Upping calories to maintainance level

MACnificence

Hey

Just wondering can people share how they upped their calories to maintaince , what calories they went from while cutting and what are they maintainance calories like ?
Did you have a initial gain or did you continue to lose ?
How long did it take you to get it right ?

Also did you keep up the same level of exercise as you were doing while trying to lose

Would love to hear your guys stories

hunterman95

Good question, I'd like to know as well.

When I got within 25lbs of my goal, I moved my goal settings from 2lbs/week to 1.5lbs per week. I'm thinking when I get to within 15lbs of my goal (soon), I'll take it down to 1lb/week.

henriettevanittersum

I set my new goal to losing as little as possible (1/2 lbs per week I believe) and put it MFP when I was within 2 lbs of attaining GW. I now fluctuate up and down by roughly 4 lbs, eating 1400-1700 calories and reducing my workouts from 50 to 30 minutes, 4x a week. So far, so good... measurements have remained stable and my weight averages out at my initial GW. I eat pretty clean, though I "cheat" every day. I also make sure I eat at least 80 gr protein on a non workout day, and way more on a workout day. I have been maintaining for 6 weeks so far and a vacation is coming up, so I am curious to find out how that will go.

sijomial

@OP
I just amended my goal (custom setting) to add another 100 cals per day and repeated this process weekly.
As I was only losing slowly my difference between weight loss calories and maintenance calories wasn't very great, approx. 2500 to 3000 cals a week.

It took a bit of trial and error as weight loss/gain didn't always seem to match calories consumed.

Really you need to allow yourself a bit of wiggle room (I work on + or - 2lbs) from your goal weight or you will be constantly chasing perfection!

My exercise wasn't aimed at weight loss as I eat back all my exercise calories. If anything my exercise intensity has increased as I've replaced weight targets with strength and fitness goals.

@hunterman95
Taper off as you approach goal weight is very sensible.

dougii

When I was about two months from GW and my 10 - 12 pounds a month weight loss had started to taper off I started decreasing the amount I set on MFP from 2 lbs a week to 1.5 to 1, etc. I changed this approximately every two weeks. I have been maintaining for 9.5 months now and my weight varies within about a 5 pound range. I eat the same way that I did while losing the pounds and have kept up my exercise trying to burn between 800 - 1000 calories each day(I eat back most of my exercise calories).

I still track my food and exercise most days during the week but have stopped tracking on the weekends. Since this is a lifestyle change that I have been making for the past 20 months I figure I should be able to control myself and eat/drink/exercise properly without total support and tracking. So far this is working very well. I have stopped chasing the scale but pay more attention to how my clothes fit/look and what I see in the mirror.

Without exercise I am eating around 2200 calories a day which according to my doctor is just about perfect for someone of my height and stature. My BP is remaining good and I feel wonderful so all seems to be working as expected.

I will continue to monitor for a long time and am now thinking about losing another 15 pounds to get to my ultimate goal weight. Still debating this......

DavidMartinez2

I have MFP set to loose .5 lbs weekly and eat back most of my exercise calories. I have been fluctuating about 1 lb for a month now so it's pretty close. I also deduct 100 calories per hour from my HRM calorie calculations to account for BSR.

cwolfman13

As I got closer to goal I reduced my deficit to be about 0.5 Lbs per week. When I hit my goal and went to maintenance I upped calories slowly. I will add that I did the TDEE method, so I was grossing around 2,150 per day to lose 1 Lb per week...then about 2,400 as I came in for my landing and I eat between 2600 - 2700 now.

Note that it is completely normal to gain a good 3-5 Lbs or so; this isn't fat, it is water and your glycogen stores being filled with an increase in calories. This does bug some people, so they undershoot their goal so that when they add back their calories they're actually at whatever arbitrary goal weight they set for themselves. Personally, I could care less about water and glycogen...I'm only concerned with fat.

MACnificence

Great hearing all your stories , I'm definitely very nervous about maintainance I officially hit my goal weight yesterday and can't lie maintainance scares me because I am afraid of gaining again , I def think upping calories slowly is the way to go , I upped mine by 100 yesterday , will see how this week goes and continue to up by 100 till I find where I maintain

I also cut down cardio abit I was doing 70 minutes of cardio burning 700 calories have cut that down to 50minutes , so I can focus even more on strength training

I definitely think his is where the real journey starts but I'm up for the challenge

caseythirteen

I would definitely recommend taking the slow approach - especially since you changed two things at once. When I realized I was a bit lower than I wanted to be I went back and compared my losses to the previous two months of calorie levels and figured about what my maintenance level would be. I did up my calories to that for a bit (I custom set everything) but life got in the way and my schedule changed some so I have since brought them back down to about 150-200 calorie deficit. This accounts for the slight decline in exercise but also the fact that I always have one or two days a week that I totally blow my calories (which is OK with me) so I keep my controlled days a bit lower to help offset that. I don't want to go too low though since I need the energy to fuel my workouts.

ritchiedrama

I was losing 1 lb a week exactly, for about 3-4 weeks. So added 500 calories to that number = roughly maintenance.

I was at 1600 calories per day during cut.

Upped to 2100, stayed at that for 2-3 weeks, weight stayed stable.

Was that simple.

jacksonpt

I added 100 cals every 2 weeks until I hit my maintenance intake (for me, that's about 2300 + exercise).

themommie

Thanks tor sharing.imjust recently hit mainanence.itnis scary becausenthe thought of upping my cals and gaining back the weight terrifies me, but I am trying to find that balance

nxd10

I upped my exercise and got a fitbit. So I am EATING more calories but I am NETTING the same. My goal now is fitness not weight loss (which is good, because I'm not losing weight). Maybe it's because I'm older, but I don't think I use as many calories exercising as any of these monitors say I do.

