How to Find Your Maintenance Calorie Level
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dralicephd wrote: »dralicephd wrote: »Ok, I think I'm ready for maintenance....
Wish me luck!
Good luck! Let us know how it goes... I try to have faith in the maths too, so it will be interesting to see how you get on. Thanks.
Thanks for the reminder!
It is now a month later and the math works! I've been sitting at about 144 (+/- 1 pound) the entire time.
Yay data and numbers!
Yay! Well done.
Like Ann said above, I think of Maintenance as a range of a few pounds. For me it takes a whole lot of over-eating for quite a long period of time to really gain more than a couple pounds, BUT when I first came off weight-loss I could gain fairly easily.
That first year after I lost 80 pounds was not an indication of how the rest of my life would be. I've made many adjustments (up) in my food intake since 2008 when I first lost the weight. That first year was a real balancing act for me.4 -
In a sense, some of us think the definition of maintenance is "cyclically gaining then losing the same 2 (3) (5) pounds". It's a little bit of a range, and managing it is very possible. IMO, it's possible to overstress oneself, trying to narrow it tooooo much.
In theory, I agree with everything above. I had successfully maintained for over 5 years, rarely weighing myself, but accepting that my weight was probably fluctuating up and down a bit. I was fine with that, it didn't stress me out, and I didn't feel I needed a number on the scales to reassure me I was doing OK.
However, these last few months or so, I have really started to struggle but I know it is mainly in my head. During lockdown, which coincided with a change in lifestyle/daily routine because I retired, I became aware that I was losing weight (through slightly undereating, but mainly through increased exercise), and this 'problem' has become a bit of an obsession with me, and I am REALLY annoyed with myself that I have allowed it to become such.
I know my weight shouldn't get any lower, so I am increasing my calories... hence my 'maths test' comment. I will weigh myself again soon, purely to reassure myself that I am doing OK, and possibly to give me the courage to increase a bit more.
Having a weight range during maintenance is definitely something I agree with. Since I started maintenance at the end of 2014, and while I don't have a lot of actual data to back it up, I knew my weight would be fluctuating, but that didn't stress me out. I was quite happy just knowing all my clothes fitted and I looked OK!
The over stressing has just been in the past 6 months or so, as I accepted that my weight had dropped. Physically, eating more isn't a problem because I can always eat more, the battle is more a mental one. Hopefully once my weight stabilises again at a higher number, give or take normal fluctuations, I can relax again.
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WinoGelato wrote: »Stickie! Stickie! Stickie!
Seriously great post. I think the only other thing that I add is that just like being comfortable with a maintenance range of weight (mine is about a 5 lb range and I count the midpoint as my actual weight) , I view my maintenance cals as a range as well. Because of variable activity, and my approach of eating lighter during the week and more on weekends I usually say my maintenance calorie range is 2100-2300. I think it's helpful for me - but I've been maintaining for a few years now and use a FitBit so I feel pretty confident in the upper limit of that range.
Can I ask please what your maintenance weight is? I thought to maintain my 165 I should be eating 1700-1800 calories per the Mayo Clinic calculator.0 -
WinoGelato wrote: »Stickie! Stickie! Stickie!
Seriously great post. I think the only other thing that I add is that just like being comfortable with a maintenance range of weight (mine is about a 5 lb range and I count the midpoint as my actual weight) , I view my maintenance cals as a range as well. Because of variable activity, and my approach of eating lighter during the week and more on weekends I usually say my maintenance calorie range is 2100-2300. I think it's helpful for me - but I've been maintaining for a few years now and use a FitBit so I feel pretty confident in the upper limit of that range.
Can I ask please what your maintenance weight is? I thought to maintain my 165 I should be eating 1700-1800 calories per the Mayo Clinic calculator.
Gloria, she posted that in 2018. I haven't seen WinoGelato in the forums for a while.
Just use the 1700-1800 calories level for a month and see how you do. That's the only way you will find out...no one is going to be able to tell you the "right" number, because we all have varying routines, exercise levels, logging accuracies (or mistakes,) sleep, stress levels, hydration/salt intake, heat or cold, travel, hormones, etc.
Just for the record, I maintain my 140-145 pound weight on 2000-2300 calories a day, but I'm 15 years post-weight loss and I've logged food AND exercise for most of that time. That's how I did it. Trial and error and Time.
