Planned Periods at Maintenance Calories are the Key

After the two weeks at maintenance are up, you return to your caloric deficit. However, this time take a moderate approach and shoot for approximately 12x bodyweight in calories. If you’re female and a bit lighter in bodyweight to begin with, you might need to start lower in order to create a sufficient fat-burning caloric deficit. Stay there for a couple weeks, assess your progress, and make adjustments as needed. If you’re getting leaner and your measurements have decreased, stay there. If you’re not, try decreasing calories by another 10% and reassess again two weeks later.

Remember, these caloric recommendations are just approximations; they’re starting points. Everyone is a bit different, so the key to long term success is being able to trouble shoot your program. A quick closing note on that very topic. If what you’re doing isn’t working, doing it longer isn’t going to make it suddenly start working. If it’s broken, fix it. If your program is not netting you any fat loss, you need to make some adjustments to your program. Don’t keep spinning your wheels doing something that is no longer working for you. Getting the results you’re after? Stay the course. Not getting the results you’re after? Make changes.

There is no reason to continually suffer the effects poor prior fat-loss efforts have had on your metabolism. There is no reason you should have to suffer a permanent sentence of stalled fat loss. Planned periods at maintenance calories are the key. However, there’s more to this strategy than simply repairing a slow metabolism. They can and should be used periodically throughout your fat-loss phase to promote continue fat loss. A periodic resetting of the system will go a long way to maintaining healthy metabolism and and continued fat loss.

Find out how Sleep Deprivation Interferes with Weight Loss.

Find out about how you can get started on your new body now.

Check on the online bodybuilding support forums at Lean Bodies Fitness where you can talk to other figure and body building competitors.