This is a simple message about a potentially complex topic…changing versus maintaining. Essentially, what it takes to change a condition isn’t necessarily the same thing as that which is required to maintain the status once achieved. I believe there is a disconnect in popular thinking regarding this relationship.
These differentiations exist in potentially many areas but training, dietary manipulation for weight loss (or gain), nutrition for health restoration (or performance), and recovery are pertinent considerations.
Training to improve a capacity, such as power or endurance, requires relatively consistent, progressive overload. Put simply, you have to experience an increasing stimulus to force an adaptation or upregulation. This is usually in the form of workload over a given time period, which requires the escalation of volume and/or intensity, both applied thoughtfully. However, once the performance or fitness level has been achieved, it can often be maintained for a number of months with significantly reduced volume, as long as the exposure to appropriately high intensity is prolonged. This physiological fact has been substantiated in the literature for well over a century. The art of tapering, peaking, and manipulating training involves varying workloads and seasonal approaches. To do the same thing all the time is unwise and ineffective.
Dieting for body fat loss demands caloric restriction, although in the best case scenario this is relatively modest and occasionally undulating. Sustainability becomes the key word in this context. You can’t stay in fat loss mode for infinity. Theoretically, you would waste away and disappear but in reality, the body will drastically slow metabolism and begin a process of muscle mass loss, bone demineralization, and other undesirable consequences. You have to delicately manage the times of caloric restriction with periodic “re-feeds” which allow the body to normalize hormonal balance. Once your goal weight, or body composition, has been attained, this can and should be maintained at somewhat higher levels of caloric intake than what was utilized for the fat loss.
When you’re trying to put on weight (lean body mass), one of the popular monikers is “lean bulking.” This may actually be a bit of a misnomer. While actually not a complete impossibility, it is very difficult for the body to do two things at once, from a metabolic standpoint. As in gain muscle and burn fat at the same time. That’s because the anabolic process of building muscle also exists in the caloric surplus world where adipose tissue is typically on the increase (although this can be minimized). Weight loss, on the other hand, is a catabolic process and our goal is always to drop the fat while not sacrificing much in the way of those hard-earned muscle gains. So, trying to support physiologic states of anabolism and catabolism concurrently is what I call “metabolic multi-tasking.” Difficult at best. The approach that bodybuilders have been using practically forever is to keep protein intake optimal in the presence of an adequate yet not excessive caloric surplus. For best long term health, neither bulking nor cutting should be extreme. But it all leads to maintenance phases, where intake should hover around an isocaloric point.
Eating for health improvement is definitely an interesting topic. Terms like metabolic reset, improved blood glucose control, insulin sensitivity, lower blood pressure, better kidney or liver function, lipid profile alteration, and many others come to mind. While much of this can be affected by fat loss, the primary focus tends to be on macronutrient modulation. Different camps will promote more or less carbs, fat, and protein. But the diet that restores your health, or saves your life, probably isn’t necessary or ideal for long term maintenance once you are healthy again. Think of it this way. Sometimes, if you’ve been eating at an extreme end of the spectrum (whatever that looks like), you need to do a drastic reversal to right the ship. A classic example would be to employ a low carb/higher fat diet for a person who has been pounding processed carbs and diagnosed as pre-diabetic (Type II). To some extent, the severity of change and the duration it needs to be applied may be in concert with the amount of metabolic derangement present. But at some point, things should (and usually do) normalize to a point where the ever-popular term moderation can actually be applied.
When we get to eating for performance enhancement, there’s a can of worms for sure. Macros, supplements, liquids, etc. I’m only going to mention one example because it’s enough to illustrate the situation. Last year I wrote about the trend among many elite endurance athletes to consume rather massive quantities of intraworkout (and competition) carbs, along with an overall (very) high-carb diet, to drive performance. They have been able to “train their guts” to absorb and deliver very high volumes of glucose, thus sparing muscle glycogen and extending high output capability almost indefinitely. This practice works. But it puts the athlete on a very slippery slope regarding metabolic dysfunction, gut biome dysregulation, insulin resistance, and Type II diabetes. Pundits will say that you just have to be very strategic with the dosing. I’m going to go on record here saying that my stance is always “health first.” I’m reluctant to endorse practices, dietary or other, which have a fairly high potential to compromise long-term wellness. The human beast is durable. You can temporarily dabble in these experiments, but keep a close eye on overall health and drift back to maintenance when things go awry. Because they probably will.
Lastly, recovery has a somewhat inverse relationship with training and competition. The higher, or harder, you go, the longer and easier you need to back off. This is obvious and instinctive, yet many, many well-meaning people cognitively override their body’s signals. It seems so simple. If you’re tired…take it easy for a while. But when motivation, and static programs get involved, many people just inadvertently dig themselves into an entirely avoidable hole. If you look at maintenance as some sort of middle level of workload, and hard training and competition as high, then you must embrace cruising along a low baseline in accordance with the excursions above that midrange.
I think I’ve said enough for today. I wanted to keep it short. Probably could have been more concise. Oh well. Just keep in mind that life, especially for a Lifetime Athlete, is a dynamic journey. There are certainly consistent behaviors, but in several of the areas we discussed, our practices should oscillate in response to our goals and outcomes. Changing and maintaining are not the same thing.