So right now I’m living in Jerez, Spain due to work requirements (will be self-employed soon so this won’t be an issue for much longer). My goal is simply to maintain everything fitness-wise, which isn’t particularly exciting, I know. But I will share with you what exactly I’m doing to make this work. I will likely be having another photoshoot in April, so will be getting down to about 7% body fat for that (I’m about 9-10 now).
But for now, here’s what I’m doing:
Calories are at maintenance, which right now, is ~2400. My activity level isn’t the highest because all I’m doing all day is flying and working on ForeverAlphaBlog. I’m training twice per week. Two full-body workouts, each with three main lifts. A lower body movement (squat or deadlift), followed by a pull movement, and then a push movement. I perform 3-4 hard sets on the lower movements, and 4-5 hard sets on the upper movements (a little auto-regulation going on). I’ve always been able to take higher volumes on the upper body. If I tried to perform the same workloads on squats and deadlifts, I’d always suffer recovery-wise.
As I’ve mentioned in a past email, I shoot for about 70% of my protein intake at meal #1 at 1pm, to maximise time spend being full. Admittedly I don’t always get this, but a lot of the time I do. And boy can you tell the difference. I’ll be making sure to do this every single day when prepping for the next shoot.
As I’m a red wine ‘enthusiast’ living in southern Spain, I am drinking quite regularly. I’m currently having 2-3 drinks (wine or beer) about 3-4 times per week in the evenings. Don’t do this if you’re trying to lose weight. I’m just being as open and transparent about what I’m currently doing at maintenance.
The biggest change I will be making when getting down to 7% will be removing alcohol completely.
I believe I am biologically capable of maintaining 7% year-round, but I don’t think I would choose to. I suspect that it would mean zero alcohol, very low carbs, and I would have to be very careful in terms of losing muscle mass. And this would be all the time, with no breaks at all.
At 9-10% I have a lot more room for error. And I also like to have wine with my women when they come round too. Wine is my weakness – I’m never really tempted by junk food, just wine and women.
Next quarter will be a very interesting update here at IFFT.
Stay tuned.