I ate like Cristiano Ronaldo for a week. By the end I was totally sick of cooking and so full I could barely work out.

The 36-year-old forward is the highest scorer in soccer history, having netted an astonishing 782 career goals.

He's also won the Ballon d'Or five times and 30 major honors during spells with Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid, and Juventus.

On Tuesday, he broke another record, becoming the highest scorer in European Championship history.

"If you have talent but don't work hard, you won't win anything," Ronaldo said in 2016, according to Eurosport.

"In my career, I've always worked hard in training and games. It's hard work which achieves success."

Ronaldo is renowned for his incredible work ethic, often turning up first for training, then being the final person on the field at the end of the session.

Former Manchester United teammate Patrice Evra once said of Ronaldo: "This guy, he's a machine, he doesn't want to stop training."

One drink Ronaldo takes particular offence to is Coca-Cola.

In a press conference ahead of of Portugal's Euro 2020 opener against Hungary, the striker angrily moved two bottles of the drink, that were there for promotional purposes, and replaced them with water.

"Coca-Cola, ugh," he said.

Given he currently lives in Turin, Ronaldo probably doesn't shop at Marks & Spencer, a British supermarket chain.

However, in England, it's probably the best and most convenient place to get fresh meat, fish, cheeses, and vegetables without having to go to a farmer's market.

Among the items I placed in my shopping cart were: four rib-eye steaks, six smoked haddock fillets, some lightly breaded chicken fillets, and a large selection of hams and cheeses.

I also bought two dozen eggs, some yogurts, avocados, asparagus, peppers, mixed salad, and countless olives.

The grand total of my initial shop was £85.93 ($121.48). It turned out to be a little short of what I needed for the entire week, but it managed to get me through the bulk of it.

While it may not look as nice as Ronaldo's, this was extremely tasty and easy to make.

Add in the olives (which are just out of shot), and it was also a filling meal and, as a bonus, made me feel a bit like I was on vacation.

This meal was how I started every day for the rest of the week, and was by far my favorite part of the diet.

My mid-morning snack – avocado on toast — was nice too, although I was a little full (this would become something of a theme).

As well as his extremely healthy diet, Ronaldo is known to take up to five naps a day. Sadly, my editor vetoed that part of the Ronaldo experience.

The first, at around 2 p.m, was a chicken Caesar salad with olives and croutons (obviously no dressing).

The second, around 4 p.m, was a smoked haddock fillet with some hard boiled eggs and, you guessed it, more olives.

To drink, I had fruit juice and water.

By this point, despite the food being tasty and fresh, I was already feeling pretty full up — and I still had two meals to go.

At around 5:30 p.m. on day one, I headed down to my local gym for a workout.

Obviously I was unable to train exactly like the man himself, but I did try and incorporate some Ronaldo-esque exercises into my usual workout programme.

This included bodyweight moves such as lunges, squats press ups, star jumps, and lots and lots of abdominal exercises – Ronaldo doesn't get that six pack from nowhere.

I found this particularly difficult, not just because I weigh around 25 pounds more than Ronaldo, but because I was full of food.

On Nike Football's Spotify channel, you can find a workout playlist created by Ronaldo.

His "favorite training and inspirational songs" are a mix of Latin and Hispanic artists such as Enrique Iglesias, Tito El Bambino, and India Martinez, combined with some modern hip-hop artists such as Drake and Sage The Gemini.

Believe me, I tried, but it wasn't just working. Sorry Cristiano.

Instead, I swapped Enrique for EPMD, for Martinez for Metallica, and Sage for Slowthai, which helped me power through the pain.

My first day's evening meals were kept simple – steak and grilled asparagus, twice.

Though the first filled a hole after the gym, the second, as was the case with lunch, felt a little like I was force feeding myself.

More than that, however, cooking and eating two dinners takes a lot of time, even if the meals aren't particularly difficult to make.

By the time I'd cooked and eaten both, it was nearly 10 p.m. and fast approaching bed time.

Ronaldo, as a multimillionaire athlete, doesn't have this issue. He has a personal chef to cook for him.

After six meals and a workout, I wanted nothing more than cold beer to send me off to sleep.

Unfortunately, that isn't how elite athletes, especially Ronaldo, tend to see out the night, so instead I opted for a can of Heineken 0.0%.

Not quite the real thing, but enough to feel like a treat.

My breakfast and mid-morning snack were both the same, antipasti followed by avocado toast, but for my two lunches I had two salads.

For dinner, it was two portions of braised cod, asparagus, and mashed swede.

Again, the taste wasn't an issue, all the meals were lovely. The sheer amount of food and the time needed to make six meals was already taking it's toll.

And I still had five days to go.

Four days, 24 meals, no unhealthy snacks, and two more gym sessions followed. Being perfectly honest, by the end of the week, I was really struggling.

Struggling for space to fit all the food, struggling for time and energy to cook it, and struggling to not give in and just order a delicious takeaway.

The pressure was mounting, and not just in my stomach.

I'd spent six days of eating like a hyper athlete, which, in my books, was enough time to know it wasn't for me.

Plus, the Champions League final was on, and as a big Chelsea fan, I wasn't going to eat smoked haddock while doing watching it. Instead, I did what any normal person would do and got myself stuck into a few beers.

Not only had my week of slaving over a hot oven come to an end, but Chelsea also won, which was the icing on the cake.

Breakfast was the big one. Eating hams, cheeses, and olives for my first meal of the day made a nice change to my regular choice of cereal.

It's also just as easy to make and a lot healthier than a bowl of sugary Frosted Flakes. This is something I will definitely be incorporating to my diet going forward.

Generally, I did feel good for eating so healthily too.

While adding healthier foods to my diet definitely helped, omitting alcohol and sugars just made me feel a lot more fresh and and I had more consistent levels of energy throughout the days.

I am a big advocate of having a balanced and healthy relationship with food. Food isn't just fuel to complete tasks, it should be cherished and loved.

In the past, I have eaten extremely "clean" for the sake of looking a particular way, which did very little for my mental health other than to make me extremely self conscious and self critical.

Being able to enjoy food and eat all different kinds of cuisines, healthy and unhealthy, in moderation, is, at least for me, a much better way of living.

So out with the endless tins of tuna, in with the Twinkies.