hey-treat meals

zfitgal

Hi, I'm not at maintenance yet but I'm curious, so any of you go out and have a treat meal once a week where you eat whatever you want? And if so how do u budget your calories for the rest of the week?

rosebarnalice

While I log every day, I pay more attention to my weekly average. I tend to have two or three weekdays 100 - 300 calories below my goal, and that gives me anywhere from 300 and 1000 calories to blow on a "screw it" day.

AnnPT77

My routine daily goal is a little (not a lot) under my actual maintenance, with the assumption that once a week or so I'll go out for dinner or something and want some extra calories to work with. It can't be "whatever I want" either, at least not very often. Even as a li'l ol lady, I'm still fully capable of eating 5000 calories in a day (TDEE around 2300).

It's not a scheduled thing, either, where I have designated meal at a designated time every week. I don't let the deficit add up super far, though, if no occasion comes up.

I'm not very good at structure in my life, so the idea of a regularly scheduled treat meal is alien to my personality. Either way, it's a budgeting question.

zfitgal

AnnPT77 wrote: »

My routine daily goal is a little (not a lot) under my actual maintenance, with the assumption that once a week or so I'll go out for dinner or something and want some extra calories to work with. It can't be "whatever I want" either, at least not very often. Even as a li'l ol lady, I'm still fully capable of eating 5000 calories in a day (TDEE around 2300).

It's not a scheduled thing, either, where I have designated meal at a designated time every week. I don't let the deficit add up super far, though, if no occasion comes up.

I'm not very good at structure in my life, so the idea of a regularly scheduled treat meal is alien to my personality. Either way, it's a budgeting question.

how did you work your way to maintenance? did you add 100 calories each day for a week until you gained a bit?how does it work

AnnPT77

Different people do it different ways.

I had been gradually slowing my weight loss (intentionally) as I got closer to goal. So by the time I said "I'm there", I was already pretty close to maintenance calories. then I added maybe 100 daily at a time, but would wait to see whether I was still losing, holding steady or gaining before adding more. With each addition, it took longer to figure out whether the last add had stabilized things, or not. So, it would be 1, 2 maybe more weeks between adding each hundred.

In that process, I overshot goal weight by about 4 pounds (i.e., lighter than desired). This was OK with me, because I wasn't sure whether I'd see a jump in the scale (from glycogen replenishment/water weight) when I hit actual maintenance calories. Since I planned a plus/minus 3 pounds maintenance range (wider than my typical daily fluctuations), I started just below the bottom of my range. (This was around February 2016.)

At this precise moment, I'm a few pounds above the top of my maintenance range, mainly from some unreasonable behavior in September/October that didn't get reversed (and didn't get worse) over my birthday (November) and the holiday season from November through December. I'm now in a very tiny deficit to work my way back down within range (will require 3-4 pounds loss), very slowly - maybe by summer.

Some people stop logging in maintenance. I don't foresee myself doing that anytime soon. I am a lot more lax, though, skipping the occasional day, when I was almost religious about it while losing.

zfitgal

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Different people do it different ways.

I had been gradually slowing my weight loss (intentionally) as I got closer to goal. So by the time I said "I'm there", I was already pretty close to maintenance calories. then I added maybe 100 daily at a time, but would wait to see whether I was still losing, holding steady or gaining before adding more. With each addition, it took longer to figure out whether the last add had stabilized things, or not. So, it would be 1, 2 maybe more weeks between adding each hundred.

In that process, I overshot goal weight by about 4 pounds (i.e., lighter than desired). This was OK with me, because I wasn't sure whether I'd see a jump in the scale (from glycogen replenishment/water weight) when I hit actual maintenance calories. Since I planned a plus/minus 3 pounds maintenance range (wider than my typical daily fluctuations), I started just below the bottom of my range. (This was around February 2016.)

At this precise moment, I'm a few pounds above the top of my maintenance range, mainly from some unreasonable behavior in September/October that didn't get reversed (and didn't get worse) over my birthday (November) and the holiday season from November through December. I'm now in a very tiny deficit to work my way back down within range (will require 3-4 pounds loss), very slowly - maybe by summer.

