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The holy grail of every diet
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Maintenance

The holy grail of every diet – is maintenance also known as “how do I keep the shredded looks that I worked so hard to achieve”.

Achieving maintenance should be the goal of every diet but for some reason is something that people don’t really do. They lose fat only to have no idea what to do next, so they return to the same habits and behaviours as before the diet. It doesn’t take long before they are right where they started looking for another diet to help them lose fat all over again.

It is common for people to think that the same diet that got them to lose fat is the diet that will keep that fat off.

That is a mistake.

Why is maintenance a goal?

There might be many reasons why you want to find maintenance. For 95% of people reading this will come down to being satisfied with how they look and want to keep that looks. For the other 5%,

  • You are transitioning from cut to bulk or bulk to cut and need a few weeks of transition period so that the changes to your diet are not too drastic.
  • You compete in a weight class sport and need to maintain your weight
  • You use the maintenance period as a strategic break before continuing your fat loss or muscle-building phase.

How do most people do it?

Before we look at how to do things the right way let’s look at how most people diet. The following scenario is extremely common.

You decide to lose fat so you find an appropriate diet. It fits well with your lifestyle, it is not overly restrictive, and you can adhere to it long enough to really get shredded. This is where the majority of people will stop, and who can blame them there is not much talk about how to keep your new physique.

One of two things will follow.

  1. You keep dieting hard because you think this is the way to keep your new looks. Ultimately leading you to burn out and before you know it you are back at where you started.
  2. You end your diet and completely abandon everything you learned during the dieting. You abandon all your food choices, schedule, routines and habits and revert back to the old ways.

Both of those end in the same way. Sooner or later you will end up looking the same as you did before starting the diet. That is if you dieted smart. If you used one of those stupid crash diets then there is a high likelihood you will pack on some extra pounds on top of your initial weight.

How to do it right?

Losing fat or building muscle is a temporary thing we do to help us reach our desired looks. Sometimes it takes many cycles of cutting and bulking before we get to the desired looks. No matter how long it takes the end goal remains the same. To keep the new looks for as long as we want.

When you are in a fat loss phase you are in a calorie deficit. When it’s time for you to transition to maintenance we will need to raise your calories to get you out of deficit and into maintenance level or calories.

Because your weight fluctuates day to day you will work off weekly averages.

Look at the average weight loss week by week and multiply that by 500 calories. The number you will get is the number of calories you will need to add to your diet.

Here are two examples:

Example number 1:

You are dieting on 1500 calories/week and you are losing 1 pound per week on average. Your math is incredibly simple here 1 pound x 500 calories = 500 calories. Your maintenance calories will be 2000 calories.

Example number 2:

You have been losing 1.8 pounds per week on average by following a 2100-calorie diet. In order to transition to maintenance, you will need to add 900 calories to your diet (500x 1.8) for a total of 3000 calories.

Simple right? It is but our bodies are amazing in the sense that they will adapt and adjust to anything we do. When you decrease the amount of food you are eating the body adjusts over time and “slows down” your metabolism. There is less of you so you burn fewer calories when moving around. Most times when you have less energy you tend to move less which affects your calorie deficit. These body adjustments are the reason why you do need to adjust your calorie deficit over time to keep losing weight.

The same adjustments happen when you increase your calories. More of you means more food needed to maintain you, more energy means you tend to be more active…

For that reason, I suggest keeping track of your body weight and reassessing it every four weeks and making adjustments from there.

  • If your weight is stable – then congratulations you reached your maintenance. The only thing to do now is to use the routines, habits and knowledge you learned while dieting to transition away from tracking if you don’t wish to do it anymore.

  • If your weight drops – then you are still in a slight calorie deficit so you will need to repeat the process. Look at how much weight you have lost and multiply that by 500 calories and add that to your new daily total.

    Let’s say you lost 0.5 pound over the last two weeks then you will need to add 250 calories.

  • If your weight increases – you will need to reduce your calories. As an example, let’s say you gained 0.4 pound which would suggest you are in surplus by 200cal so you will need to reduce your total daily calories by 200cal.

NOTE: there will be a jump in weight when you increase calories initially. This jump in weight can be anywhere from 2-6 pounds. It’s important to know that this is NOT fat. The big jump in weight will be extra food in your stomach, extra glycogen in your muscles and extra water. The weight will level off. This is why I suggest NOT considering the first week when making adjustments.

One thing to know is that your weight is not static, meaning you won’t be 185 pounds every single day. Your weight fluctuates wildly from day to day. As long as you are within 1-3 pounds on weekly averages you are maintaining your weight and your looks.

Do I need to keep counting calories?

No. You don’t need to keep counting calories. I do suggest doing it from time to time to make sure you are still in the calorie range or if there is a major change in your lifestyle. Going from a very active job to a sedentary one, picking up a sport that provides you with lots of activity, injury, etc.

While you don’t need to count calories you can’t expect to return to your old habits, foods, and routines and expect to keep your new physique. Remember the old ways got you the old physique.

In order to be successful in keeping the new looks, you will need to adopt some of the knowledge, habits and routines you learned while dieting as permanent. Some of the most common ones that I have used with my clients are:

  • some sort of portion control (smaller plates, occasional tracking, hand portions…)
  • active lifestyle (walking more)
  • meals that are mainly lean protein, vegetables and fruits
  • continued reduction in liquid calorie consumption.

Thank you for reading!

-Anze

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