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Jeremiah Bair: Hey team, welcome back to the show. Today it is just Coach Andrea and I. Everyone else is here still here, don't worry, just not on the show today. We are discussing maintenance as a goal and why this is oftentimes a counterproductive goal. maintenance as a goal, I think, is quite in vogue over the last couple years. Now, this isn't a bad thing necessarily. But I do think that like the number one goal being maintenance or like trying to accomplish your goals in a maintenance phase rather is something that is keeping a lot of people stuck. Would you agree is this something that you like hear or see quite often?
Andrea: Yeah, for sure. And it almost always comes after a period of fat loss. And I think that I'm sure we'll get into all of this, but I think that that comes from fear and fear of letting go of what they've just worked really hard for. and I I can completely understand that. I get in my head with that sometimes as well, where it's like, man, I don't know if I want to go through that whole process again. But as we'll discuss, most of the time what people are really wanting isn't to actually continue to look that exact same way. They're just not wanting to go backwards.
Jeremiah Bair: That's a very good way to put it. Like I've talked to so many women over the last couple of years, be it on sales calls, be it like in the DMs when somebody is considering coaching, who will just say something like, Yeah, I just don't really want to diet. I don't really want to build. I just want to achieve something sustainable. Which on the surface, like, yeah, that's reasonable. it's oftentimes like it will often be like, hey, for the last couple of years I've been in a maintenance phase. Like my goal is primarily just maintenance. But then when we dig into, okay, so what's the goal? Again, like talk me through what the goal physique is like. And I'll generally find the best way is just like send me a picture of a physique that inspires you. Like, what do we want look like? is normally like, wow, this is a drastically improved physique from where we are. So you don't really just want to ha maintain what you have here. Or another com common take on this, which again, this is feasible. This isn't really about maintenance itself, it's more so about the mindset alongside this. It will often be like, Here's a much more advanced physique than you have currently. This is what I'm gonna accomplish. But I really just want to do it by like recomping at maintenance, right? I wanna really take a sustainable approach to get there. But honestly, I think that a lot of times people who try to approach it from this direction will just look the same two to three years later. And again, it's not really about maintenance. It is about committing to the phase that we're in. The mistake here really isn't that you want flexibility, that's fine. Is that oftentimes what I find in this instance when someone's like approaching it from this direction, again, like hey, it's very common, been a maintenance phase for a couple of years, and again, I kinda wanna just continue to try to like get there right around maintenance. It's that they want the outcome of a highly intentional physique without ever spending a period meaningful period of time being highly intentional. Which kind of leads us into this topic of sustainability. Which I think people often use when they say, Well, I want it to be sustainable. By maintenance is sustainable, yes, by definition. But I think people often use sustainable to mean I should never be uncomfortable. So I want to make sure the approach I take is sustainable is often a poor approach. Like true sustainability means I can sustain this over the course of years because I understand what phases I should be pushing in and what phases I should be pulling back in. Right, there's a huge difference there. Physique development has seasons. There are times to push harder, there are times to pull back. This is what we talk about constantly with the phasic approach, right? Like, hey, we have our fat loss phases, we have our building phases, we do have maintenance phases, right? There's there's nothing wrong with maintenance. Even like we may build some clients at maintenance, but it's more so about the goal and the intention behind this. Again, like this isn't an anti-maintenance podcast. This is more so like I think how a lot of people are seeing and using maintenance. It's still Which you can do whatever you want, but just be realistic about the outcomes that you're going to get alongside that phase. Like, I was having this conversation with someone just the other day. She had been at maintenance for quite a while. and I was asking him, like, what is the goal physique like? Had her send me a couple pictures, and it was like well, she first I had her describe it to me. And it was like Yeah, I don't want anything too crazy. I don't want anything too bodybuilder-ish. I don't want to necessarily be too lean. I want to be able to maintain a lot of flexibility. So like, okay, cool. Send me some pictures. Like kind of what do you think this looks like? And it was like, dude, this girl's jacked. Like this girl could be a bodybuilder. She just got a little bit leaner. But she is also quite lean. Now, it also wasn't like she sent me like her current physique as well. And it wasn't something that's unachievable for her. We would just have to dial it in more. But when we're looking at sustainable, again, it's important to make sure we don't choose confuse that with I should never be uncomfortable. And this was very much the conversation I had with her as well is like getting there will take a phase of you pushing harder, being more dialed in. Now, no phases forever, right? Like the diet phase, that doesn't have to mean you live the rest going you going through a diet doesn't mean you have to live the rest of your life like that. It's just a couple months of us being more dialed in. We can eat a lot
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more food at me. It's Also understand that hey, to sustain a better physique than I've had in the past, I probably am going to have to upgrade what like my lifestyle, my maintenance lifestyle does look like. But like our definition of sustainable can change over time as our skill sets upgrade as well. Right. Like I think for both of us, it's probably fair to say what feels like quote unquote sustainable and easy for us now is a lot different than what have felt what would have felt like sustainable and easy for us four or five years ago. Would you agree?
