Mentally adjusting to more calories

mari5466

I reached my original weight loss goal this week of 115, and now I am gonna lose 5 more pounds to reach my new goal of 110 to have a little more flexibility in maintenance if my weight goes up. I changed my goal from 1100 to 1350, I am under 5 ft. I've learned by tracking my weight loss that 1100 net lets me lose a pound a week or so. My goal for maintenance is gonna be about 1600 so I chose 1350 as a half pound loss point. I am still not eating it most days because I think mentally I feel if I do I will somehow not reach my new goal or seeing my calories that high makes me panic a little. I know I wont gain weight but mentally I just seem to have a road block that says "Don't you dare eat that much!". I know physically I could easily eat that much. I was just curious if anyone else struggled with it mentally and what made you finally realize it was ok?

SideSteel

Some people struggle with this.

One thing you could do is make a smaller increase, to about 1250, and try that for 3-5 days and see how things go.

jyamiolk

I have been in maintenance for about 1.5 years after loosing 122 pounds. I have a daily struggle with increasing my calories and also adding carbs to prevent me from loosing additional weight. I maintained at 1800 calories a day but since February I started working out 4 days a week with HIIT and long runs. I have increased my calories to 2000 but kept on loosing weight. About a pound a month since February. I am down to 177 with 180 being my low end of the range. I upped my calories to 2200 and will see if my weight stabilizes. I am petrified with gaining weight which I thinks keeps my hyper focused on my caloric intake. It is something that hopefully in time will become easier and produce less anxiety.

LivingtheLeanDream

I actually loved having more calories and it took me no time at all adjusting. Going on for 4 years at maintenance now.

trigden1991

Try adding 100 per week for 4 weeks. No need to rush into it and if anything the prolonged deficit will mean that when you hit maintenance the scale will be less likely to jump up.

richardgavel

I agree with the idea in increasing in baby steps, say each week. You may run into what I did, recognizing that even if you don't meet your calorie goal for that week that you are meeting the prior weeks goal, which likely was a problem meeting a week ago.

lorrpb

Do the math and make your brain study it. CICO still works!