#109 ⚙️ Maintaining Your Results Long-Term (Avoid the Rebound)

What's up and welcome back to the Chalking Nutrition podcast. I wanted to wrap up the mini series basically on your journey, I guess, the three different phases that we do have. And we previously talked about the prepare phase where we get you ready for the road ahead. We want to first build habits, learn about nutrition, and also just kind of like work through struggles that you may be having. Because again, by this time, it's like, you know, into February and people have fallen off and, you know, it's one of those where people do too much at once. And then they maybe were still struggling with binge eating over the weekends or whatever it may be. And they didn't take time to work through that. They start the strict diet, right? Not stuff you want to do. So we talked about preparing. We talked about transforming effectively then. To where when you've done that pre-work, you're going to be good to kind of like start. And you should be good to then make better decisions and keep going and persist the temptations. and keep going when you're met with obstacles. And today I wanted to talk about the third phase, which in my opinion is the most important. And that's where you're gonna really enjoy and you're gonna reestablish your maintenance phase or where that it's gonna be basically, your maintenance categories I should say, and you're gonna enjoy and maintain your results. And it's just a good place to be. So before we jump in, make sure to drop us a quick five-star rating on Spotify or Apple. You can let you do it right now. It takes one minute. And just, it's literally just, you go to the app and you just click the stars, you know, that's all you got to do, but it would really massively help us. So I would really appreciate that. So thanks in advance. You can do it right now. Um, but when it comes to that third phase, when, when was the last time you jumped into a, I don't know, a fat loss challenge or, you know, whatever you want to call it, the program, a meal plan, whatever it is. When was the last time you actually got a accident strategy? When was the last time someone gave you? a plan to execute not just for the weight loss or for the, you know, whatever, but for what was afterwards, because what are you supposed to do? Like go back to normal in quotes, like normal, whatever that's, you know, I don't think we should be doing that. I think there's a better way to go about it. And it's the exit strategy that everyone seems to miss. Or at least let me say this way, before people join us. And they tell me like, hey, I've tried all these different diets, but I regained it again. I know exactly where it goes wrong. Because worldwide people lose weight. You can pick any strict diet you're going to be losing weight if you're in a calorie deficit. I know there's a lot of noise in the space and online and social media where it's like it's either the insulin or the cold water shit or you know, or it's hormones, whatever it is. But at the end of the day guys, like whatever diet you do. and stick to for a longer period of time where you are in a calorie deficit, like you'll be losing weight. But what happens after? Like that part seemed to be skipped for some reason. And that is also the part that fucks you up. And that's what I've seen, because it makes it more and more and more difficult. What happens is you cut calories aggressively, you go too hard, you're excited, but as soon as either you're done or motivation fades, et cetera, you stop. and you go back up, you go back to what you were doing before thinking, Hey, this fat loss thing is a quick, you know, a four week kind of solution. Thinking that, going back to what you were doing before, which is actually the thing that got you there in the first place, and guess what? Now you regained that in no time. That fast regain leads to more fat gain, sometimes your body will even create more fat cells. So not only are you gaining the weight, you're gaining sometimes more weight and often more fat also. You then jump into another extreme diet where you... go so hard you lose muscle mass, you don't need enough protein, etc. because sometimes you're only looking at, you know, the calories or whatever it is. And guess what? You bounce back up and just like that, your metabolism gets crappier and crappier and crappier over time. Well, we can actually go about it in a different way. So let's say, because I'm gonna assume a little bit here, but let's say your goal is fat loss, or maybe it's muscle gain followed by fat loss. What are you supposed to do after? So we talked about the pre-season, which is prepared, like getting ready. Athletes do not go hard like all year round. Like there's a pre-season. It's when you train, you get ready, right? There's in season where it's go time, but that's the transformation for us, right? You're in season, but you're post season, that season of recovery in sports, right? That is where we wanna go to now. So what do we do? Let's say we end your fat loss phase. I would like to do a reverse diet back to maintenance with you, because here's what we're gonna do by slowly adding calories back, and it's not gonna be a huge, it's not gonna be multiple months. Usually it's like six to eight weeks maybe. I've done it longer though with some people who are very accurate with tracking and they're doing good and they're you know, they're feeling good But anyway, like we do that do not You know achieve any you know metabolic magic is just a nice way to transition back and kind of stay lean And that's really the name of the game when it comes to reverse dieting It definitely has gotten a lot of hype and I like reverse dieting I'm all for it and then with any fat loss clients, like I do that with them, right? And I think it's the way to go, but it's not magic. It's just a controlled way knowing, hey, you've been dieting, you're more hungry, you have lower energy, you're more likely to bounce back. Let's keep you in check and then slowly go back. Usually what we do is we jump halfway from the end of your cut, you know, between that and your expected maintenance, we go halfway. Make sense? And then maybe from there, from that halfway point, We go a little bit at a time, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit until you get to maintenance. Now what that's gonna be in terms of like actual adjustments, I can't share with you here because to be honest with you, it could be anywhere from like 50 to 100 or more calories per week. I don't know your adherence, I don't know where you've been. Some people get super lean and then have