THE NUTRITION BEHIND MAINTENANCE
You've hit your ideal body composition, but not the challenge is to keep it that way. The main aim behind maintenance is to, well... maintain. It's about eating and training to stay at your current body composition.
You’d think that in comparison to bulking and cutting, maintenance would be simple. Unfortunately, that’s not entirely the case.
Here is part one of our Ultimate Guide to Maintenance: The Nutrition.
YOU NEED TO BE EATING AN ISOCALORIC DIET
For bulking, they were increased, for cutting they were decreased, so it doesn’t take a genius to guess what has to happen to your calorie intake during the maintenance phase.
You guessed it – your calories stay the same. By the same, we mean at your own maintenance calories. This is the number of calories that you can eat every day without gaining or losing weight. You can roughly estimate your maintenance calories with a quick google, but it also comes down to trial and error, so keep tracking your weight throughout and adjust as necessary.
This is known as an isocaloric diet.
SO, WHAT ABOUT YOUR MACROS?
In our Ultimate Guide to Bulking and Cutting, the breakdown of macros (in other words, how much protein, carbohydrate and fat you were getting from your foods) was very specific.
In the maintenance stage, things get a little more flexible, but we do still have to consider how many calories each macronutrient should get.
PROTEIN
Your protein intake should remain pretty similar throughout each phase (we only saw a slight increase during the cutting period to retain lean muscle mass).
You’re still going to be training during maintenance and you’re still going to want to retain your muscle mass - therefore, aiming for 2g protein per kg is still recommended.
FATS
Unlike in the bulk, your fats can be increased slightly (don’t worry, a decrease in carbs will counteract this).
This is because your fats are essential for maintaining a regular hormone level.
CARBS
Think back to the Ultimate Guide to Bulking
You might remember that the carb intake was pretty high. This was to help with the intense, heavy training schedule that goes hand in hand with a bulk.
After that, carb intake was decreased as we moved into a cut and this remains the same for your maintenance stage.
Sorry carb lovers.
Once again, what is remaining after working out your fat and protein intake should be dedicated to carbs (about 1.5g per kg).
This will allow for you to use this period for recovery without weight gain, plus it will give your insulin sensitivity some time to get back to normal after your carb-heavy bulking phase.
As always, it’s not just about the nutrition.
Stay tuned for part two of our Ultimate Guide to Maintenance as we look at how to alter your training programme to maintain weight and muscle mass.