This is from your other thread:
Your current weight uptick is likely just due to one or many different things, it's not fat. Here, read this:I reached my 60 lb weight loss goal and added an extra 130 calories to my daily intake, in hopes of just maintaining the goal instead of continued weight loss. I gained an instant weight gain, not sinificant, but not sure what my intake should be now. I had a super fast weight loss, losing 60 lbs from Aug 17th, 2022. Where do I go from here? I was at 1430 calories and tried 1600 right after I reached my goal, but decided to cut back to 1500.
"The weird and highly annoying world of scale weight and fluctuations"
https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/2 -
This is an excellent thread. I have not been reading any of the maintenance posts yet, until now, because my focus has been on losing weight. Now that I have lost 110 lbs and weigh under 130, I have started thinking about it. I still have 4 or 5 more pounds to lose, but I am bookmarking this for later. I must admit, the idea of maintenance makes me nervous. As an habitual yo-yo dieter, never before have I approached maintenance with an intentional plan. This makes so much sense and, for me, will be so important to avoid regaining.4
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@Pdc654
Congratulations of your success so far and for sticking to it. Those last five pounds are notoriously difficult to lose, but it sounds like you've got the right attitude to succeed.
Two things you might consider as you approach your final goal are setting a goal weight RANGE and going ahead to figure out what your maintenance calories will look like at the one goal weight number.
Just like you've experienced with weight loss, you almost certainly won't weigh exactly the same every day. I have had swings up to six pounds from one day to the next. Usually that's an up-swing, and it does seem to take a few days to moderate back (salt, inflammation, post-workout kind of thing), but it's usually not more than just a few. Some might say if you are four pounds from your goal you are already in your maintenance range/goal range. My range is +/- five pounds.
It might be interesting to see what your calorie budget would be in maintenance today versus at five pounds lighter. If you eat at maintenance for your five-pound-lighter weight, you will slowly get to that weight. You could consider slowly moving towards that from whatever your current deficit is. Or just wait another month or so until you get to goal and then start experimenting.
Yes, it's still just the same mindset as losing weight, but you just increase the budget a little bit.
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This is an excellent thread. I have not been reading any of the maintenance posts yet, until now, because my focus has been on losing weight. Now that I have lost 110 lbs and weigh under 130, I have started thinking about it. I still have 4 or 5 more pounds to lose, but I am bookmarking this for later. I must admit, the idea of maintenance makes me nervous. As an habitual yo-yo dieter, never before have I approached maintenance with an intentional plan. This makes so much sense and, for me, will be so important to avoid regaining.
This is arguable off topic, but heck, I started the thread, so maybe I get to define what's on topic?
Speaking for myself, I found it helpful to start reading some of the threads here in the "Maintaining Weight" section somewhat before actually reaching goal. It sort of psychologically paved the path ahead, for me: Let me think about some of the implications, consider people's alternative ways of handling them, pick out what I thought would be good strategies for me, recognize obstacles or challenges I might encounter and make plans for handling the ones likely to apply to me, and more.
This may not be for everyone, but it helped me.
I completely get that nervousness about maintenance, because I've been there. Reading ahead about what to expect and how to handle it was reassuring, like looking at a good map to get oriented before moving to a new neighborhood. YMMV.
You'll do fine.:flowerforyou: 5 -
@AnnPT77 Because I'm short
(5' 3.5"), old (70 yr), female, and sedentary outside of intentional exercise, my maintenance calories per MFP are low. At weight of 130, it gives me 1348 cal. At a goal weight of 125, it gives me 1320. So a 28 cal differential for 5 less pounds.
Using Sailrabbit's Mifflin St Jeor scale, I am given 1304 at 130 lb, and only 1277 at 125 lb.
Using my actual logging, I found a 4 week period in Feb- Mar that I lost exactly 2 pounds, or .5 pound per week. Even though MFP gave me 1200 calories, I cannot eat that low and get enough protein so I basically have been using most of my activity for my deficit. During this 4 wk period of time my calories consumed averaged 1343 per day, which makes my TDEE 1593. At that time I weighed 133.6 -131.6 and my sedentary maintenance was about 1370.
I have not kept a close track of exercise up until now but I realize this will be more important to track as I go into maintenance.