to go faster. Other people are kind of good and they wanna lose more body fat and they can go a little bit slower. So I can't give you one like recommendation there. However, We want to take control of that transition back. Here's the cool thing too. We've talked a lot about tracking and it's one of those where I do really think that you should be tracking for, you know, the majority of your journey, at least as long as you're learning about nutrition and you're trying to control your rate of weight gain or weight loss. And that's the name of the game. Those two things, controlling that rate. That's huge. That's how you optimize your muscle gain goals or results I should say. And that's how you optimize your Fed loss results. That's how you want to go about this stuff. Now, that being said, this is where we can also finally stop tracking once we are in maintenance and practice what I like to call not tracking. Now, I'm joking aside though. Isn't it important to do both? Like, I want you to track when we're doing the transformation and stuff and when we're learning and you're establishing maintenance. But. it's equally important to do without tracking. I do not think people should be tracking forever. I think it's one of those where it's gonna take some time to learn that because initially you have to get used to tracking and then now we have to get used to not tracking. But it's so huge to be able to do both. Because guess what? Now it's a tool that you can apply when you need it. Not just that, like guys, we got to nourish the body and we got to feel good and we kind of just stay at maintenance. You shouldn't be dieting forever. You shouldn't stay in a deficit. And that's a huge thing too, because this is what people do not teach you. It's like you go into the meal plan or the strict diet, whatever it is. So you go into it and then you don't know what to do. So it's like either, Hey, I'm going to go back to what I was doing before. Or you just go to, you know, whatever you were doing during that diet and you stay on those little tiny fucking clean portions where you're starving all the time, right? But you think like, hey, like I lost the weight with these foods. So that must be the same way I got to keep eating to keep the weight off. But it's not true. And they should have told you that and they do not do that in most cases. And that's it's wrong. Because here's the thing, like it's not a quick event. It's a process, right? It's something that over time evolves and your calorie amount should go up and down as your journey progresses. But your calories need to go back up again after you've lost the weight. And that's something that people don't tell you. I can't stand it. It's crazy. I still see it all the time. And like 99% of the calls that I do before people join us or maybe they say, Hey, you know, like I'll sign up in, you know, a month or two, but like either way, or maybe they want to continue on their own. Either way, it's like people try to do these kind of diets for like decades sometimes without the exit strategy, but also without the preparing beforehand and they're stuck. So what you can do with this, right? Is knowing that I'm sharing this with you because you're gonna have to go through this year at some point, hopefully by now you're not there yet because I think, I mean, not hopefully, but like I'm gonna assume that that's not the case because in reality, like, It's early January, sorry, February. You have your new goals for the year. It's a good chance you're only just getting started. You should either be like in prepare or you should be transitioning from that into transform. And then this maintain phase will be maybe a couple of months down the road, you see. So maybe you cut, you know, body fat for like 12 or 16 weeks or something. You can then move into reverse dieting into maintenance. And seeing that as Not just like a step back, because sometimes people think maintenance is like this terrible place where, you know, all your results are going to go back to, you know, whatever it was. Like, no, not if you do it the right way, you know what I mean? And people sometimes think like, oh, I'm not moving forward. Like, no, you are. You're solidifying your results. Like you are making sure that, hey, one, yes, you've lost the weight, but two, like you're now going to be able to keep it off. And that's a huge one too, because we know that that's usually where it goes wrong. We want to avoid the rebound. We want to avoid you regaining that body fat, which you already worked so hard for to lose. Make sense? So I know these kinds of episodes are a little bit more general and vague, and I can't necessarily give you specific calorie adjustments or whatever, you know? If you need though, like I can help you probably, if I get enough information, I can help you on Instagram. But it's not as simple as... the calculation and then just jump on it or the meal plan. And there's so many meal plan apps out there. And there's like coaching companies who like basically all you get is a meal plan app. Um, and that's kind of it. You know what I mean? There's no teaching there. You do not understand what to do. There's no progression in terms of like your actual targets and all that. And you still don't know how to make changes yourself. So try to find someone who's willing to help you and like I mean, I can do that for you. Hit me up on Instagram. I'll link that in the show notes or find a coach in your direct environment. We work online. So all our clients are from like, it's I think like right now it's like 30% US and Canada, 30% Norway, and then 30% like, you know, like anywhere in Europe, basically. It's like, we're very international. So we are fully online. So, I mean, you could work with us if you wanted to, but my point is like, try to find a different program that first of all, just aligns with like that resonates with you, you know, that also pushes you to actually do the work, but that helps you prepare and actually work through obstacles and things you know you struggle with that helps you create results effectively. But then of course also teaches you how to keep it off. And ultimately shows you like, Hey, if you kind of keep eating like this, like you should be good, but to get to that point, it takes time. And this whole process that I just explained over the three mini episodes where we prepare, we transform, we maintain, that's gonna be like at least six months, if not longer, six to 12 plus. I don't know where you're at in your journey, but that's usually what it's gonna take. I'll be back on Monday. Thanks for listening. We'll talk soon.