Why Maintenance Calories Are The Missing Key to Fat Loss After 35

So many women are living in the deficit phase, and that’s why they can’t lose fat.

In this episode, I talk about the three phases of fitness, how long you should spend in each phase, and why the majority of your life should be spent in maintenance.

If you’ve been eating low calorie, training hard, doing all the “right” things, and still not seeing the fat loss, muscle gain, energy, or body recomposition results you want… this episode is for you.

We break down one of the biggest mistakes women over 35 make when trying to lose fat: staying in a calorie deficit for too long.

We’re diving into maintenance calories, artificially low maintenance calories, low energy availability (LEA/RED-S), metabolic adaptation, chronic under-fueling, reverse dieting, and why the maintenance phase should be the longest phase of body recomposition.

You’ll learn:
• what maintenance calories actually are• how to calculate your true maintenance calories• the difference between a deficit, maintenance, and surplus• signs of low energy availability• why chronic dieting can slow progress• how under-eating impacts hormones, recovery, strength, metabolism, energy, and muscle growth• how I realized my own maintenance calories were artificially low• what happened when I finally increased my calories

I also walk you through a simple step-by-step process to find your maintenance calories:

1. Estimate your starting point using a few TDEE calculators.
2. Track your normal food intake for 2–3 weeks without changing anything.
3. Weigh yourself consistently under the same conditions.
4. Calculate your average daily calories and average weekly body weight.
5. Compare the trends: stable weight = likely maintenance, weight loss = deficit, weight gain = surplus.
6. Assess biofeedback like energy, sleep, hunger, mood, recovery, strength, and hormone health.
7. Adjust based on your results and remember that maintenance is a range, not one perfect number.

If you’re a woman 35+ trying to lose fat, build muscle, improve your metabolism, recover your energy, heal your relationship with food, or finally understand why your body feels stuck, this episode will help you understand the science and psychology behind true body recomposition.

Topics covered: body recomposition for women over 35, maintenance calories, metabolism recovery, reverse dieting, low energy availability, RED-S in women, fat loss plateau, building muscle after 35, hormone health, sustainable fat loss, calorie deficit, muscle gain, metabolic adaptation, and women’s hormones and fat loss.

Follow The Body Recomposition Revolution on Spotifyor Apple Podcast and share this episode with a friend who’s been stuck in the “eat less, do more” cycle.

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