How did you begin?

admaarie

I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around how to truly eat at maintenance. I’ve lost 4 more lbs since checking my weight almost 3 weeks ago, so clearly I’m still losing even though I feel like I’m eating so much more.
Is a reverse diet necessary? Did you just plug in your new stats and started eating at the calories it provided you? Any and every method of how you began eating at maintenance will be helpful.
Thank you!

TavistockToad

Use your real life data. How much were you eating when you were losing weight? At what rate of loss?

kommodevaran

At first, I added 50 calories every couple of weeks, until I found my maintenance level. Then I got a great tip, to "mini-yoyo" - let my weight slowly rise towards the top of my range, and then cut treats and be a little more active until it drops towards the low end. I did this for a while, until I become more confident. Now I just weigh myself daily and jot down the number without much thought; my weight seems to just bob up and down within the limits I decided were a good level for me (55-58 kilos).

sijomial

Would question why you would return to a very basic estimate when you have your own data and results to go on?
If your weight loss is still trending down at over 1lb a week you are (more than likely) substantially under calories. Fluctuations and change of diet (even change of stress levels) can make a trend harder to spot over a short time period though so think back to your rate of loss before you decided you had hit maintenance ( see PS below ).

My method was unusual as I ate at maintenance 5 days a week during my weight loss phase so I knew my initial daily maintenance numbers anyway. But I did start to lose again after a while and had to increase slightly, that's not unusual. Maintenance isn't one calorie goal forever, your life will change and your calorie needs will change too. Making adjustments is normal.

PS
If you like maths then take the four weeks before maintenance as a sample, add up all your calories eaten then add 3500 for each pound you lost in that month. Divide that total by 28 and you have estimated your TDEE using your own data.

cwolfman13

I increased my calories until I stopped losing weight.

Given you data it would appear that you need to add in roughly 600-700 more calories per day.

admaarie

I think that’s the problem - I actually started tracking here later on in my journey (a month ago to be exact). I’ve been losing weight eating more intuitively since September. Then I began to get restrictive 6-7 months in, so I’m estimating my calories within this entire period of time were ranging anywhere from 1200 (I know - insanely low), and 1600. But I’m not too sure..even now I’m always questioning if I’m tracking everything as accurately as possible.

I’m gonna keep tracking and follow along with my data as suggested. I’ll weigh myself every few weeks tho, just because I have scale anxiety.

kommodevaran

Oh, daily weigh-ins is to prevent scale anxiety, too - it's no longer an "event", just routine, and any jumps are necessarily water, not fat. It also "forces" me to have easy, short term goal - eat well and move a little today - not wait until tomorrow, or next week, which always seems to "loom" - because I'll be weighing myself tomorrow too.

Sabine_Stroehm

cwolfman13 wrote: »

I increased my calories until I stopped losing weight.

Given you data it would appear that you need to add in roughly 600-700 more calories per day.

This. I wasn't counting when I lost, and in reality I don't know that I "increased" or just hit equilibrium. But yeah.

TavistockToad

admaarie wrote: »

I think that’s the problem - I actually started tracking here later on in my journey (a month ago to be exact). I’ve been losing weight eating more intuitively since September. Then I began to get restrictive 6-7 months in, so I’m estimating my calories within this entire period of time were ranging anywhere from 1200 (I know - insanely low), and 1600. But I’m not too sure..even now I’m always questioning if I’m tracking everything as accurately as possible.

I’m gonna keep tracking and follow along with my data as suggested. I’ll weigh myself every few weeks tho, just because I have scale anxiety.

have you increased your calories then?

admaarie

TavistockToad wrote: »

admaarie wrote: »

I think that’s the problem - I actually started tracking here later on in my journey (a month ago to be exact). I’ve been losing weight eating more intuitively since September. Then I began to get restrictive 6-7 months in, so I’m estimating my calories within this entire period of time were ranging anywhere from 1200 (I know - insanely low), and 1600. But I’m not too sure..even now I’m always questioning if I’m tracking everything as accurately as possible.

I’m gonna keep tracking and follow along with my data as suggested. I’ll weigh myself every few weeks tho, just because I have scale anxiety.

have you increased your calories then?

I have. There’s some days I’m eating around anywhere from 1700-2000. Then I’ll read somewhere that’s not the proper way to go about maintenance so I’ll ge freaked out and start eating slightly under for a day or two. So much info out there not sure how to go about this.

TavistockToad

admaarie wrote: »

TavistockToad wrote: »

admaarie wrote: »

I think that’s the problem - I actually started tracking here later on in my journey (a month ago to be exact). I’ve been losing weight eating more intuitively since September. Then I began to get restrictive 6-7 months in, so I’m estimating my calories within this entire period of time were ranging anywhere from 1200 (I know - insanely low), and 1600. But I’m not too sure..even now I’m always questioning if I’m tracking everything as accurately as possible.

I’m gonna keep tracking and follow along with my data as suggested. I’ll weigh myself every few weeks tho, just because I have scale anxiety.

have you increased your calories then?

