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On today’s episode of Live Lean TV, we’re sharing a 141 pound weight loss success story, including how to transition from calorie deficit to maintenance calories.
Today’s viewer question is from #AskLiveLeanTV Ep. 018.
Here’s today’s viewer question:
Amanda Sheehan from YouTube asks: I have naturally lost weight, 141 pounds to be exact, and I’m coming into my maintenance phase. Any tips on going from a caloric deficit to one for maintaining? Is it like driving a car between the lines, little adjustments to keep going straight? Any advice would be super helpful. I’m a huge fan, you guys rock!!
Brad: Nice. I like your analogy, because that’s the answer.
Jess: Yeah, that drive a car analogy is cute.
Brad: First off, way to go on losing 141 pounds. To lose that weight, hopefully you didn’t go to an all out crazy 1000 calorie deficit per day. I’m hoping you were smart about it, and it seems like you probably were.
Jess: It’s too bad you didn’t give us a time frame of how long it took you to lose the 141 pounds.
Brad: Now that you are in your maintenance phase, let’s make sure you’re still eating healthy foods, however let’s focus on eating a little bit more now that your weight is down. Hopefully you are exercising more and the intensity of your exercises are going up as well. If this is the case, your body is now going to need more calories to produce and build muscle and recover. Just like you said, keep being smart about what you’re doing.
Jess: It doesn’t make sense to all of a sudden accelerate your calories up to a very high level because we know what that outcome is going to be, right? You had to be in the deficit to lose that weight. If you put yourself in a really high surplus, you’re obviously going to gain the weight back. Now that you don’t need a deficit anymore, your maintenance level is going to be just slightly higher than your weight loss deficit. Once you want to maintain, you need to figure out how many calories your body needs to stay at your maintenance weight. Instead of continuously cutting down, you stay at that calorie level. Your training may actually raise your caloric rate a little bit. As you put more muscle on your body, instead of fat, you have a higher metabolism, therefore you can handle more food. However, this doesn’t mean you can blow out your calories and go super high. If that happens, you obviously know what the outcome is going to be.
Brad: Once you are in your maintenance phase, I would still be counting calories for a few weeks to a few months, to make sure your calorie intake is staying where it needs to be. Once you do get a good feel for that, then you can ease back on counting your calories, and just live the lean lifestyle like we do. For example, we can take a look at a plate and closely estimate the amount of calories and macronutrients of the meal. When you’re Living Lean, counting calories is not a requirement, however to get to that maintenance phase, we do recommend counting calories.
Jess: The actual size of your stomach organ is going to recalibrate to where it needs to be. When you are overweight for a while, sometimes it can be larger. This also depends on how long you spent being overweight. This is another indicator of how long it’s going take you to readjust to your desired weight.
Brad: I want everybody to give Amanda a round of applause. A 141 pounds. We just can’t skipped over that. That is a huge accomplishment and we are so proud of you.
Jess: Seriously girl. Let’s just stop for a moment and think about it. That is a big deal. If you are reading this, I would love for you to comment below so everyone can know how long it took you to lose that weight. Extreme weight loss doesn’t just happen overnight. Therefore the other people reading this may need to hear how long it took you. You said you did it naturally, however we’d love to know what were the steps you took and how did you do it. I think it would be really inspirational for people to hear that.
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Brad Gouthro is the founder of Live Lean TV, a media company focused on helping men and women “Live Lean” 365 days a year. Brad’s programs and content have helped millions of people all over the world learn how to get in shape, and more importantly, sustain it for life.
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