The Eating Plan: Phase Two—Final Cut Phase

Once you have built all the muscle you desire to have, you will find that you have a little extra fat around the middle. Remember this is to be expected and that you can’t gain all the muscle you want without this happening. So you will change your program up to maintain your muscle and lose the extra fat. Adding three 30 minute cardio sessions (running, biking, elliptical trainer, etc) per week is permissible at this stage.

You will need to slightly increase your fat intake to 20% of your total calories and decrease your carb intake to 40% of your total calories, while decreasing your total calorie count by 500 calories per day (that extra pound per week you were gaining). Use the same foods, just a slightly smaller serving of carbs and a little splash of olive oil or butter here or there.

Track your food intake for a couple of weeks again, until you get the new food servings down pat. This will be the diet that will help you maintain your new physique. If you find yourself losing too much weight (you should just be shifting it by losing a little fat and gaining a little muscle), you should add some calories back in until your weight remains steady and your fat level is where you would like it to be.

Working Out too much Sabotages your Efforts

One of the reasons why working out too much sabotages your weight gain efforts is that it increases the likelihood of getting frustrated and wanting to quit. When a workout plan takes up too much of your time, it is easy to make excuses for not doing it one day and then the next and the next thing you know, you aren’t working out at all. The fitness plan you use must fit into your life to be effective. By making the workouts quick and efficient, you are much more likely to stick with the program and achieve your goal of getting huge.

Another reason why working out too much increases frustration and leads to drop out is that it is just too exhausting. You want to work a muscle to the point of fatigue, but you should be able to recover quickly. Overdoing it makes it tough to even handle mundane everyday tasks and makes recovery time much too long.

When the workout becomes a dreaded part of your life instead of something enjoyable, it becomes really tough to stick with it. Working out properly will leave you feeling empowered and energized. While you may experience some muscle soreness in the form of delayed onset muscle soreness aka DOMS, this is not debilitating and actually increases your confidence because it is a reminder of the progress you are making.

The last two reasons that working out too much sabotages your muscle/weight gain efforts will be described in more detail in later article on “Why your Rest Days are Vital”, but briefly they are that working out too much short circuits the muscle repair process and minimizes muscle growth and working out too much increases the metabolism and burns more calories which slows down weight gain.
So to summarize the four reasons that working out too much sabotages your weight/muscle gain efforts are:

Increased frustration level
Decreased energy (exhaustion)
Inadequate rest for muscle recovery
Increased metabolism and calorie burn

It makes sense to workout smarter, not harder when it increases your chances of sticking with the program and actually makes your workouts more effective, don’t you think? This program will help you accomplish your goals without overdoing it and make you far more likely to maintain these great habits and your huge muscles for life!