Hello Jordan,
I am coming off 12 weeks of successful dieting and will be transitioning to a maintenance/gaining stage and had a question how you think I should manage the last few weeks of dieting to prevent rapid weight regain.
Quick background, I am currently fairly lean (6’0; 175lbs; 32.5 inch). My long term goal is to slowly gain weight while staying under 33in waist. I realize this will take sometime and will likely require a few cycles of weight loss, maintenance, and weight gain. In the past I have struggled coming off a period of dieting which has resulted in gaining fat too fast. I realize now that happened because I went from eating very limited amount of calories to eating a large surplus of calories within days of ending the diet. Additionally, I would treat these gaining periods as a hall pass to eat out more often. Having learned this lesson, I think that I am now in a better position to avoid this mistake. I am aware that I need to be careful in the first couple of weeks of returning to eating at maintenance to avoid regaining the weight quickly.
However, this brings me to my question; due to the holidays I will be traveling for a week to see family where my calorie intake will be more difficult to monitor. In this situation, if my goals are to avoid gaining weight back too quickly, which option would you recommend.
Option #1: Take the next 10 days to eat at a maintenance before traveling for a week; or
Option #2: Continue to diet in order to create a larger deficit before traveling for a week?
I’d like to state that in both of these scenarios I will do my best to not over consume food but also understand that some weight gain is likely to occur.
Thank you for time to answer my question.