Andrea: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Jeremiah Bair: Yeah. Cool.
Andrea: Yeah, I think a lot of people will hear just hear that word sustainable, kind of like in reference to, you know, I'm not at a sustainably level of lean right now where like someone pushes to that point where they're they're too lean to be healthy long term, but then also like w not wanting, as you said, to get to that more uncomfortably not lean position that sometimes happens in a building phase and I wanna be able to progress their physique without dipping in into either one of those ends of the spectrum. but I feel like I lost I just lost my train of thought on that where I was going. I lost it. but I I do I I had a a similar conversation with somebody this week around maintenance and like what that looks like. And it's not even that at maintenance we're necessarily whenever we have the goal of recomp, it's not that we're necessarily like nailing this one exact maintenance number, even. Like sometimes we're gonna move a little bit less or w or move a little bit more and we're gonna end up in a slight deficit or a slight surplus, and your training is really The thing that that decides if you're going to recomp over time. But most people, here's where I was going with that. Most people that we are getting sent these goal physique pictures of, they might have gotten to this point. A lot of the more like influencers online may have gotten to this point where they are. sort of maintaining long term. And they look great and they have a level of flexibility with their food that looks aspirational. But at the same time, that's not what got them there. What got them to that point was going through these different very intentional phases where they were maybe uncomfortably fluffy for a little bit in a building phase or uncomfortably hungry a bit in a a deficit phase. And they did get to a point where they have a physique that they are actually long-term happy with. And then that's what they're displaying. And it looks like, I could just get here by doing kind of what they're doing. but you're not seeing the several years leading up to that point.
Jeremiah Bair: Yeah, that's such a good point. And I think that's a big part of where the confusion in common storm is because people see like a current physique that looks great and again think that what they're doing right now is what got them there. And oftentimes it's because the person is selling like their current lifestyle as, hey, you need to do this and you can look like me, where again it's like, now we gotta remember that period where you were much more dialed in th th that actually really built and changed this physique. And that's the
Andrea: And that's also even if they're showing the full picture online, which I kind of doubt. I kind
Jeremiah Bair: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Andrea: of doubt most of the time that's actually c fully transparent anyway.
Jeremiah Bair: How how so? Like drugs? What do you mean?
Andrea: I mean, n well, I mean maybe that could be part of it, but I just mean like we don't know how much cardio are they doing to be able to have that flexibility with their food. Are they someone that their full-time job is coming up with these like fun recipes to fit their macros, they don't have other responsibilities. you know, are they actually eating the amount of food more or less than what they're saying? Like there's there's a lot of things that are marketing because they're
Jeremiah Bair: Yeah.
Andrea: oftentimes trying to sell you something, whether it's, you know, their recipe guide or even just like eyeballs on them in order to have sponsorships. So
Jeremiah Bair: Very good point. Biggest takeaway here is that physiques are built through periods of intentionality. We can make progress, yeah. At maintenance, yes, there's a time and a place for it. Again, like it's not so much about maintenance, but more so the mindset. Like a lot of clients aren't in a position yet where it makes sense for us to like really consistently push in a surplus, like, hey, we're gonna do just as well as focusing on building at maintenance. But we are approaching this as a very intentional building phase. If we do like gain a little bit of body fat, we're probably gonna need to be okay with that. Sometimes we might actually be in a recomp phase, but again it's not gonna be like, hey, we're gonna try to ma we're gonna try to recomp at maintenance for two to three years and expect a drastic change. If you want a great physique, just hanging out of maintenance most of the time probably isn't going to get us to our goal. Every impressive physique you've admired, all of our best client results, they all went through seasons of being highly intentional to get there. Really, the more we can go all in on one goal, the better progress will be. I will say for like all of the most impressive client results we've shared, the ones that have been like a ton of people applied after this. I could tell a ton of people were inspired by this one. I got the most comments about, the most DMs about. It is always someone who has spent like a year plus building. And that entire time they weren't their leanest. They were probably eating more food than they ever had in their life. Not like us pushing them to get fat, like we're very intentional about this as well, but they were managing it well. Not their leanest feeling a little bit fluffier, but focusing on
training performance, being in a really good place. And again, really focusing on building tissue. That being the number one priority, being okay with not being their leanest. And then they went through a fat loss phase where they were super dialed in. They were okay with being quote unquote restrictive. They probably said no to a lot of things. They probably followed a meal plan for the most part during that. that is really like all of our most impressive client results. Almost all of them have gone through. some iteration of that process. But that hasn't been there in this place where and again, like recomp is achievable. I'm all for recompensable when it's the right time and place for it. That said even then is oftentimes like we're looking at like a fat loss recomp where we're getting leaner and building muscle at the same time. We have to be pretty dialed in to make that happen. Again, the like true maintenance recomp, I think the lim window for that is sorta limited. Again, if we're trying to do that for years and hanging around around maintenance without ever pushing too far in either direction, I think it's just a good recipe for most people to not get too far. anything you would add there?
