Greetings all

Today I wanted to focus on something I find important as we head into the summer season. Enjoying your spring in the city while keeping to your cut alive. This can be difficult, nice weather will draw you out. Cold beers, spritzs and negronis start to hum your name. I deal with these temptations every season and have only gotten better at balancing the two as the years go by.

Spring time in the city is a special time. Rooftops open, the suns out, the days are longer, and people are out in force. If you’re a social person this is a recipe for dining out drinking and over consumption. Ive been through this many times before. It may seem impossible to enjoy all these activities while sticking to you cut, maintaining your gains, and staying consistent in the gym heading into summer. Im here to tell you you can do both.

Drink and Food

Of course the best way to stick to a cut or diet is to cook on your own, not drink your calories and really control your intake. But lets pretend for a moment that we live in the real world where there are many restaurants and lots of people to go out and eat with. This is why I have come up with simple rules to stick too when going out around eating and drinking. I also want to reiterate if whatever you want to eat or drink fit into your calories for the day. By all means live it up, enjoy!

What to Drink

To keep calories light I recommend light beers (95-110 cal), vodka/ tequila sodas (100 cals), or clear liquor on the rocks. These low calories drinks will allow you to enjoy more while staying in your goals. But know yourself, if you know after that 3rd or fourth vodki soda you’re gonna absolutely let it rip, try to avoid the fourth. The goal is to enjoy and let the alcohol enhance they experience not overtake it. It is important to enjoy who you’re with, location/atmosphere and the freedom of time off. If you have an easier time controlling yourself and maybe get more full off beers then do that.

Let the alcohol add to the overall experience and not be the main driver. Of course there are times you’ll want to push it and that is ok as well. Just in moderation, one big night won’t set you back on your progress. It takes more than one night to make progress and it takes more than one night to ruin it. Recognize we are all human and get carried away and thats totally ok. I have had plenty of set back along my journey some worth it some not. Picking the battles is the toughest part. You don’t want to blow your load on happy hour with coworkers. Maybe save the big night for a close friends birthday or a concert. Have 3 drinks at the work event and don’t act like a jack ass.

What to Eat

As someone who loves to eat, this has been the hardest part to mitigate and manage for me. First and foremost check out the menu online prior to going. This way you can see and plan your attack.

While eating out limit unlimited share plates ie. bottomless chips at a Mexican restaurant. Limit yourself on the constant grazing of empty calories these provide. It will also help you enjoy your main much more. Focus on a protein, focus on what you can do to sides, ask for the sauce on the side.

Protein as always will be more filling for calories, requires more calories to digest, and helps you maintain muscle.

Next swap out sides, can you get a side salad instead of fries, coleslaw over bread. Explore these, if you love fries and its non negotiable then by all means get the fries, maybe sacrifice a beer or cocktail. You can even just walk around more and try to burn extra calories that way.

Sauce on the side, the reason I say this is because you’d be shocked how many calories can sneak in via sauce. I love sauce, but getting it on the side allows you to enjoy it while being able to control the amount you use. In my opinion they over sauce most things anyway, I hate a soggy meal. But, to each his own.

Extra tips depending on who your with is sharing plates. If you want a few things off the menu instead of ordering both for yourself share both dishes with the person/people you’re with. This can help keep you from over eating while allowing you to enjoy more options. All depends on who you’re with.

Maintaining Muscle

Despite what people believe once you build muscle its very easy to maintain. You cant get to the body comp you want and abandon fitness and nutrition (although it happens). You will revert back to where you were when you started. But you certainly don’t need to work as hard as you did to gain muscle or lose fat to keep your physique. You can get away with working out twice a week as long as your intensity and diet are correct.

Things that will cost you muscle are lack of sleep, overtraining, and way* to much cardio.

If you are not sleeping enough for weeks and months your body will eventually stop being able to build or keep muscle.

Overtraining will shock burnout your central nervous system causing you to lose muscle. Breaks are important.

If you do excessive excessive amounts of cardio it will hinder muscle building and eventually cause you to lose some. But I cannot stress enough that this is excessive cardio! everyone should still be doing some cardio!

One mistake I see people fall into is undereating, thinking it will negate any decisions they make while out. There is a way to balance this healthily, but not eating for the sake of pigging out while out may cost you some gains.

Keeping Consistency

Just like you would normally, you want to keep it consistent. Whatever your split may be 3 days 5 days just try to be consistent. If you know youll be tempted and more inclined to blow off the gym then reduce the amount of days in your split. This way you wont be neglecting body parts. For example Thursday is normally your leg day but on Thursdays there is always a team happy hour at work or the missus wants to go enjoy the weather. So you blow it off, then you keep missing it and suddenly you haven’t trained legs in a month. This happens faster than you think, it would be easier to switch to a 3 day split that you can stick too.

Wrap it Up

So the point is get out there and enjoy your spring/summer. You will be able to keep muscle, go out to eat, have drinks and socialize with friends. Hopefully these tips help you find the balance.