I "bulked", so what's next?

[SinCollector]

Recently, I went on a Squats and Milk plan and I had waaay better results than I expected. I'm stronger than I've ever been and I gained 18 pounds. I continued eating heavy after the plan ended because I thought my weight was holding. I was holding steady at a 13 pound weight gain and a couple weeks later another 5 pounds came from somewhere. I now weigh 173 and I'd like to be able to cut to 155 easily.

So, how do I best maintain the weight or even lose a little while maintaining my gains?(I did gain some fat.) I've looked at the stickies and I have some general ideas but I don't know exactly how best to accomplish this. My daily diet looks about like this:

Breakfast:
huge bowl of oatmeal+ cup of yogurt+cup of blueberries
3 extra large eggs

Snack 1:
Whole grain kashi bar
Bottle of 2% milk

Lunch:
Chili's Guiltless Salmon(8 oz salmon, broccoli, black beans)

Snack 2:
Tuna on whole grain tortilla
Bottle of 2% milk

Dinner:
Some kind of low-fat high protein meat
light carbs
veggie

Before bed:
Muscle milk(made with 2% milk)

If I go to bed late, I'll eat another snack between dinner and the Muscle Milk. Should I reduce every meal slightly? Drop the snacks? Drop the Muscle Milk? Keep everything the same and increase my conditioning work?

Thanks for any assistance.

 

[Rowan11088]

Well, normally I'd say you're drinking too much milk, but since that's what you say helped you bulk, I guess keep it. I think you're eating too much fish on a daily basis, you will get too much mercury that way. I would still say add some healthy fats besides just milkfat, fish oil capsules would probably be adequate, but I wouldn't actually eat fish every day.

Otherwise the nutritional balance looks alright, your real challenge will be finding the exact portions you want. I would say try to lose the extra fat through more conditioning, since that will benefit you in other ways. Make sure to up your carbs a little bit when you do that, and make the change slowly so you don't lose the muscle.

 

[Saith]

I don't want to comment on the mercury thing, because plenty of people all around the world eat tons of fish and have some of the longest life spans on the planet. On the other hand tuna from a can is high in mercury so maybe think of switching that up occasionally (soup is easy to make in quantity and transport/heat).

Probably the easiest thing you could do is cut out the expensive Chili's lunch and cook yourself, and cut back on the portions a bit. I'm guessing even though it's "guiltless" salmon the portions are still large and it would be easy to knock off 200-500 calories just by packing lunch yourself and portioning properly.

You could also remove the "light carbs" from your dinner and only eat veggies at that point.

Another non-diet thing you can possibly do is increase the amount of cardio you are doing during the week.