Some people stop logging in maintenance. I don't foresee myself doing that anytime soon. I am a lot more lax, though, skipping the occasional day, when I was almost religious about it while losing.

Thank you so much, this was very educational. did you have an idea what your maintenance calories would be before hitting them? I know fitness competitors reverse diet after competing to get back to maintenance. So the norm is add 100 a week and see where it tAkes you. Did you feel bloated during the increase...how many more calories did you have to add before you were maintaining?

AnnPT77

zfitgal wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Different people do it different ways.

I had been gradually slowing my weight loss (intentionally) as I got closer to goal. So by the time I said "I'm there", I was already pretty close to maintenance calories. then I added maybe 100 daily at a time, but would wait to see whether I was still losing, holding steady or gaining before adding more. With each addition, it took longer to figure out whether the last add had stabilized things, or not. So, it would be 1, 2 maybe more weeks between adding each hundred.

In that process, I overshot goal weight by about 4 pounds (i.e., lighter than desired). This was OK with me, because I wasn't sure whether I'd see a jump in the scale (from glycogen replenishment/water weight) when I hit actual maintenance calories. Since I planned a plus/minus 3 pounds maintenance range (wider than my typical daily fluctuations), I started just below the bottom of my range. (This was around February 2016.)

At this precise moment, I'm a few pounds above the top of my maintenance range, mainly from some unreasonable behavior in September/October that didn't get reversed (and didn't get worse) over my birthday (November) and the holiday season from November through December. I'm now in a very tiny deficit to work my way back down within range (will require 3-4 pounds loss), very slowly - maybe by summer.

Some people stop logging in maintenance. I don't foresee myself doing that anytime soon. I am a lot more lax, though, skipping the occasional day, when I was almost religious about it while losing.

Thank you so much, this was very educational. did you have an idea what your maintenance calories would be before hitting them? I know fitness competitors reverse diet after competing to get back to maintenance. So the norm is add 100 a week and see where it tAkes you. Did you feel bloated during the increase...how many more calories did you have to add before you were maintaining?

For me - can't speak for others - the whole process was less recipe-like or well-defined than what I've said makes it sound. So the only answers I can give you are kind of waffle-y.

Long before I reached maintenance, I knew that the calculators did not give me correct answers about the calories I needed to eat for a certain rate of weight loss. For whatever reason, I'm a statistical outlier. However, based on my actual loss experience, and the fact that I logged consistently and as accurately as I could manage, I reached the point where my personal loss rate was quite predictable to me. Around 3500 calories of cumulative deficit was still pretty much resulting in a pound of loss, it's just that the calories to accomplish that were unusual for my age/size/activity level.

Obviously, there's always some degree of error (or estimation, if you prefer) in logging. Apple A isn't as sweet as apple B, one has to estimate some restaurant meals or eating in other people's homes, occasionally one inevitably forgets to log something, that sort of thing. It isn't perfect. So, any calculations are going to be approximate.

So, as I got closer to goal, when I was still losing (say) a pound a week, I knew I must be averaging about a 500 calorie daily deficit. This was confirmed by the fact that if I substantially overate for a day or two, I could quite accurately estimate my gain (or days to be back at previous low). So, I had an idea of my maintenance calories because at (say) 10 pounds to goal, with a 250 calorie deficit, my then-current maintenance calories must be on average what I was eating daily plus 250. Because I was getting close to goal weight, maintenance calories at goal wouldn't be wildly lower than that estimate. Make sense?

The closer I got to goal weight, the closer I got to current-weight maintenance calories being equal to goal-weight maintenance calories (but the more my loss rate got obscured by daily weight fluctuations from water weight or whatever), and the larger the impact of the inevitable estimation errors, so there was still approximation involved.

