Using my future calorie maintenence to lose weight?

Cheesy567

For those believing weightloss will be slower with this method, you're only considering the near-maintenance end of the process. At the start, your weightloss is faster, as the deficit is much larger than MFP's default 1 pound per week.

I'm 5'10'', SW 330 and CW 292.4 (large swings weekly due to medical treatments, though). My estimated TDEE at 180lbs, for sedentary activity, is 1735 or therabouts. For ease of math I have set my MFP daily calorie goal at 1750.

My current BMR at 295lbs is about 2100 cal. My current TDEE for sedentary activity is about 2350. I am losing weight faster than 1 pound per week, when my medical condition is fairly stable (when it's flaring, all bets are off, and I don't have a goal of weightloss when that's the case anyways!).

I am aware that this rate of loss will taper off over time. I'm ok with that. My goal isn't a number on the scale, although it's a fun and easy measure to follow progress. My ultimate goal is to maximize my activity and exercise tolerance. Every pound lost helps lighten the load for my muscle disease and make that goal easier to obtain. I don't care if the "last 5 pounds" takes months or years or decades to come off... I have very little control over that, as it's ultimately dependent upon adequate treatment of my underlying disease and my capacity to exercise. The nature of that disease is such that the harder I try to exercise and strengthen my muscles, the weaker the muscles become and the more life-threatening the disease process can become. The process described by the OP is the best option for me to quickly and permenantly lose the weight I need to. (I've been on a medical VLCD in the past, and re-gained the weight after a few years mainentance with a disease flare. That 80lbs plus 50 more came on over 4 months, approximately the same amount of time it took to lose. It's taken me two years to stabilize and "heal" my metabolism after that.).

I'm happy that I've found a macro ratio that has stopped cravings despite high-dose steroids. My daily calorie allotment is 1750, but my weekly averages tend to be more in the 1630 range, indicating more than adequate satiety. I have maintained my baseline strength, made some small gains in strength that vary day-to-day, and am losing BF%; I interpret these points to suggest that I am successfully maintaining my muscle mass while losing mostly fat.

MFP's recommendations are good, but by no means the only way to structure a weight-loss plan. An idea shouldn't be discarded out-of-hand because it's not something you've learned on the site here.

WA_mama2

You'll lose weight incredibly slow because your deficit will be very slight.

Your current weight needs to taken into count when figuring out an appropriate deficit.

cwolfman13

Cheesy567 wrote: »

For those believing weightloss will be slower with this method, you're only considering the near-maintenance end of the process. At the start, your weightloss is faster, as the deficit is much larger than MFP's default 1 pound per week.

It depends on how much weight you have to lose...I had to lose about 40 Lbs which I do not consider to be close to maintenance by any means. When I did the math looking into this model years ago it would have put me at just about 1/2 Lb per week loss which would have been really slow...it took me almost 9 months as it was.

Also, I don't think anyone is disregarding this methodology...just making the poster aware that it can be extremely slow going about it this way...there are a lot of people here, including myself that don't use the MFP methodology.

aylajane

tahxirez wrote: »

DWBalboa wrote: »

tahxirez wrote: »

DWBalboa wrote: »

She is not suggesting anything, she is asking a question which is indicated by the first sentence in her post. Would this work? She goes on to state she wants to lose weight, not build muscle or tone up which could change the approach. But by all means please do show me where the system builds in a deficit at the maintenance level that would allow you to lose weight at any discernible measure. Otherwise give the young lady viable data to prove that it would work as she has asked.
I myself have faith in the system as the system has been designed and have no need to try and out think it. Furthermore, I have seen people first hand try and out think it and fail and it has nothing to do with their activity level it’s all about CICO.
However, whichever method you attempt I wish you all the best of luck in reaching your goals.
V/r,
DW

Okay I'll break it down for you. Set your current weight as your GOAL weight. Choose MAINTAIN my weight. Eat calorie allowance given. This calorie allowance will be an actual deficit since you are not at your goal weight.

OP it will surely be slow but you could also stop eating back exercise calories closer to goal to create a more functional deficit.

Thank you but I did and this is the result:
currently weight 193 goal to lose 1 pound a week, calories 1530.
Current weight 193 as my goal weight, goal set to maintain, calories 2030
I set my current weight at what my targeted goal weight, 175 and set goal to maintain and my calories were still 1930.

So based on this I will be consuming 400 to 500 more calories than what I should consume to lose the targeted one pound a week. Now if I didn't want to lose weight that would work but I do as does the OP.

As I stated, I will have to take a review of the aforementioned book and see what the professionals say about this approach.

