Have you already accomplished all of your fitness goals?
Well, it may be time to transition into a complete maintenance phase.
Maybe you've built as much muscle as you wanted to build. Perhaps you've lost as much fat as you wanted to lose. Your body is as lean, muscular, strong and awesome as you’ve always hoped it would be. Your long-term goals have all been reached. Well done! So now what?
We hate to be the bearer of bad news but this doesn't suddenly mean you can stop working out or stop eating well.
If you stop working out, you will gradually lose all of the muscle (and strength) you’ve gained. And if you were working out to aid fat loss, and you stop doing that exercise without adjusting your diet to compensate, then you can expect to gain body fat as well.
And if you stop eating mindfully (which we’ll define as no longer eating the total amount of calories and macronutrients needed for your goal or at least the maintenance of that goal), then you can also expect to lose muscle and/or gain body fat.
Whatever you did to get the results you got, you’re going to have to keep doing some version of that to maintain them.
In terms of your diet, it needs to be set to maintenance. This means you will be consuming the same amount of energy (calories) that you are putting out, no more surplus because you have no interest in building additional muscle (or gaining additional weight), and no more deficit because you have no interest in getting any leaner (or losing additional weight). To ensure neither of these things happen, all it takes is setting your calorie intake to maintenance (i.e. the amount of calories needed to maintain your current weight) and eating that amount from this point on.
You can track and calculate your maintenance calories with our FREE macro calculator!
In terms of other fitness related goals, that’s completely up to you. Why not challenge yourself physically in new ways, or look for new goals?
Or, you can just sit back, relax and enjoy a life of maintaining the goals you worked your butt off to successfully reach!
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