Maintenance diet and resensitization training?

[JitsuLifting]

Just finished 12 week of fat loss, lost around 15 lbs, still got 20 lbs more to lose.

My question is how important are maintenance phases and lower volume training between the phases? People like Mike Israetel and Layne Norton always preaches some type of reverse diet or maintenance phase after fat loss phases.

I did not feel much diet fatigue after the 12 weeks of dieting, maybe just in the last two weeks. As i got 20 lbs more to lose, i really feel ready to go again.

Basically i ended my diet just before travling on vacation, and now I just came home from 3 weeks vacation with a lot of food and less training.

Is 3 week maintenance enough before a new fat loss phase?

I think Israetel recommended your maintenance phase to be as long as your fat loss phase, or atleast half of it. But i feel really ready to again already.

[Tommy W.]

You weren't losing a radical amount of fat in your last phase and you still have a ways to go so there is no need to take a break if you're feeling ok. You need to drop about 100 calories a day for every 10 lbs of fatloss though if you want to sustain progress without a stall in losses.

[xsquid99]

Its not a requirement but more of a personal preference, especially after only losing 15 pounds. I lost about 55 pounds in 6 1/2 months, never once did a maintenance phase because I just didn't feel like I needed to and I knew it would only delay me from hitting my goal.

If you're losing weight at a rate that is sustainable for you and you feel good, then by all means just keep on going.

[Tommy W.]

I think many people are under the impression that going back to maintenance after losing fat somehow "resets" the metabolism and allows for going back to the calories that you started your fatloss phase at and you'll continue losing.

[TolerantLactose]

A person may benefit from a diet break when they have less than 20lbs of total body fat, not when they have 20lbs to lose.