If you’re transitioning into the maintenance phase, congrats! At this point, you should have all the work behind you and are at the ideal physique.
As a present, this is the easiest nutrition phase. Its goal is to keep you feeling good and looking great until the day you die.
Step 1: Where to keep your weight at
You can gain or lose up to 3lb(1.4kg) and still mostly retain your ideal body. But beware, if you gain or lose too much weight you will have to go back to either the cutting or bulking phase to get back to ideal.
To prevent this from happening, this guide has calculated the weight you need to stay at, the number of calories you need to eat on average, and more to maintain your ideal body. Here's how to get started:
Step 2: Your calorie and macronutrient goals
Same as the previous two times you did this, except this is for the last time!
At this point, you should be very comfortable looking at most foods and guestimating how many calories and macronutrients it contains. If you'd like to see how well you guess, go a week without counting your calories and see how you did.
If you gain or lose more than a 1lb(0.45kg) of weight, you failed (lol). Continue tracking your calories and practicing Quizlet for another 2 weeks and then try again.
Once you are able to not gain or lose 1lb(0.45kg) after a week without counting calories, you can kiss your calorie counting app and Quizlet goodbye.
Step 3: Switch to the maintenance workout program
If you do not continue to exercise, your hard-earning muscles will shrink in size. Thankfully, although growing muscle is hard work, it is quite easy to maintain them. The maintenance program only requires that you workout twice a week!
Step 4: The most important macronutrient — Protein
As discussed previously, protein is the building block of muscle. But, also know this: a moderate amount of protein intake is necessary to retain your muscle mass!
If you do not eat a moderate amount of protein per day you risk losing muscle mass [1]. Therefore, even if you disregard your fat and carbohydrate intake, do not do the same for your protein.
It would be a waste to see the progress you have made slowly disappear as you stand in front of the mirror.
To check if you are eating enough protein, keep an eye on the "Muscle Mass" measurement on your smart scale. On Renpho, it will be shown on the main screen. Make sure that it does not go down by more than 2lb(1kg). If it does, you are not eating enough protein or not following the maintenance workout routine.
Here are some nutritional tips to make sure that you keep your protein intake up:
- Continue taking a protein shake once or twice a day. By doing so, you can mostly forget about eating enough protein.
- Eat foods will high protein content for most meals. If you do this, it should help make it much easier to not think about your protein intake too much.
- Keep high protein snacks around you. Whenever you're feeling peckish eat jerky, greek yogurt, or some other high protein snack. These small bursts of high-quality protein will help boost your overall protein levels.
Step 5: Take a few high-quality photos
To celebrate your victory you should take a few high-quality photos! This guide comes with a section on how to best prep your body (like pro bodybuilders) to get the best results. To learn how, head over to the looking good for photos page.
Next steps and if you need help
While the maintenance phase is the easiest of the three phases, it is also the one that requires you to be the most careful. If you need help with nutrition, check out the nutrition tips and tricks page. If you need help with training, read the fitness tips and tricks page.