without deviation. |
How to Emulate CBUM's Meal Prep Strategy
To adopt a CBUM-inspired meal prep strategy, you don't need a professional chef. The core principles are what matter. Begin by calculating your specific macro and calorie needs for your goal (bulking or cutting). From there, decide on a system that works for your lifestyle. You can utilize a service for maximum convenience, especially for meals with tricky macro calculations. Or, you can apply the principles to your own home cooking. The key takeaway is to structure your meals around consistent, clean, and measurable ingredients like lean protein sources, complex carbohydrates, and fibrous vegetables, adapting portion sizes to your goals.
Conclusion
The answer to what meal prep does CBUM use is a strategic blend of convenience and meticulous control. By leveraging the services of MegaFit Meals, he ensures that his nutritional intake is consistently on target, freeing him up to dedicate his energy to training and recovery. His approach proves that elite-level nutrition isn't always about grueling kitchen sessions but rather about smart, consistent, and well-executed planning. Whether you're an aspiring bodybuilder or a fitness enthusiast, adopting this mindset—using tools to simplify consistency—is a powerful strategy for reaching your goals. You can learn more about specific meal strategies from trusted fitness resources like BarBend.