No you are just eating at a less aggressive deficit. which is why you see all these responses saying how slow the process will be and how accurate logging will need to be to make it work. For instance, I am in maintenances at sedentary MFP gives me 1600 to maintain at 125. I recently had a big weekend and wanted a small cut so I put in 1lb per week loss and MFP gave me 1200 trying to get to a 500 cal deficit. If I had entered 125 and maintain as my goal (I'm about 126) it would have given me 1600 cals. and my current maintenance 1lb heavier that 125 is a negligible amount higher than 1600. So in this case what approach makes more sense? If you have a decent amount to lose and don't have a problem with it going slow setting maintenance at goal is fine. Its a personal choice but either approach will get you there eventually if you're accurate and consistent.

And just to add as someone else mentioned - as you lose weight, hopefully you will gradually become more active.... So even though your maintenance calories will decrease as you lose weight, the increased activity could make those up - so if you do that, it will be a *little* faster than it would be otherwise. Again - all mind games and math - whatever you can stick to that puts you in a deficit - doesnt matter how you rationalize it to yourself for adherence purposes. This is just one option - if it doesnt make sense to you, dont do it.

STrooper

To the OP:

It does work.

While theoretically, your weight loss will slow to a crawl as you get closer and closer to your goal weight, in practice there are far too many daily variables to keep you from losing to your goal or beyond. First, is the accuracy and precision of your calorie intake. Second, is the daily change in activity level and pattern as well as food intake and pattern. Lastly (and this is not a complete list), is whatever other stimulus you are responding to on any given day, week, or month. As one saying goes, "constants aren't and variables won't."

If you wish to use a spreadsheet calculator that is full of really good information (and if you are inclined to put in the information), go to MFP member @Heybales page and look for the Weight Loss Calculator (spreadsheet). I have been using it for a while and most recently to drop to my running/racing weight.

heybales

STrooper wrote: »

To the OP:

It does work.

While theoretically, your weight loss will slow to a crawl as you get closer and closer to your goal weight, in practice there are far too many daily variables to keep you from losing to your goal or beyond. First, is the accuracy and precision of your calorie intake. Second, is the daily change in activity level and pattern as well as food intake and pattern. Lastly (and this is not a complete list), is whatever other stimulus you are responding to on any given day, week, or month. As one saying goes, "constants aren't and variables won't."

If you wish to use a spreadsheet calculator that is full of really good information (and if you are inclined to put in the information), go to MFP member @Heybales page and look for the Weight Loss Calculator (spreadsheet). I have been using it for a while and most recently to drop to my running/racing weight.

It allows a quick compare too between potential reasonable deficit and the eating at goal weight deficit.

Just stay on the Simple Setup and Progress tabs.
After looking over example stats in yellow cells - delete all that data only - enter your own for what you got.
Near the Your Results section farther down, on far right is a section for Eating For Future You, which gives that current TDEE, and eating at goal weight.
For eating level it actually takes a small 5% deficit, for exactly that issue of near goal weight deficit could disappear because of food logging inaccuracies.

TitaniaEcks

GalaxyGraves wrote: »

Would this work?

I was thinking that if I work out what my maintenance calorie intake would be of my goal weight, then start eating that calorie intake now, that I would loose weight until my goal then stop there.

It would definitely work, but it would be a very slow process compared to full-on dieting, which would cut more calories. If you can handle that, awesome.

BurnWithBarn2015

OP it works

We were with a group of people losing weight...some did indeed what you are talking about. And they lost weight just fine. But in the closer to goal weight it slowed down.

For the people who were very accurate they kept on losing weight. I know 2 of them lost till there were at their goal weight. They eat their exercise calories back.

So yes it works.

Noreenmarie1234

I don't think this would work for everyone. I maintain on the same calorie amount as I did 20-30lbs higher. I think it definitely would work for people who need to loose a LOT of weight, but not for people who are aiming to lose <50lbs.

dutchandkiwi

GalaxyGraves wrote: »

Would this work?

I was thinking that if I work out what my maintenance calorie intake would be of my goal weight, then start eating that calorie intake now, that I would loose weight until my goal then stop there.

It is a little along the lines of what I do, and have done for some about a year now. I investigated what my sedetary maintenace at my goal weihgt was using MFP, and my TDEE. For the latter I used a number of websites, plus I made sure it would be at a level where I want to maintain. Currently my fitbit tells me I burn often more (weekly on average is 250 cal more). On MFP my goal is set to that TDEE level, but when I look at my numbers I know my sedetary level.

My gross calorie intake is around my sedetary maintenance/goal weight MFP level. I log my excersise at my goal weight (just 3kg from it) So my excersise is at that weight and shows less calories lower than actual. At where I am now that difference is not too great anymore, but still.

For me this system worked, because it taught me very early on what I could do at maintenance level. Plus I just love analysis and numbers. So everything is in excel sheets with nice graphs (working on a 7- average). It sounds complex, but I found for me this worked better than the MFP standard way.

Seffell

It is practically almost impossible because as closer you get to your goal, the more and more precise and accurate you have to be about your intake/expenditure (at some point you'll have to make like 30 cals deficit and then less). It is impossible to calculate intake/burn to that precision. Also it would take oh so loooooong to achieve too