One question I have as I start to hone in on my exercise calories. Do I figure the net calorie adjustment for exercise using the 1200 MFP gives me, or my maintenance calories. For example do I decrease a one hour of exercise gross calories by 1200/24 or by 1320/24 (maintenance at 125 lb)0 -
@Pdc654
It sounds like you've got a pretty good dataset to start from. Eating 1343 per day with an estimated TDEE of 1593 with a 250 calorie per day estimate and losing a half pound a week would suggest that these numbers were correct at that weight. So why not use those numbers as a starting goal for maintenance, but first subtracting those 28 calories that would be maintenance at your goal weight? That would be a starting budget of 1565. Now if it were me, I'd probably set my goal at 1551 because it's a palindrome and it's all an estimate to start from.
I'm not sure about your exercise question. I'm also not sure what you mean by using most of your activity for your deficit. I think you mean you added exercise to increase your allowed calories. I'm not sure if you logged those activities. If so, you're well on your way. If you have NOT been tracking your activity, you might go ahead and start so you have some idea of what calories it's estimated to use. You can adjust that starting target based on that. If you've already been tracking activity, you are positioned nicely with the 1551 goal for maintenance. My maintenance calories as a slightly taller man with a few extra pounds is 1771 before exercise. It would be a little less (or more), but I went with the palindrome because I'm dorky.
If you log your intentional exercise, MFP will adjust your daily goal from the base, so you don't actually have to do anything. Over time you can get an idea of what that net goal tends to be over time, and that might be helpful if you like to pre-plan what you eat to get close to the target. I ~almost~ always can eat ~something~ if I am far below goal. That happened a few times when I was doing a lot of hiking, but the last week or two, I haven't needed to.1 -
By the way, I do not have a fitness watch.0
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@mtaratoot. Thank you. Yes, that may well work. I have not been logging exercise but since I was eating at almost my sedentary maintenance and losing a half pound a week, that deficit came mostly from my exercise. I am going to start logging it now so I can get to know what that is more exactly. My question was on figuring the adjustment needed to record net exercise calories vs gross.0
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@mtaratoot . Just re-read your reply. So what your saying is that MFP will automatically adjust my gross exercise calories to net if I manually enter them?0
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@Pdc654
Sure will. Try it out. Go ahead and check what your current up-to-the-moment diary says you have left for the day, then tell MFP you just went on a walk for an hour. Check your food diary or main page again, and the amount of calories left should have gone up between 200 and 250 calories depending on what weight you told MFP you're at. Then go back to the exercise diary and delete the entry.... or go walk for an hour!0 -
Thank you, @mtaratoot!0
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@mtaratoot . Just re-read your reply. So what your saying is that MFP will automatically adjust my gross exercise calories to net if I manually enter them?
MFP doesn't do the gross-to-net conversion automatically for manually-logged exercise. (It sort of does the equivalent of that for synched fitness trackers from tracker manufacturers who implemented the synch interface correctly as it was designed to work).
Honestly, the difference of using 1200 as the base or 1320 as the base is 5 calories per hour, right? This is just my opinion, but that's not a difference I'd worry about, personally. Even if you exercise 5 hours per day, that's a whopping 25 calories difference, which is not even 2% of your 1320 base calories, and is probably in the realm of expected theoretical accuracy variation from stuff like "one apple is sweeter than the next" let alone day to day variation in daily life activity level.
And I'm guessing you're not likely exercising 5 hours a day, probably? I just threw that in there as an extreme case.
I don't exercise 5 hours a day (usually), and I really only personally bother adjusting for gross vs. net with long, very low calorie burn exercise, like a long, slow walk. (In those cases, I use https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs with the energy box set to "net", and override the MFP exercise database calories with what ExRX says. For more intense exercise of normal length (half an hour to an hour or so), I try to pick a rational estimating method, and ignore gross to net entirely. It just doesn't seem arithmetically large enough in context to worry about, to me. YMMV.
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@AnnPT77 . Lol. When you put it like that, no, it's really not even worth worrying about for 5 calories. But I did want to make sure I had the concept right. No, definitely don't exercise 5 hours a day. Normally do 4-5 hours a week of cardio then also trying to get back to 3 weight training sessions a week. Plus a 30 minute walk on Saturday. That's in the winter. In summer I do twice as much cardio, because I take back to back aqua aerobics classes. I just love the variety and intensity of the outdoor classes in the summer so I do more.1
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Bump. I’ll be needing to read and re-read this as I move into maintenance in October. I had no idea how nervous I would be about this.2
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