Before I ever launched this podcast, I sent out a survey asking for episode ideas.

I wanted to know:

• What do you want to hear me talk about?
• What interests you?
• What confuses you?
• What are you nosey about?

One topic came up over and over again: How do I avoid spiraling after a cut?

When you’re in a calorie deficit, the goal is crystal clear. You have a target, a timeline, and a specific outcome you’re working toward. You want to hit your calorie target, lose weight, and maybe reduce body fat. Whether you’re working toward a goal weight or following a set timeline, there is a clear finish line.

The goal feels exciting because you’re actively chasing something. Once you hit your goal weight or reach the point where it’s time to stop dieting, you may feel like you’re missing direction. The goal doesn’t feel as obvious anymore.

Maintenance Still Requires Attention

I plan to dedicate an entire episode to mastering maintenance calories because it’s an important skill. For today, I simply want to make one thing clear. You still need to pay attention because you can absolutely gain body fat at maintenance if you’re not actually maintaining. One thing I’ve told several of my 1:1 clients is this: It’s very hard to lose body fat. It’s very easy to gain it back.

If you’ve worked hard to get results, you want to protect those results. That means continuing many of the same habits you practiced during your deficit:

• Put thought into your meals
• Pull out the food scale
• Hit your protein goal
• Hit your fiber goal
• Stay aware of your intake

Maintenance isn’t abandoning structure. It’s maintaining structure with more calories available to you. Once that foundation is in place, here’s my biggest piece of advice. Set an insane goal for yourself. When I say insane, I don’t mean reckless. I mean a goal that requires effort, discipline, training, and demands something from you. When you move into maintenance calories, you’re giving your body more fuel. Those calories can support strength gains, performance improvements, recovery, endurance, and athletic goals.

People say “food is fuel” all the time, and it’s true. My challenge to you is simple. Take the same energy you devoted to your calorie deficit, and redirect it toward a physical challenge. Choose something you have to train for, something that requires a game plan, or something that excites you enough to stay committed.

As someone who has taken on quite a few physical challenges, I can confidently tell you there is nothing quite like training for an event and then crossing the finish line.

My Own Experience With Performance Goals

Ironically, some of my biggest physical challenges happened during pregnancy and postpartum. During my pregnancy with Rafe, I completed a duathlon. For those unfamiliar, that’s a run-bike-run race. I was only about 10 weeks pregnant, so I wasn’t visibly pregnant yet, but I was absolutely dealing with morning sickness and still showed up on race day.

During my pregnancy with Vance, I hiked the Manitou Incline in Colorado at 30 weeks pregnant. Postpartum with Vance, I completed four HYROX races in a single year. The most memorable was my solo race in Boston. Then in April of this year, I set a personal record in the half marathon. Every single one of those experiences gave me something bigger to focus on than aesthetics alone.

There is nothing like crossing the finish line. It’s hard to describe the feeling of signing up for a race, creating a game plan, and executing that plan no matter what life throws at you. Showing up on race day and crossing that finish line is special because you know exactly what it took to get there.

The finish line itself is rewarding, but the real transformation happens during the months leading up to it. You become more disciplined and more resilient. You gain confidence because you’ve proven to yourself that you can follow through on something difficult.

The Life Resume Framework

I want to share a framework that has stuck with me for years. I haven’t followed every aspect of it, but I’ve absolutely borrowed pieces of it and applied them to my own life. The framework comes from Jesse Itzler. If you’re not familiar with Jesse, he’s an entrepreneur and the husband of Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx. I first learned about him when an old coworker recommended the book Living With A Seal. If you haven’t read this book, you need to.  It’s one of the very few books I’ve started and finished in a single day. It’s fascinating and genuinely funny. I’m about to spoil the ending, but one Google search would reveal it anyway.

Throughout the book, the Navy SEAL wants to remain anonymous. At the very end, he gives Jesse permission to reveal his identity. It’s David Goggins. Since reading the book, I’ve loosely followed Jesse on social media and become familiar with one of his most popular ideas: the Life Resume.

Most people spend years building a professional resume. Jesse argues that we should also be building a life resume. A life resume includes things like:

• Taking meaningful trips
• Completing physical challenges
• Facing fears
• Learning skills that once felt impossible
• Doing things that push you outside your comfort zone

These experiences may never appear on a job application, but they shape who you become.

The Misogi Challenge

One of the concepts Jesse talks about is called a Misogi Challenge. The framework is simple.

Choose one challenge each year that pushes you, challenges you, and changes you. The challenge should feel big. It should stretch you and be difficult enough that you’re genuinely unsure whether you’ll succeed. That’s the point.

The challenge itself will look different for everyone. For one person it may be a half marathon, and for someone else it may be a HYROX race, hiking a mountain, learning to ski, completing a triathlon, or starting something you’ve been putting off for years.

The specific challenge matters less than the growth required to accomplish it.

The Opportunity Waiting For You After A Cut

Most people finish a calorie deficit and immediately focus on maintaining their physique. While that’s important, I think there’s a bigger opportunity available to you. Use the body you’ve worked so hard to build. Train for something, challenge yourself, build your life resume. Give yourself a goal that demands more from you than simply watching a number on the scale. Because while reaching a physique goal feels great, accomplishing something you once thought was beyond your reach is a feeling that stays with you long after the cut is over.

Final Thoughts

If you’re finishing a cut, don’t let maintenance become a season of drifting. Keep the habits that got you results. Track your food, hit your protein, stay intentional. Then take all that energy you were pouring into fat loss, and redirect it toward something that excites you. Sign up for the race you’ve always wanted to, book the trip of your dreams, learn the skill you’ve been putting off. Take on a new challenge, and  build your life resume one experience at a time. You might be surprised by what you’re capable of when you stop focusing solely on what your body looks like and start focusing on what it can do.