Diet success (not mfp) & switching to maintenance

Loseitdolly

My husband and I both just lost substantial amounts of weight doing the fast metabolism diet. We are now back to our “wedding” weight which for me after two kids in 3 years I didn’t know if it was possible! He went from 200.2 to 180 in 6 weeks. I went from 130.2 to 119.4 in 6 weeks. I would like to maintain at 120 and he at 180. We had planned to drop to a few pounds below goal weight to account for the glycogen effect. So assuming this week I can get to around 117-118, and he to 177-177 we would like to attempt to go off the diet and maintain next week! We are nervous since we have been following a specific foods list etc and not a calorie amount have no idea how much we have been eating and how many calories to increase?
My question is to current maintainers - should I trust the MFP maintenance number or err on the side of caution and start a few hundred calories lower and work up?
The book has pretty vague concepts for maintenance although my greatest take away moving forward will be to eat 5 times a day. I was a meal skipper, grabbing a pastry and coffee to compensate and then late night couch muncher before this diet and will not go back to those habits!
Appreciate any advice in advance! Have been reading posts too, just looking for some personal advice.

nowine4me

I don’t know anything about that diet, but if you liked eating that way, can you keep doing it and just add a few more calories?

PAV8888

My suggestion would be to read the first posts in each section that reference the stickies and see if calorie counting is appropriate for you.

It sounds like you've engaged in a VLCD and lost weight without any particular preparation for maintenance

Unfortunately this leaves you with having to figure out multiple things as you enter maintenance instead of learning them during the weight loss process.

My best advice to you had nothing to do with food. And everything to do with expectations and the ability to evaluate your progress and make adjustments.

Libra, happy scale trendweight.com and weighgrapher.com are all weight trend applications.

After you've loaded a few weeks of data, if your weight is going up consistently over a period of weeks, you're gaining weight.

If it is going down consistently over a period of weeks, you're losing weight.

Due to hormones, exercise, sodium, food in your gut and multiple other reasons water weight varies much faster than your underlying fat level.

What you probably want to adjust is your underlying fat level.

For myself with pretty accurate logging and no hormonal or significant exercise water retention variations I consider a 2-3lb trending weight swing over a period of weeks to be significant. Scale weight wise the top to bottom values might be as high as 5 to 8 lbs.

For many other people, especially if pre menopausal, I would consider a 3 to 5lb trending weight variation and/or 5 to 10lb scale variation to be significant if over a period of weeks.

If you look at the graphs you will understand better.

The important thing to understand is that people have weight ranges and you should respond and adjust based on trends over weeks as opposed to day to day scale spikes.

This is all I can offer you to help tilt your odds slightly more in your favour.

Set MFP to maintain, it will give you average calories for average people. Adjust based on trending weight results over a period of weeks. Your logging ability will also play a role.

Best of luck.

Loseitdolly

Well it worked a charm but is a little unrealistic because you have to eat in different phases throughout the week. Low fat high carb, low fat low carb & high fat moderate carb... And I’d like to add back in some of the forbiddens like dairy and soy and corn (I personally have never had issues with those).

PAV8888

You are looking at "types of foods" or "macros" as having a significant role to play in terms of whether you will lose or gain weight.

They are important for nutrition. They may or may not help you be more satiated. They do have small differences between them in terms of how they make energy available to your body.

But your actual balance between your Calories In and your Calories Out is what determines whether your body has to use up stored energy, or gets to store excess energy.

So, neither I nor anyone else can help you figure out WHAT to eat other than offer some general guidelines that fall withing generally accepted nutritional and common sense practices.

That you will have to figure out yourself. Which is why experimenting with maintenance eating while still losing weight is a great idea as you have an extra margin of error available in case some types of eating still leave you hungry!

pamfgil

Maybe log a weeks worth of what you have been eating so uou have some idea of calorie level

PAV8888

So apparently it is not a VLCD but does have specific inclusions and exclusions.

I second logging your day as you go along to see where you're at before discontinuing.

geltner1

MFP is adjustable. If you start with the proposed daily calorie allotment, weigh about 3 times per week and look for trends. Once it looks like you are gaining, adjust MFP to lower calories. If you continue weighing and along with your healthful food choices, you can read an equilibrium and maintain. It's not easy of course but you can do it. Good luck.

jfan175

pamfgil wrote: »

Maybe log a weeks worth of what you have been eating so uou have some idea of calorie level

Exactly. I'm on a strict program and my goal weight is in sight. I want to be prepared for the switch to maintenance. I've been logging everything for the past 3mos, so I have a good idea what I can expect from certain calorie intakes. Just as importantly, I've developed the habit of daily logging, measuring food portions and getting a good feel for accurate calorie estimations for my workouts.

LivingtheLeanDream

pamfgil wrote: »

Maybe log a weeks worth of what you have been eating so uou have some idea of calorie level

^^ this sounds like a good idea.

psychod787

Look up Paul revelia on you tube. He has some interesting ideas on reverse dieting. As well as layne Norton. Some people say there is no need to reverse diet, but it has helped me so far. I hope it does continue.