MACnificence

So I went ahead and upped my calories last week by 100 to 1600 and I weighed myself mid week was down .6 of a IB from the Monday I think I weighed myself Wednesday or maybe Thursday but today I remain the same . Now I'm afraid to up my calories again today but I have been told I was netting way too low calories to begin with . 1500 calories a day I burned 6000 calories through cardio last week according to my HRM ,

Should I stay at 1600 calories ? I'm fairly active burning near 1000 a day 5-6 days a week

PaytraB

I'm slowly upping mine.
I was set to lose 1 lb/week, which is a 500 calorie/day deficit. When I reached 2 pounds above goal weight, I increased my daily calories by 250 (set to lose 1/2 lb a week) and got used to eating that amount.
As I got closer to goal weight, I increased my daily calories by 100 calories/day and after that 50 calories/day. I'm still not quite there and am losing weight at a very slow rate. Since it's almost a zero gain, I'm leaving things for the moment.

I am considering changing my setting from "sedentary" to "lightly active" and not eating back my exercise calories. It should work out to the same number of calories/week but with each day being the same number of calories (instead of lower on no-exercise days and eating more on exercise days).

Finding that balance for maintenance is a slow process.

ETA: since the weight gain/loss would be very slow, I'm only weighing myself once a month. So far, I'm maintaining within a quarter of a pound, which is making me nervous. I thought weight normally fluctuated more than that but as long as I'm maintaining, I think things are okay.

jacksonpt

So I went ahead and upped my calories last week by 100 to 1600 and I weighed myself mid week was down .6 of a IB from the Monday I think I weighed myself Wednesday or maybe Thursday but today I remain the same . Now I'm afraid to up my calories again today but I have been told I was netting way too low calories to begin with . 1500 calories a day I burned 6000 calories through cardio last week according to my HRM ,

Should I stay at 1600 calories ? I'm fairly active burning near 1000 a day 5-6 days a week

Considering you have no idea what you're doing, I wouldn't increase again at this point. Stay where you are for a month then re-evaluate. Go slow so you can really evaluate what's happening and whether or not a change you made worked. Making too many changes too quickly makes it impossible to know which of those changes are helping and which are hurting.

MACnificence

So I went ahead and upped my calories last week by 100 to 1600 and I weighed myself mid week was down .6 of a IB from the Monday I think I weighed myself Wednesday or maybe Thursday but today I remain the same . Now I'm afraid to up my calories again today but I have been told I was netting way too low calories to begin with . 1500 calories a day I burned 6000 calories through cardio last week according to my HRM ,

Should I stay at 1600 calories ? I'm fairly active burning near 1000 a day 5-6 days a week

Considering you have no idea what you're doing, I wouldn't increase again at this point. Stay where you are for a month then re-evaluate. Go slow so you can really evaluate what's happening and whether or not a change you made worked. Making too many changes too quickly makes it impossible to know which of those changes are helping and which are hurting.

So you think I should stick to the 1600 calories even though its given me a fairly high deficit and keeping in mind I want to reserve as much LBM as possible.

jacksonpt

So I went ahead and upped my calories last week by 100 to 1600 and I weighed myself mid week was down .6 of a IB from the Monday I think I weighed myself Wednesday or maybe Thursday but today I remain the same . Now I'm afraid to up my calories again today but I have been told I was netting way too low calories to begin with . 1500 calories a day I burned 6000 calories through cardio last week according to my HRM ,

Should I stay at 1600 calories ? I'm fairly active burning near 1000 a day 5-6 days a week

Considering you have no idea what you're doing, I wouldn't increase again at this point. Stay where you are for a month then re-evaluate. Go slow so you can really evaluate what's happening and whether or not a change you made worked. Making too many changes too quickly makes it impossible to know which of those changes are helping and which are hurting.

So you think I should stick to the 1600 calories even though its given me a fairly high deficit and keeping in mind I want to reserve as much LBM as possible.

I think you shouldn't make rash changes without A) knowing why you are making them, and being able to evaluate them.

MACnificence

Well I'm making changes because I've been told my calorie deficit is too large and can result in loss of LBM and with little to no weight to lose I shouldn't have a high deficit TDEE - 10% at most . So that's why I'm trying to make changes

jacksonpt

People give bad advice on the forums all the time.

The only thing you should be paying attention to is how your expected results compare with your actual results. If you are trying to lose weight and aren't, then what you're doing isn't working and you need ot change something. If you are trying to gain weight but aren't, then something isn't right. If you are trying to maintain but aren't... see where I'm going with this.

You made a change, when... last week? You haven't given it enough time to see how it's affected your goals/progress. You are trying to make decisions based on 1 week's worth of "results". Stop that.

And by the sounds of your posts, you have no idea what your maintenance is, so you have to be patient and figure it out. Nothing horrible is going to happen in a few weeks. Just be patient.

MACnificence

That's fair enough thanks for your input

nhradeuce

If you are losing what you expect to lose each week on the deficit you are currently on, then it's a fairly safe bet that you're tracking intake and expenditure pretty accurately. If so, then just up your calories to what MFP recommends for maintenance and see how it goes. If your week to week loss is not what you were expecting, then you are under or over tracking something and will just need to up your intake a little each week until you find what works for you.