Barnaby Lane is a sports editor at Business Insider who has written extensively about Cristiano Ronaldo – his life, his career, and his lifestyle and daily habits.

With a passionate fan, Lane wanted to make a challenge: Will he eat like Cristiano Ronaldo for a week to see if he can imitate his idol?

Below is Barnaby Lane’s autobiography and the unexpected lesson he received after 1 week of the special challenge:

Cristiano Ronaldo: One of the best players of all time.

There is no doubt that the 36-year-old Portuguese striker is one of the all-time great players in football history. Cristiano Ronaldo has made more than 1,000 appearances, scoring a total of more than 780 goals.

He also won 5 Ballon d’Or, 30 major titles during his time with Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus. In the match between Portugal and Hungary, Cristiano Ronaldo also broke the record to become the player who scored the most goals in the history of the European Championship football tournament.

But his success did not come easily.

” If you only have talent but don’t work hard, you won’t win anything, ” Cristiano Ronaldo himself once said. “In my career, I always practice and compete hard. That is the most difficult thing to achieve success”.

Indeed, Cristiano Ronaldo is always an example of tireless work. Every training session, whether for the national team or the club, Ronaldo always tries to be the first on the field and the last to leave.

His former teammate at Manchester United, Patrice Evra once said about Ronaldo: “This guy, he is a machine, he doesn’t want to stop training”.

In addition to training like a beast, the Portuguese striker also follows a strict diet to optimize his performance.

Ronaldo is known for his 6-meal-a-day diet.

If you wonder what Cristiano Ronaldo eats for breakfast, here’s the answer: ham and cheese with yogurt. Then, mid-morning, he’ll have a snack of buttered toast.

Cristiano Ronaldo also divided his lunch into two. The first meal includes chicken salad, and the second meal is usually fish accompanied by salad, eggs and olives.

In the evening, Ronaldo eats two meals. He’ll usually eat fish – usually tuna and cod – or switch to steak or chicken.

The total energy Cristiano Ronaldo consumes from his 6 meals a day is about 3,200 kcal.

He also abstains from sugar and alcohol.

One drink that Ronaldo especially dislikes is Coca-Cola. During the press conference before Portugal’s Euro 2020 opening match, the striker angrily moved two Coca-Cola bottles out of the frame because he did not want to advertise this carbonated and sugary beverage brand.

Instead, Cristiano Ronaldo chooses a bottle of filtered water.

To be able to imitate his diet, I had to go shopping. I will need A LOT of food.

Because he lives in Turin, Italy, Ronaldo probably does not shop at Marks & Spencer, a British supermarket chain. But in the UK, this is probably the best and most convenient place to buy fresh meat, fish, cheese and vegetables without having to go to a farmers’ market.

Among the items I placed in my cart were: four barbeque steaks, six smoked cod fillets, several lightly breaded chicken fillets, and a wide selection of ham and cheese.

I also bought two dozen eggs, some yogurt, avocado, asparagus, peppers, salad dressing, and loads of olives.

Total damage was about 86 pounds (equivalent to 2.7 million VND). That’s not enough for the whole week’s menu, but it’s enough.

I started the next morning with ham and cheese.

Although this ham and cheese plate isn’t as pretty as Ronaldo’s, it’s an incredibly delicious and easy dish to make.

Add an olive for a full meal. It’s like a reward that makes me feel like I’m on a vacation.

Every day of my challenge week I warmed up with a breakfast like this, and it was probably my favorite part of the Ronaldo-like diet.

The mid-morning snack – avocado on toast – was also delicious, although I was a bit full (which would become a problem).

In addition to an extremely healthy diet, Ronaldo often takes up to 5 short naps a day. Sadly, my boss did not allow me to imitate him in doing so.

Next are two lunches.

First course, at around 2pm, was chicken salad with olives and croutons (no dressing, obviously).

The second course, at around 4pm, was a smoked cod fillet with a few hard-boiled eggs and, you guessed it, olives.

As for drinks, I have fruit juice and water.

By this point, even though the food was delicious and fresh, I was feeling quite full – but there were still two meals left.

Since Ronaldo worked out a lot to use up those calories, I thought I would do the same.

At around 5:30 pm on the first day of the challenge, I went to the gym near my house and worked out.

Obviously I can’t train exactly like Cristiano Ronaldo, but I’ve tried and incorporated some of Ronaldo’s exercises into my regular workout program.

He is known for exercises like lunges, squat push-ups, star jumps and lots of abdominal exercises – which is how Ronaldo got his six-pack abs as you see.

I found the training session quite difficult, not because I was about 11kg heavier than Ronaldo, but also because I was too bloated.

I even tried listening to his playlist to get inspired to workout.

On Nike Football’s Spotify channel, you can find playlists created by Ronaldo himself.

“His favorite workout and inspirational songs ” are a mix of Latin and Spanish artists like Enrique Iglesias, Tito El Bambino and India Martinez, mixed with some hip artists Modern -hop like Drake and Sage The Gemini.

Trust me, I tried, but it didn’t help my workout very much. Sorry, Cristiano.

Instead, I switched from Enrique to EPMD, Martinez to Metallica and Sage to Slowthai, which helped me get through my painful time.

The two dinners were a struggle – and not just for my stomach.

Dinner on my first challenge day was pretty simple: grilled steak and asparagus, x2.

Although the first serving helped compensate for my post-workout hunger. But by the second serving I felt like I was forcing myself to eat. The feeling of lunch is still there and I’m still full.

What’s more, cooking and eating two dinners takes a lot of time, even if the dishes aren’t very difficult to prepare.

After cooking and eating two dinners, it was 10pm, close to bedtime. As a millionaire athlete, Ronaldo clearly doesn’t have this problem. He has a personal chef who specializes in cooking for him.

To relax, I drank a non-alcoholic beer.

After 6 meals and a workout, I want nothing more than a cold beer to put me to sleep.

Unfortunately, that’s not the choice of elite athletes, especially Ronaldo. So I had to restrain myself with a can of Heineken 0.0, a non-alcoholic beer.

The taste of this beer is not very authentic, but it is acceptable.

The next day, I repeated the same diet, but I mixed up the meals and skipped the gym.

My breakfast and mid-morning snack are both the same, ham followed by avocado toast, but for the 2 lunches, I eat 2 salads.

For dinner, it’s two servings of braised cod, asparagus, and mashed Swedish pork.

Again, taste was not an issue – all meals were lovely. The amount of food and time needed to cook up to 6 meals is what got me into trouble.

And I still have five days left in the challenge.

I persevered for the next 4 days, cooking and eating 6 meals a day. I still have to work my normal job and try to live my normal life.

Four days, 24 meals, no snacks and then 2 more gym sessions. By the end of the week, I was really struggling.

I struggled to make room in my stomach to hold all that food. I also have to fight for the time and energy to cook them, and fight not to give up and just order a handheld snack.

The pressure is building, and not just in my stomach.

I gave up the challenge on the last day.

I spent 6 days eating like a runner. So that was enough time to know this diet was not for me. Unless you’re Cristiano Ronaldo, who has a personal chef to prepare all his meals and has multiple training sessions every day.

Eating too much and not having time to properly utilize those calories actually made me gain weight. Just a little, but it was still something surprising.

Believe it or not, that’s what happens when you eat 3,200 kcal a day and only use 2,000 of them.

This diet is also quite expensive. I can’t pay more than $100 for food a week. And to be clear, for those who are thinking of trying it – following this diet will not turn you into a successful person with a Ronaldo-like physique.

Refer to Businessinsider

It turns out that we have always done actions that are harmful to our health. Here are 7 things to do after waking up recommended by experts.