How many extra calories?

1961dublin

Hi all. So I lost 17 kgs over 18 months with IF, and I dont really want to loose more. I was loosing .3kgs per week for the last few weeks. So last week I upped my calories from 500 calories to 650 on fast days. I do 3 fasts per week. Thats a 450 pw increase. What happened?? I still lost .3kgs. What do I do now? Increase more? But how much? I am so afraid of eating too much. What if I increase to 750 on fast days? I am so confused. Please help. I dont want to become too thin either.
I eat 1500 calories other days. I am strict about logging. Any ideas?

sijomial

First of all take a deep breath and relax!
You can't accidentally undo all your good work without a significant and very sustained calorie surplus.

I also lost my weight with 5:2 style of eating and if my experience is anything to go by you won't find your true maintenance in days or even weeks, so be prepared to experiment. It's far harder to find your true weight trend when you do IF. I ended up needing more weekly calories than the basic maths suggested. Your activity and exercise output can increase when you feel "fully fuelled".

Bare numbers would suggest you need to eat c. 2000 a week more but how you do that has a myriad of options.
I initially carried on with 5:2 but I have no problems eating a surplus on non fast days to compensate for two low days. After some months I found 6:1 gave me a more natural feeling allowance six days a week.
Would suggest you switch from 4:3 to 5:2 to give an easy calorie boost and adjust from there with extra cals on your non fast days too.

I've also maintained without fasting and without logging. Have dabbled with "Leangains" style of IF too.
Don't be afraid to experiment to find what makes long term maintenance easy for you.
If you do start to see an upward trend you won't have forgotten how to lose it again. Those tools are with you for life.

1961dublin

Hi Siji, thanks for your interesting reply!! An extra 2000 calories per week sounds like an awful lot but it does make sense since 3600= 1 lb of fat. I am glad that I eat all those extra cals but I want to increase slowly.
I have done ok on a low amount of food for a long time so the extra will be very welcome. I think I will increase the 3 fast days to 800 calories pd for now. If I loose a bit more thats ok too since I am not really skinny yet. I am so glad to get your input. I will experiment like you suggest.