Most of us have avoided Italian food because we had it the night before. Most of us avoid cooking the same thing twice a week. Almost all of us avoid having pizza five times in one week, and then caving and have pizza anyway.

Ricardo Tellez is not most of us.

Since his freshman year, Ricardo has followed a strict diet, eating near the same thing every single day. His diet consists of four to five eggs and a protein shake every morning, a protein shake at lunch, and a protein shake, rice, and a piece of salmon or chicken at dinner.

Ricardo shows the same dedication to his routine as his diet, working out five times a week to better himself and achieve the goal he set.

“I started thinking about lifting in 8th grade… I was the skinniest person in my grade. I was bullied for it; they always called me skinny… If they had parties I wouldn’t be invited so I was just kind of left alone,” he said. “You see the movies; the big guys with muscles get the girls and have all the fun. I decided I wanted that.”

At first Ricardo only lifted, it was during the end of his freshman year that he began the diet, and he has been following it ever since.

“I know what I’m going to eat and when I’m going to eat it. Even on the weekends I wake up at 6 a.m. to make my own breakfast.”

In the beginning, most of Ricardo’s family didn’t believe he could keep the diet going, claiming that he wouldn’t be able to eat the same thing every day. His grandparents even advised against it, believing that he wouldn’t be able to be healthy if his diet was composed mainly of shakes.

To much surprise, the diet has had some somewhat negative effects.

“Right now I’m being more lenient, but when I was trying to get really ripped, I was way stricter. I never had a cheat meal. So when I went to Mexico for a visit, I went to McDonald’s. I ordered a Big Mac and was sick for three days.”

A similar situation occurred when he tried milk with his protein shake instead of water. Though it doesn’t bother Ricardo in the slightest, he plans to keep up his diet anyway, so the inability to digest other foods doesn’t really matter to him.

“Now that I’m going to college to study medicine, it’s going to be hard to keep up my diet and also get into med school,” Ricardo said.

He still plans to continue with his routine during college, despite having to return home every two weeks to get the materials for his shakes because there isn’t a nutrition depot on campus.