Critique my plan for maintenance please?

neldabg

Upon weighing myself this past weekend, I was 115 lbs, which is just 5 lbs from my goal weight. I've more or less been losing 5 lbs every 5 weeks, but I really want to drag out these last 5 lbs over 10 weeks (or, if I must, at least before summer) in order to make the transition to maintenance easier.
According to the trends from my Fitbit Charge HR, walking 10k steps a day means I burn 1800-1900 calories, and 14-20k steps OR 10k+cardio means I burn 1900-2100 calories. Basically, I should be able to eat 1500-1800 calories to lose (going off 300 calorie deficit a day to make room for calories burned errors).
I've been eating 1200 calories, and I haven't eaten back exercise calories 95% of the time (Based on MFP culture, I know what you're thinking, but save your breath please. What's done is done, and I did what I felt worked for me). My plan, which I already started this week, is to add 100 calories every week until I have a base of 1500 calories. I always make sure to get in 10k steps, even on rest days, and many online calculators set 1500-ish as the calorie goal of a 110 lb, 5'2" person, so I'm not worried about setting up my goals to 1500 every day.
I didn't want to, but I've placed an order for a bathroom scale because I realize that I'll need to monitor my calorie goals closely according to how much I gain or lose in a day/week. Losing too much or too little would not be good for me. I know water retention and weight fluctuations exist, so I'm thinking that as long as I stay under 120 lbs while doing this, I will be patient and won't make changes until I see a consistent gain happening.
Does this plan sound okay to you? Any more tips/suggestions I should take into consideration? Thank you!

StaciMarie1974

Increasing cals in gradually, being wary of prolonged actual weight gain: reasonable in my opinion.

neldabg

StaciMarie1974 wrote: »

Increasing cals in gradually, being wary of prolonged actual weight gain: reasonable in my opinion.

Awesome. Thanks for your response! ^^

middlehaitch

Increasing slowly and watching the scale should get you into maintenance without much trouble.
It's nice to have a plan, it isn't written in stone so don't be afraid to tweak it as you go.
You may find doing 50 cal a week, or 100 every 2 weeks easier to monitor the changes especially as you are still losing, and you know, hormones.

Cheers, h.

20yearsyounger

Sounds fine to me. Eventually you will just be looking at your weight change as compared to the fitbit weekly report (calorie in vs out)

nxd10

I bought a scale when I started MFP 4 year ago and weigh every day. I just step on it every morning, knowing I'm going to bounce around. I have a 5 pound weight zone which is 'at goal' and celebrate every morning I'm in it. That way there's no pressure for a weekly or monthly weigh in.

Instead of reducing my deficit, I set that zone before I stopped losing weight. So my goal zone was 150-155 (I'm tall.) When I hit 155 I celebrated. I then kept at that 500/calorie deficit until I got to the bottom of the zone. At that point I upped my calories by 250 (250 calorie deficit) and stayed there as long as I was stable.

I recommend that because weight loss slows towards goal weight. Then you get to celebrate but keep moving towards your goal relatively quickly. You're easing up towards maintenance instead of slowing down the weight loss.

__Wolf__

it might be useful to change the metrics you're using to track yourself. Weight, while a great directional metric when you're starting out, becomes deceptive (and counterproductive) when you're healthy.

I'd recommend measuring your body fat percentage (calipers are a cheap and effective way) and using them to track your progress.

Maintenance is a great opportunity to reassess and reset your goals. I found that maintaining, for me, was not really satisfying and given how hard I worked (and how that hard work became part of my personality), I decided to continue to change my lifestyle to actually become fit and not just "not fat."

Congrats on your achievements so far! Its so nice to hear a success story.

Yi5hedr3

Fitbit too funny! You're not burning anywhere near those numbers!!

nxd10

I agree with _Wolf_ although I didn't feel a need to have really concrete goals. My goal was stay in my weight zone and I continue to celebrate that every day.

But now I focus on hitting my step goals (which is hard in the winter). I also use a tape measure. I lost several inches on my waist and on my hips for many months after hitting maintenance weight.

neldabg

middlehaitch wrote: »

Increasing slowly and watching the scale should get you into maintenance without much trouble.
It's nice to have a plan, it isn't written in stone so don't be afraid to tweak it as you go.
You may find doing 50 cal a week, or 100 every 2 weeks easier to monitor the changes especially as you are still losing, and you know, hormones.

Cheers, h.

20yearsyounger wrote: »

Sounds fine to me. Eventually you will just be looking at your weight change as compared to the fitbit weekly report (calorie in vs out)

Thanks for the replies!^^

nxd10 wrote: »

I bought a scale when I started MFP 4 year ago and weigh every day. I just step on it every morning, knowing I'm going to bounce around. I have a 5 pound weight zone which is 'at goal' and celebrate every morning I'm in it. That way there's no pressure for a weekly or monthly weigh in.

Instead of reducing my deficit, I set that zone before I stopped losing weight. So my goal zone was 150-155 (I'm tall.) When I hit 155 I celebrated. I then kept at that 500/calorie deficit until I got to the bottom of the zone. At that point I upped my calories by 250 (250 calorie deficit) and stayed there as long as I was stable.

I recommend that because weight loss slows towards goal weight. Then you get to celebrate but keep moving towards your goal relatively quickly. You're easing up towards maintenance instead of slowing down the weight loss.

I like that plan. My goal zone for now is 108-114lbs, so I guess in two weeks or so, I'll be celebrating.

__Wolf__ wrote: »

it might be useful to change the metrics you're using to track yourself. Weight, while a great directional metric when you're starting out, becomes deceptive (and counterproductive) when you're healthy.

I'd recommend measuring your body fat percentage (calipers are a cheap and effective way) and using them to track your progress.

Maintenance is a great opportunity to reassess and reset your goals. I found that maintaining, for me, was not really satisfying and given how hard I worked (and how that hard work became part of my personality), I decided to continue to change my lifestyle to actually become fit and not just "not fat."

Congrats on your achievements so far! Its so nice to hear a success story.

I completely agree with you. Honestly, after the initial weigh-ins and happy realizations that weight loss was quite simple and doable, I found that losing weight isn't super duper exciting anymore. Yes, I'm *still* very happy to see that I'm so near my weight range goal, but I have indeed been looking at other metrics to track myself in the future. I haven't settled on anything just yet, but flexibility and strength through yoga is something I'm thinking about. I'm going to see how it feels to maintain at 110 first, and then I might raise my weight range target if I think it is best. For sure, I want to stay at least somewhere in the 110-120 range, but I won't let one number be the entire base of my maintenance goals.

Talan79

Plan sounds good, I'd add 100 calories every 2 weeks.
I'm also 5'2 and 115. Hope to end up at 110-112.
Feel free to add me.

fiddletime

I'm 5'2", 61, and 123. My GW is 118-120, but I'm not sure which. I was adding more calories but decided to just push through at my 1200 calories. I always lowball exercise calories so for a 60 min drenched in sweat bike ride I give myself 340 (lower than my HRM but not by much). I've exercised my whole life so my goal is actually just a weight goal and to keep exercising and adding some more weight lifting programs.