I have. There’s some days I’m eating around anywhere from 1700-2000. Then I’ll read somewhere that’s not the proper way to go about maintenance so I’ll ge freaked out and start eating slightly under for a day or two. So much info out there not sure how to go about this.

in what way would eating 1700 - 2000 cals not the 'proper way' to do maintenance? i don't understand?

given that the average sedentary woman maintains on 2000 cals, that's still a pretty low number?

yirara

I did it the same way as you: complaining that I was still losing weight Worst thing is: I had all the data right in front of me. I'd gone through a lot of effort trying to figure out how much calories my various types of workouts burn, and what my rate of loss is if not working out. Thus the data was all there. While MFP gave me about 1540 for maintenance I would have known was in fact around 1750 just by looking at my data *facepalm*

LivingtheLeanDream

I wish I could have said I was still losing weight LOL, my loss was always extremely slow, it was more like 0.5 every other week - in other words I was eating too close to maintenance already. So maintenance has been fine, it didn't take to long to figure out the number of calories I could eat weekly to stay the same weight.

Go by your rate of loss per week, that's how you'll basically know how many calories you can add per day to maintain.

sytchequeen

I'm currently trying to get my maintenance calories sorted out. I've created a spreadsheet for the last couple of weeks, and will do so for another few weeks, and am putting my daily logged calories on there. I then calculate the average daily calories for the week, and whether my trend is up, down, or same.

Hopefully I will have enough data in a month or two to figure out what my average daily calories are to maintain.

That might seem like I'm over thinking it. But that would be my style.. hahahaha

rainbow198

I didn't have an aggressive calorie deficit losing weight, but when I moved to maintenance I:

- Slowly upped my calories.
- Paid more attention to the workouts/activities I was doing.
- Tried to avoid high sodium meals the day or 2 before weighing in (the water weight masks the scale weight).
- I stepped on the scale more often to monitor my weight. I was never a daily weigher.

Every calorie calculator I used was actually too low in calories for my body. So I had to keep upping the higher calories which was not only scary at the time, but frustrating because I was still losing weight. It took some time for me to figure things out.

hesn92

I would just increase your calories based on your results (calculating it using how many calories you've been eating and how fast you've been losing weight) Or just increase it by something that you can handle, like increase it by 300 a day and do that for a while, keep weighing yourself, if you're still losing, increase by another 200, etc. Until you're not losing weight anymore.

iowalinda

TavistockToad wrote: »

given that the average sedentary woman maintains on 2000 cals

Maybe that's "average", but it leaves a large number of women out. Age and height has a lot to do with it also. I am a 64 yo female and would be gaining if I ate 2000 cals a day.

admaarie

Thank you all for your insights and suggestions. I’m gonna keep tracking. I guess coming from a background of overeating I find it strange that some days I’m eating anywhere from 1700-2000 caloriesand still losing and maybe it’s just freaking me out a bit to increase.

TavistockToad

iowalinda wrote: »

TavistockToad wrote: »

given that the average sedentary woman maintains on 2000 cals

Maybe that's "average", but it leaves a large number of women out. Age and height has a lot to do with it also. I am a 64 yo female and would be gaining if I ate 2000 cals a day.

Do you know what 'average' means? :huh:

SummerSkier

Maintenance is also not static. The MOST important part of maintaining is keeping your eyes open and taking action to either eat more or less as your personal goal (clothes, weight, fitness) dictates. I rarely eat the same # of calories a day. I do track mostly and I do weigh pretty frequently. But that's also the beauty of being in maintenance. Good luck.

AnnPT77

I calculated my maintenance from my logging data, but mostly as reassurance: I gradually increased intake until stable, more or less. Anecdotally, for some people, the gradual increase can lead to a higher than predicted maintenance calorie level. (Perhaps its that some people's energy level thus NEAT is more sensitive to calorie deficit or its lack.)

And I've weighed every day since long before weight loss, and noted the result, which has led me to be very unemotional about fluctuations. (It's just data.) A weight trending app (Happy Scale for iOS, Libra for Android, Trendweight . . . .) may be helpful, too, but even these can mislead for a short time, and definitely won't give you a good trend until there's a few weeks of data.

There's a post I wrote here about some alternative ways to find the right calorie level, if that's of any help:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10638211/how-to-find-your-maintenance-calorie-level

nxd10

I lost weight for several months after I went to 'maintenance'. I had first upped by 250 calories, then (when I was still losing) upped another 250, which should have been maintenance. I slowed down. Eventually (I've been doing this 6 years), I had to drop down another 250. I don't know if that's because my logging is sloppier (I don't think so) or I've gotten older and my body has changed.

But it is truly my belief and experience that we have certain set points that it's easier for our bodies to hit. For me, I was 175, 160, 150, and 140. I can move off those weights (they're really ranges), but it takes work. But once I'm on them, I can have a lot of variation in my diet and exercise and my body just SITS at that weight. 150 is my 'natural' healthy weight, I think. I got grumpy lower than that because I run out of calories. I returned to it after both kids easily. That's where I like to maintain (I'm 5'10" and 'rose' shaped - it looks good on me).

I went to maintenance at 150, but my body was still in that downward slide mode and I didn't really stop until 142. I had to up my calories a lot (see above) to get back to 150. But then I maintained there a long time.