Fewer calories to maintain than to lose?

scotstramp

I have reached my goal weight, so switched to maintain. My losing calorie budget was 1600; now it is 1560. What's going on?

iwontgiveuptoday

Did you adjust your activity level?

I think rather than letting MFP decide your calories for you, look at how much you were eating and how fast you were losing. If you were losing a pound a week, try 2100 calories and see if you maintain on it or not (try it for 2 weeks and weigh 1-4x a week- average it all out as there will be minor fluctations). If you lose, up it a little, if you gain, either lower it or exercise a little more. Works a lot better as your body knows you better than MFP

lorrpb

Perhaps it had been awhile since you adjusted your weight in MFP to recalc. In reality, maintenance cals will always be higher than losing cals.

cwolfman13

scotstramp wrote: »

I have reached my goal weight, so switched to maintain. My losing calorie budget was 1600; now it is 1560. What's going on?

If you were losing on 1600 then there's no way mathematically that your maintenance would be lower. Beyond that, at this point you should have all of the data you need to determine your own maintenance calories...your own data is going to be far more accurate than some estimate spit out by some calculator.

trigden1991

Your maintenance now will be lower than your dieting calories to begin with if you've lost a lot of weight. However if you were losing weight on 1600 then maintenance is above that.