Andrea: Actually just had a similar conversation yesterday with somebody who was wrapping up a fat loss phase and she was asking about these she said there's these recomps that I see online where they're only like one pound difference but they look radically different. And I think if you if you don't know the step by step Which I think all of us on the team do a really good job of sharing that, like what is in between this picture and this picture. but if you don't know the in between and you just read it as recomp, you would think that they did all that at maintenance. And so I was explaining exactly what you just said. Like most of those people have actually gone through multiple iterations and phases of going through a build phase, their weight going up, going through a fat loss phase, their weight going down. And then there happens to be just like maybe a pound difference in between the before and the after, but it's not that they did all that with staying at that same scale weight over time.
Jeremiah Bair: Yeah. No, I've shared I've shared a lot of those because it is very cool to see. And again, like these transformations I'm thinking of where
Andrea: Mm.
Jeremiah Bair: it's like this yeah, I know she spent like a year building, her weight was probably up like ten, twelve pounds. Then we went through like twelve weeks of a diet where she was dialed in. We ended up at basically the same weight, but now her body composition looks completely different. So she recomped, but it wasn't like recomping at maintenance. It's hey, she has less muscle excuse me, she has more muscle ideally, less fat than she had previously. And so we've achieved bite a recomposition, but it wasn't just like at maintenance. Maintenance really feels safe though because
Andrea:
Yeah, I think sometimes it can get a little bit confused because we'll call it like a recomp phase if we're kind of aiming to build without a a surplus, like while we're dialing things in. And so that can get kind of conflated with like this person's recomp over time. Doesn't mean that they were actually at maintenance. Even though it's the same word.
Jeremiah Bair: Yeah, yeah, you can achieve there's multiple diff multiple different iterations of it. I I use recomp as a pretty flexible term. Just any time like I think we could
Andrea: Mm.
Jeremiah Bair: squeeze out somebody building muscle and maintaining or maintaining body fat or losing a bit of fat building muscle at the same time. But again, like there's can happen in many different situations. But it bringing it back to maintenance, I think that really for a lot of people it's feels safe because it feels like it kind of protects you from gaining any body fat, from ever feeling hungry. seeing the scale move up, potentially failing if we commit to a bigger goal. And as a whole, like just kind of committing to going all in an off phase, which I g I get it, like it that can be scary, that we can be intimidating, but it's also like where we have the most opportunity to really see change. Like I would say it's the lowest risk option, but it's also the lowest reward option. it's almost like for a lot of people, if it's like, hey, we've been here for two, three years. We're spent like most of the last couple of years at maintenance and our goal is still like this much more advanced physique than we have currently. It's almost like we're kind of using maintenance as not really a strategy, but just kind of a way to postpone actually making a decision or committing to a phase we're really pushing for. Again, like this isn't I don't want this to sound critical. I just think it's I've just had this conversation so many times that I want people to kind of understand there's a better way. 'cause truly this is where so many people we work with come from. So really I think we need to just weigh the opportunity cost here. So let's just imagine there's two women. One woman, woman A, she just hangs out at maintenance. She never g goes through intentional building phases outside of just building at maintenance. She never really cuts. The building phases again, like finding in this instance, they're not super intentional. So we never really intentionally build, we never really cut. We're always kind of like eighty percent dialed in. Three years later, probably gonna look pretty similar to how she looks right now. Now, on the flip side, let's consider woman B. She spends one year building extremely intentionally. Four to six months dieting, I would really say probably more like four months is plenty. Another year super intentionally building. Six months dieting. Ten times out of ten, from what I've seen with clients, that will be a spectacular transformation. Like that person will look so much different. But two
to three years, like I mean, that goes by quickly, right? Like it's while that's gonna be twenty twenty seven soon. Like think about how quickly two, three years goes goes by. Those two approaches will yield such dramatically different results. Would you would you agree?
Andrea: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Anybody that that we have on our coaching rosters that's been with us for that long, they look completely different. And even my own like side by side pictures that I've put up or my coaches put up, it's because I've been working with the same person for three years. Almost three years exactly. So it it's not it's it's not a fast process, but it it it does go by quickly whenever you're looking back.
