Any insight on caloric intake?

menard2530

Hey y'all. I'm at the point now where I'm ready to change my goal to "maintain" as far as my weight goes. But when I change it on here, it changes my caloric intake to 600 more calories daily. That seems REALLY high and it scares the living *kitten* out of me to eat that many more calories daily. I knew it would increase, but I was thinking maybe 200, tops! Anyone have any thoughts on this? Any guidance?

BikeTourer

It is personal preference what you do. I just went to maintenance calories, my only mistake was not eating my exercise so I lost a bit more. Some people ease into maintenance because of fear of undoing their hard work. Only you know you to know which you'll deal with better. I end result should be the same.

richardgavel

Don't try and increase it all in one shot. Add 100-200, see what that does to the number on the scale for a week or two and repeat. It will also help get your mind used to the idea of eating more and accepting there won't be a negative impact on the work you did prior.

kportmanshark

I figure my TDEE was always an estimate, so to maintain I need to learn my real TDEE. I've been adding 100kcal per week. I have dropped a bit more but not much and the adjustment has been gradual to what I should be eating. As soon as I see the scale start to tip in the wrong direction I'll reduce 100kcal and then use that as my actual maintenance.

DebSozo

A good ballpark figure is TDEE. Choose one activity level lower than you are for a week or two and then tweak it until your weight stays stable within a few pounds up or down.

sijomial

If you have been recently losing at around 1lb a week then your maintenance estimate is likely to be reasonable.

Why would eating at maintenance scare you?
If you trusted the process to lose weight why would you suddenly lose confidence in exactly the same process to maintain?

Sounds like walking up calories gradually would help you assuage your fears - remember to set a goal weight range (not a single number) and, very importantly, get used to normal weight fluctuations and don't react to them or that will feed your anxiety. It does get easier over time so take time and remember to enjoy your success not fear it.

ronsperber

It sounds like a lot, but that's just about right. Most things I read say that to lose 1lb/week is a 500 cal/day net calorie reduction. I was shocked myself when my goal went up by about 700cal/day.

JeromeBarry1

All the above responses are very good. I have the same fears as OP but I'm not near maintenance yet. I do know that I'm eating way below mfp recommendations. What I plan to do is increase my calorie intake in stages before reaching goal and carefully watch the chart pattern to be sure I'm staying in control of my weight.

rosebarnalice

Yep--it's about right. I've been on maintenance since mid February, and it's about 600 higher than my deficit goal. In fact, I've actually lost about 8 lbs in the past 3 1/2 months, so I'm thinking about raising my maintenance goal by about 100 calories more a day.

AnnPT77

Increasing your calories by 100, then staying there for a couple weeks or so to see if you're still losing, can be a good way to go. It may make you drop past your goal weight, but when you do hit maintenance calories you may see a little water weight gain from glycogen replenishment, so dropping a little below isn't a bad idea. This (the 100 cals & wait/watch) thing is pretty much what I did when trying to home in on my maintenance calories.

If you really lost 8 pounds in about 14 weeks, and you were on target with careful logging and generally hit your calorie goal, then it seems like you might eventually end up raising your daily goal by about 285 calories (8 pounds / 14 weeks = .57 pounds per week; 0.57 pounds per week x roughly 3500 calories per pound = 1995 calorie weekly deficit; 1995 calories weekly deficit / 7 days in a week = 285 calories a day.)

600 calories would be correct if you'd been losing about 1.2 pounds a week on average (600 daily calories x 7 days in a week = 4200 calories per week; 4200 calories / roughly 3500 calories in a pound = 1.2 pounds a week weight loss).

Edited to add: But you might want to check my figures. I tend to be pretty good at math, but bad at arithmetic (I usually know which formulas to use, but often fail to carry the one).