Also, around this time, I found the MFP exporter tool, and used that. It gave me similar answers to what I was estimating, so that helped. (myfitnesspal.com/blog/EvgeniZyntx/view/mfp-data-export-tool-the-overview-659927 ),

I can't truly say that I know my maintenance calories exactly now. For one, I do that crazy "eat a little under most days, and a lot over once in a while" thing. (It would be easier to estimate if I ate at the same level every day, or at least on some consistent schedule.) For two, I've learned that my NEAT varies a little (loosely) in Summer vs. Winter, plus randomly within each, so that muddies the waters a bit. But I have a pretty decent idea of daily maintenance calories, say within 10%-ish.

The body weight range helps me manage despite the imprecision. If I'm over the upper bound body weight for more than a day or two, I need to cut back for a while (which is exactly what I didn't do in September/October - LOL - after doing this whole routine successfully for maybe 8 months.)

Just as a piece of background, I'm still using the MFP NEAT approach, and eating back exercise separately (not always all the calories on the same day, though). My summer exercise is outdoors & weather dependent, so a bit unpredictable. I'm more of a flake in Winter about exercise, because I love my summer activities more. So, NEAT works better for me. TDEE might work better for someone with a more consistent exercise schedule.

How many calories did I add? Remember, I'd been slowing my loss rate for a long time, from 2 pounds per week, to 1.5, then 1, then 0.5. I lost most of my 60-some pounds at around 1400-1600 net, which is probably on average 1600-2000 gross, depending on the day. I think my NEAT maintenance is around 2000, plus or minus 100. My TDEE is probably around 2300 (ish) but that varies by season. Most of the time, my daily goal is 1800-1900 net, and the accumulated deficit (between that and roughly 2000 actual daily NEAT) gets used up maybe once or twice a week on special meals.

Did I feel bloated when going to maintenance? Not that I recall - but remember, it was slow. That would make it tend to get lost amongst daily water-weight fluctuations.

One last thought: A weight-trending app can be helpful, something like Happy Scale for Apple, Libra for Android, Trendweight, or others. However, doing that "under most days, over occasionally" makes the trend line jump around. Daily weight fluctuations or even trend fluctuations don't freak me out too much - I'm a low-drama person, and I understand the underlying statistics at a general level.

Jeez, this is long. And it's bedtime here. Apologies for being so wordy . . . but you did ask.

zfitgal

AnnPT77 wrote: »

zfitgal wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Different people do it different ways.

I had been gradually slowing my weight loss (intentionally) as I got closer to goal. So by the time I said "I'm there", I was already pretty close to maintenance calories. then I added maybe 100 daily at a time, but would wait to see whether I was still losing, holding steady or gaining before adding more. With each addition, it took longer to figure out whether the last add had stabilized things, or not. So, it would be 1, 2 maybe more weeks between adding each hundred.

In that process, I overshot goal weight by about 4 pounds (i.e., lighter than desired). This was OK with me, because I wasn't sure whether I'd see a jump in the scale (from glycogen replenishment/water weight) when I hit actual maintenance calories. Since I planned a plus/minus 3 pounds maintenance range (wider than my typical daily fluctuations), I started just below the bottom of my range. (This was around February 2016.)

At this precise moment, I'm a few pounds above the top of my maintenance range, mainly from some unreasonable behavior in September/October that didn't get reversed (and didn't get worse) over my birthday (November) and the holiday season from November through December. I'm now in a very tiny deficit to work my way back down within range (will require 3-4 pounds loss), very slowly - maybe by summer.

Some people stop logging in maintenance. I don't foresee myself doing that anytime soon. I am a lot more lax, though, skipping the occasional day, when I was almost religious about it while losing.

Thank you so much, this was very educational. did you have an idea what your maintenance calories would be before hitting them? I know fitness competitors reverse diet after competing to get back to maintenance. So the norm is add 100 a week and see where it tAkes you. Did you feel bloated during the increase...how many more calories did you have to add before you were maintaining?

For me - can't speak for others - the whole process was less recipe-like or well-defined than what I've said makes it sound. So the only answers I can give you are kind of waffle-y.

