(Before reading this, I highly recommend reading my article on bulking, cutting, and maintaining on a high fat, high protein diet first. It explains the reasoning behind a lot of what I write here.)
Most of the year I find myself on what I call a maintenance diet. This means I eat enough food and maintain enough activity that I either stay the same body weight, or slowly put on muscle.
On a maintenance diet, I actually eat more carbs than usual, but almost all in the form of fruits — blueberries and navel oranges, mostly. This is because, through trial and error, I’ve found that
eating these foods at the right time actually gives my body more benefits than drawbacks. (As per the original Anabolic Diet, I still don’t combine carb foods with fat foods — I try to eat an orange before a workout by itself, for example.) My diet is still very low carb, though. You need to experiment and see what you react to best.
I also don’t overload on protein on this diet. While trying to quickly gain muscle, I eat lots and LOTS of protein because my body can take advantage of it. However, your body does adjust to the amount of protein you feed it after a period of time, meaning that the only way to take advantage of the protein and build more muscle is to eat more of it. People who eat extremely high-protein diets (2x body weight in grams or more) year-round are only hurting their progress. I eat roughly 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight while on a maintenance diet, give or take 20 grams. Yes, I have built muscle with this much protein, but it is a much slower process. In the long run, though, my results are better because of this.
Finding your maintenance level of calories might actually take a bit of work and trial and error. My body is happy with around 3.000 calories every day, but it took me a couple weeks to discover that. A rough way to find your maintenance level is to multiply your body weight by 18 and aim for that many calories or slightly lower. This should be done only if you already have a relatively low bodyfat level — eating this way while your bodyfat is too high will likely only result in fat gain, and you should follow a weight loss diet first. My rule of thumb is that if my stomach is not flat with relatively defined abs, then I have too much bodyfat.
The breakdown of this diet is again roughly 50% fat and 50% protein, with a little bit of fruit thrown in on the side.
The Sample Maintenance Diet
Meal 1
6 omega 3 eggs, scrambled
Half a banana
Half cup blueberries
3 tablespoons heavy raw cream
One tablespoon ground flax seeds
One tablespoon psyllium husks
(All mixed together. So delicious.)
One cup raw milk
Pre-workout
One navel orange
Post-workout
One or two cups raw milk (I only drink raw milk — if I can’t have raw, I’ll have something else in its place, like a few eggs)
Meal 2
(All mixed together in a blender for shake. Blend until creamy and smooth.)
4 omega 3 eggs (raw)
2 tablespoons heavy raw cream
Half cup water
Handful of spinach
1 cup frozen broccoli
Half scoop vanilla protein powder (just for taste)
12g fish oil
Meal 3
Half pound lean ground grass fed beef mixed with broccoli, hummus, flax seeds, psyllium husk, and tomato sauce made from whole tomatoes
12g fish oil
Meal 4
Same as meal 3
I try not to eat anything directly before bed — meal 4 usually is eaten about two hours before sleep, which I prefer to do on the maintenance diet. I don’t lose any muscle in my sleep because of this. If I stay up too late, though, I’ll try to have something small before bed, like full-fat cottage cheese.
I also mix up the foods. Some days I’ll make chicken dishes instead of grass fed beef dishes. Some days I’ll avoid the heavy meats altogether and just eat dairy-based proteins, like cottage cheese. Some days I even go extremely light on protein, giving my body a bit of a rest.
Final Words on Maintenance
I’ll be absolutely honest — I really “wing it” on this diet. I establish the baseline amount of food that my body can use to maintain bodyfat and/or build muscle slowly, and then just eat based around those staple foods. Some days I’ll eat more, some days I’ll eat less. The idea is that, by the end of the week, I’ve eaten (on average) my maintenance foods and calorie levels.