Why the Fittest Man in the World Trusts CBG with His Nutrition
As a teenager, James Sprague diligently tracked his macros for three years in High School.
“I thought the way to success with nutrition was making sure you were extremely precise and didn’t mess it up everyday,” he said.
So each day, he became consumed with hitting his carbohydrate, protein and fat targets down to the gram, and “If I didn’t hit it, I thought I was failing,” he said.
“Everyday I would stress so much. ‘I missed 10 grams of carbs. I need to figure out how to get 10 carbs.’ ‘Oh man, I don’t have any fat sources because I have already hit my protein,’” he said of his mindset at the time.
Not only was he stressed out all the time, but was also “too skinny,” he said, adding that he was the one who came up with his macro targets on his own.
“I wasn’t eating enough. I couldn’t get strong. I wasn’t fueling to be a Games competitor. I was fueling to be as skinny as possible, which was not my goal. I was doing it all wrong. It was all backwards,” he said.
Enter CBG
Four years ago, after seeing the success his training partner Sam Kwant was having with CBG Nutrition, James Sprague, an up-and-comer at the time, decided it was time he hired someone to help him with his nutrition.
“I had watched him grow [as an athlete], and I wanted that for myself,” Sprague said.
Sprague’s number one goal: To get stronger.
So Sprague reached out to Justin Romaire, who agreed to take him on as a client.
At first, it was hard for him to trust a new way of eating, he admitted.
“I found myself wanting to still input everything into an app, and i found myself going back to my old ways of measuring everything and not using his intrinsic methods to measure food,” Sprague explained.
But he stuck with it, and pretty quickly he realized, “Wow, this is way easier,” Sprague said. And much less time consuming and stressful.
“I used to spend 30 minutes a day calculating all my food, putting it into the app. It was a total process. Now with CBG, it takes me seconds to figure out how much I should be eating, when I should be eating it, why I should be eating it with the blueprint and CBG method,” he added.
The Proof is in the CBG Pudding
When Sprague started with Romaire, he was 180 pounds at six-foot-two and had a whole lot of strength and fitness to gain in order to reach his goal to return to the Games in the individual division. (He competed at the Games twice as a teenager in 2017 and 2019).
Now, at the age of 22, not only has Sprague returned to the Games twice, he has put on 35 to 40 pounds of lean muscle mass and is the reigning fittest man in the world.
Needless to say, when it comes to lifting heavy things, and moving heavy things fast, which was his weakness before working with Romaire, Sprague has “really closed the gap,” he said.
Though Sprague is knowledgeable enough these days to be able to eat healthy without much help, he continues to meet with Romaire once a month to keep everything dialled in, he explained.
Further, it’s a chance for Sprague to ask questions about things that come up from time to time as a world-class athlete.
Whenever he has a little “niche question,” the two will hop on a call, Sprague explained.
“Things like, ‘Hey Justin, I’m feeling really bad muscle fatigue from getting back into training. What are some foods to help me out, or some things I should be supplementing with in my routine to get my lactic acid to stop building up this much?’” Sprague gave as an example.
Most recently, Sprague came down with pneumonia right before the Rogue Invitational. Romaire was there to help him navigate the illness, and Sprague was able to recover in time to compete at the 2024 Rogue Invitational.
How it Works
Sprague said people often ask him how CBG works. More specifically, how it’s possible for a nutrition coach to help him without tracking macros.
To this, Sprague offered: “Justin writes a blueprint based on your meal timing through the day and helps you implement what foods to eat at what times…He understands your schedule, your occupation, what time you wake up and what time you go to bed. And he writes you a complete customized plan.”
“And the way you measure food is not the typical way with cups and weight scales. It’s an intrinsic method, where you can use comparisons for portion sizes, so you don’t have to stress about being perfect. Oh, I need a fist full of carbs. Oh, I need a golf ball size of fat. That’s going to be around 30 grams of fat.”
That being said, there is flexibility. If you’re full, stop. If you’re still hungry, eat more.
Sprague’s Message
“Macros are overrated,” he said, laughing.
Instead, Sprague urges “anyone who doesn’t want to stress [about nutrition] but also wants results,” to reach out to CBG.
“Justin takes care of all the little details and you just have to apply what he teaches you. And he makes it super simple to follow,” Sprague said.
He added: “For the average person or the professional athletes, it takes the stress out of nutrition and makes it all easy.”