Maintenance day

[EmjayH]

So my trainer has put me on 2 maintenance days a week. Meaning I have to eat the calories I burn on those days. They're the days I have sessions with her so they're actually very active days. 

My problem is. How do I eat that many calories. I've been on restricted calories for so long now that I struggle to get anywhere near my required amount. Any suggestions on how others get those calories in

[SunsetRunner · Accepted solution]

I find that stirring in protein powders or nut butters into a smoothie or oatmeal for breakfast is a great way to add healthy calories without having to actually eat something big. If your workout routines are intense, adding a non-diet sports drink can provide a few extra calories as well.

[Bill_k]

There must be some foods that you miss eating because you are dieting like pizza,pasta,buttered popcorn,a good hot dog and fries. etc.

[DanielleinDC]

Why don't you ask your trainer what she suggests? She knows you better than we do and should be able to craft an eating plan for those days.

[EmjayH]

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@Bill_k wrote:

There must be some foods that you miss eating because you are dieting like pizza,pasta,buttered popcorn,a good hot dog and fries. etc.

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I'm not going back to that stuff again lol

[Baltoscott]

Hi @EmjayH Adding maintenance days a couple at a time strikes me as a great way to transition from losing to maintaining weight; or to keep from burning out if you need to lose a lot of weight and it will take a long time.  Your trainer sounds pretty smart.

To your question, I guess it depends on what you are eating.  The idea in part is to transition to your normal long-term eating habits.  You could add measured amounts of more (or some) nuts and dried fruits to oatmeal or salads if you eat those.  If you've gone to skim milk or lowfat dairy products you could up that to regular versions on maintenance days.  Peanut or other nut butters make great health spreads on toast, celery, etc.  Lots of choices!

[Bill_k]

Well just eat a few handfuls of almonds then. Nuts have a lot of calories. 575 calories/100 g.

One thing i'd recommend is buying a little weigh scale to measure food weights on. The one i bought comes with a book listing most foods and you feed the food codes into the scale and just put your food on it and it lists calories,fats,protein etc. as well as weight.

[EmjayH]

Thx guys. Guess I'll just eat more nuts and nut butters then 

[EmjayH]

No nuts or nut butters. Trainer said I gotta keep oils really low on maintenance days 😅😅

[Baltoscott]

Hmmm.  I'm not liking your trainer as much anymore. 

So how many more calories are you trying to eat maintenance days as compared to lower calorie days?  Did you trainer suggest anything for the increase?

[EmjayH]

I eat 1700 normally. She wants me to eat over 3000 on maintenance. Told me to eat lots of fruit. Wish it was mango season lol

[EmjayH]

I eat 1500 - 1700 calories on a normal day. She wants me to eat over 3000 on a maintenance day. She suggested more fruit 

[Dominique]

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@EmjayH wrote:

No nuts or nut butters. Trainer said I gotta keep oils really low on maintenance days 😅😅

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Maybe the idea is to have your maintenance days carb refeed days, assuming your hypocaloric days are low-carb? OTOH, if your maintenance days have you eat 3000 calories (which sounds quite high for a female, btw), one would think they would have rooms for all macronutrients, including fats.

[EmjayH]

Between work and lifestyle I'm pretty active.  Over 20k steps most days and always above 3k calories burned

[EmjayH]

And yeah she added these days cause I wasn't really eating carbs. Also have 1 high fat no carb day. (Keto). 

[Dominique]

I’m not sure I understand how your diet is structured, in terms of macronutrients. Technically speaking, being in ketosis requires you to eat a very low amount of carbohydrates (something like 20-50 grams max.) for at least 2-3 days in a row (in order to deplete your glycogen stores and force your body to switch to fat as its main fuel). A single day of no carb / high fat will not put you in ketosis (if you are not already in it).

Generally speaking, low-carb diets work best for people who want to lose weight and are not very active. It works because it cuts a lot of calories from most of the junk food that caused them to gain weight. And if they are mostly sedentary (e.g. office workers, not much exercise), they don’t need much fuel (carbs) for activity. For someone who’s very active (with step counts of 20k+ you would qualify), it’s tough to have energy if you don’t eat many carbs. Unless you are following a strict ketogenic diet and are using fats as fuel. But if you have two days a week during which you are instructed to eat 3000 calories that cannot come from fats, where do these calories come from?!

Anyway, if you are looking to lose weight, calories come before macronutrients. It’s perfectly OK to have five days with a higher deficit and two days at maintenance: what matters is the weekly deficit that results from this.