Jeremiah Bair: And you will make a lot faster progress if again we're like, hey, if I'm pushing for fat loss, then I'm going all in on fat loss, and I'm gonna be really committed to the process, or I'm pushing for building, I'm going all in on that, and I'm gonna be okay with it, versus like kind of wanna always have my cake and eat it too, but we're never really pushing too hard in either direction. Now, this doesn't mean you always need to be pushing. Like the takeaway here isn't that we always need to be pushing for something we can never relax. It's more so that We should try to be committed fully to whatever phase we're in if we want to maximize progress. So when it's time to go into fat loss, hey, let's go all in and get it done with. Let's not like, hey, I want to just do a two hundred calorie deficit. It's just we're gonna drag it out for so long. For a a lot of people, it just doesn't make sense. when it's time to build, let's commit. Let's get super jacked, let's be okay with hey, maybe we are gonna get a little bit fluffier here, but ultimately if I build more muscle, I will have a much different physique next time I get leaner. And when it's time to maintain. Cool, we can actually just chill, we can just focus on maintaining. But don't waste two, three years trying to squeeze all of your goals into maintenance when we're kind of really just avoiding committee to either direction. Anything to add there before we continue?
Andrea: There does seem from certain coaches, there does seem to be a lot of messaging around like sustainable dieting and just having that very small deficit so that you can still like really enjoy food whenever you want to. And I think that because a lot of that messaging is so popular, it can get heard by the wrong type of client where Usually people are coming to us because they're already intermediate and they want to push things further. And that kind of thing can get you to a certain point. And then like you were talking about, like at some point it doesn't make sense to continue to to do it that way because you'll just end up spinning your wheels and being sort of in that like fat loss purgatory sort of area where you feel restricted and you are in a diet phase, but you're not really restricting enough to see very much
progress. Because the leaner you are, the more you do need to fully commit on each of these phases, or else you do just end up looking the same year after year.
Jeremiah Bair: The idea that a diet in itself can be sustainable is kind of a misnomer because like eventually if we're in if we're in a deficit, eventually if we stay there long enough, we'll starve to death. Right? It's just we're in an energy deficit, right? It shouldn't be sustainable regardless. Now, the methods like hey, can we sustain them for the duration of the diet? Yes, that is important, but again it shouldn't be. Hey, I could literally sustain this for the rest of my life because we don't need you in a deficit for the rest of your life. In a deficit, indefinitely again, your life will be shorter. Like we should be transitioning maintenance where we can eat a lot more food and we can like have more food flexibility. But yeah, I think that's just a large misunderstanding. And again, making sure we're not confusing sustainable with just it shouldn't be uncomfortable. I think a last important point here to consider is that lifestyle maintenance and physique maintenance aren't necessarily the same thing. Kind of touched on this earlier, but If you want your physique to maintain at a higher level than where you currently maintain it, your maintenance lifestyle also might look different than it does right now. So think about like your current lifestyle habits, how we manage food, food flexibility, alcohol, things of that nature. And again, it's understanding that again, like we kind of if we want one, we have to probably be okay with the if we want one to change, we have to probably be okay with the other shifting as well. Or there might be periods of time where, hey, I'm really focusing on like when I'm looking at, okay, I've achieved this new level of physique. Now my number one goal is physique maintenance. And again, that will change what my lifestyle needs to look like in order to maintain that that is the number one priority. And I think just distinguishing between the two is very important. Now your lifestyle doesn't also doesn't have to stay the same all year, right? Like there's naturally gonna be seasons where it makes more sense for us to push clients harder. In seasons where it makes more sense to pull back, right? Sometimes it'll be like, Man, things are just chaotic right now for you at work. Life is crazy. We might reduce this person's training. We might be at maintenance, right? And the goal is truly to just like maintain where we've gone so far until we get through this busier season, right? And that's part of what we do as coaches. So understand that that can fluctuate. We're also not like, hey, we're stuck in the with this indefinitely. But I think it's just an important con c to consider the difference between the two because I think it's like People just think about, okay, what does it take to maintain my lifestyle that I have currently? Not understanding like, okay, if physique maintenance is a priority, do these two things align. Anything you would add there?
Andrea: I don't I don't really have anything to add on that.
Jeremiah Bair: Cool. All right. Well, that's really all I had in terms of this episode. A little bit shorter one. But again, just have this conversation so much lately, I do think is important. Just consider like, are we if we want a more advanced goal, does the approach we're taking align with that? Especially if we're just hanging out at maintenance, are we trying to just squeeze too many goals into this maintenance phase? Or are we in a place where Hey, we might have to commit to pushing into a more uncomfortable territory in order to actually build a much improved physique of future. anything else from you before we wrap it up, Andrea?
Andrea: Nope, hopefully that was helpful.
Jeremiah Bair: Cool. Well, we appreciate you guys. As always, thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, leave us a five-star rating interview. If you would like to apply to work with our team, hit the link in the show notes and we will catch you guys next time.