If we are trying to attain a goal weight

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pondee629
pondee629 Posts: 2,469 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Why don't we just eat the maintenance calories for that goal weight? Wouldn't we get there? Just a question. ;-)

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  • jeffpettis
    jeffpettis Posts: 865 Member
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    That would all depend on you current calorie requirements. If it puts you in a deficit yes, you will lose weight, but if it puts you in a surplus you are going to gain weight.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    pondee629 wrote: »
    Why don't we just eat the maintenance calories for that goal weight? Wouldn't we get there? Just a question. ;-)

    Technically it would take an infinite time, as you would approach goal asymptotically. Your deficit just keeps getting smaller.
  • pondee629
    pondee629 Posts: 2,469 Member
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    OK. that makes sense; yarwell. I doubt an infinire time, wouldn't you eventually get there? It is maintenance for your GOAL weight.
  • BrianaDuBois
    BrianaDuBois Posts: 48 Member
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    yarwell wrote: »
    pondee629 wrote: »
    Why don't we just eat the maintenance calories for that goal weight? Wouldn't we get there? Just a question. ;-)

    Technically it would take an infinite time, as you would approach goal asymptotically. Your deficit just keeps getting smaller.

    +1
  • LKArgh
    LKArgh Posts: 5,179 Member
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    pondee629 wrote: »
    Why don't we just eat the maintenance calories for that goal weight? Wouldn't we get there? Just a question. ;-)

    In general, yes it is an approach that will work. Cannot finetune it to the last lb, but it works and many people actually use exactly this method.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    edited September 2015
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    pondee629 wrote: »
    OK. that makes sense; yarwell. I doubt an infinire time, wouldn't you eventually get there? It is maintenance for your GOAL weight.

    technically it's infinite but with real world measurements you would think you were there a lot earlier than that.

    It's infinite because when you are say 10 grams from goal the deficit is so tiny it might take a month to get to 9 grams when the deficit gets even smaller so the next gram takes 2 months and so on. It's a hypothetical case.

    Fat2fit radio used this approach - eat at goal weight - but they added in "you can drop another 300 calories off your intake as you get close to goal" to counter this problem.

    I tried the idea out on https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/bwp/ - setting the maintenance cals for 160 lbs as the intake oj4emz4ps1dh.png
  • pondee629
    pondee629 Posts: 2,469 Member
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    OK Thanks, just a thought.

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