Long before I reached maintenance, I knew that the calculators did not give me correct answers about the calories I needed to eat for a certain rate of weight loss. For whatever reason, I'm a statistical outlier. However, based on my actual loss experience, and the fact that I logged consistently and as accurately as I could manage, I reached the point where my personal loss rate was quite predictable to me. Around 3500 calories of cumulative deficit was still pretty much resulting in a pound of loss, it's just that the calories to accomplish that were unusual for my age/size/activity level.

Obviously, there's always some degree of error (or estimation, if you prefer) in logging. Apple A isn't as sweet as apple B, one has to estimate some restaurant meals or eating in other people's homes, occasionally one inevitably forgets to log something, that sort of thing. It isn't perfect. So, any calculations are going to be approximate.

So, as I got closer to goal, when I was still losing (say) a pound a week, I knew I must be averaging about a 500 calorie daily deficit. This was confirmed by the fact that if I substantially overate for a day or two, I could quite accurately estimate my gain (or days to be back at previous low). So, I had an idea of my maintenance calories because at (say) 10 pounds to goal, with a 250 calorie deficit, my then-current maintenance calories must be on average what I was eating daily plus 250. Because I was getting close to goal weight, maintenance calories at goal wouldn't be wildly lower than that estimate. Make sense?

The closer I got to goal weight, the closer I got to current-weight maintenance calories being equal to goal-weight maintenance calories (but the more my loss rate got obscured by daily weight fluctuations from water weight or whatever), and the larger the impact of the inevitable estimation errors, so there was still approximation involved.

Also, around this time, I found the MFP exporter tool, and used that. It gave me similar answers to what I was estimating, so that helped. (myfitnesspal.com/blog/EvgeniZyntx/view/mfp-data-export-tool-the-overview-659927 ),

I can't truly say that I know my maintenance calories exactly now. For one, I do that crazy "eat a little under most days, and a lot over once in a while" thing. (It would be easier to estimate if I ate at the same level every day, or at least on some consistent schedule.) For two, I've learned that my NEAT varies a little (loosely) in Summer vs. Winter, plus randomly within each, so that muddies the waters a bit. But I have a pretty decent idea of daily maintenance calories, say within 10%-ish.

The body weight range helps me manage despite the imprecision. If I'm over the upper bound body weight for more than a day or two, I need to cut back for a while (which is exactly what I didn't do in September/October - LOL - after doing this whole routine successfully for maybe 8 months.)

Just as a piece of background, I'm still using the MFP NEAT approach, and eating back exercise separately (not always all the calories on the same day, though). My summer exercise is outdoors & weather dependent, so a bit unpredictable. I'm more of a flake in Winter about exercise, because I love my summer activities more. So, NEAT works better for me. TDEE might work better for someone with a more consistent exercise schedule.

How many calories did I add? Remember, I'd been slowing my loss rate for a long time, from 2 pounds per week, to 1.5, then 1, then 0.5. I lost most of my 60-some pounds at around 1400-1600 net, which is probably on average 1600-2000 gross, depending on the day. I think my NEAT maintenance is around 2000, plus or minus 100. My TDEE is probably around 2300 (ish) but that varies by season. Most of the time, my daily goal is 1800-1900 net, and the accumulated deficit (between that and roughly 2000 actual daily NEAT) gets used up maybe once or twice a week on special meals.

Did I feel bloated when going to maintenance? Not that I recall - but remember, it was slow. That would make it tend to get lost amongst daily water-weight fluctuations.

One last thought: A weight-trending app can be helpful, something like Happy Scale for Apple, Libra for Android, Trendweight, or others. However, doing that "under most days, over occasionally" makes the trend line jump around. Daily weight fluctuations or even trend fluctuations don't freak me out too much - I'm a low-drama person, and I understand the underlying statistics at a general level.

Jeez, this is long. And it's bedtime here. Apologies for being so wordy . . . but you did ask.

i am saving this for when Im ready for maintenance. Thank you so much for your time