New to Maintenance: still losing

gallicinvasion

Hello friends!

Long and short of it: I’m still losing like a pound a week even after I keep increasing calories to get to maintenance, and I think it’s because I’m too scared to go too close to maintenance calorie levels that I’ve calculated but that seem too high.

Coming off about 11 months of weight loss (total of 90 lbs). Been trying to maintain for 2 months, almost, and lost another 5 or 6 lbs in that time. Using 6 weeks of data, it seems like my maintenance calories are around 2300, which sounds NUTS to a 5’4” 29 yr old lightly active woman who lost her weight on between 1280 and 1700 calories a day.

I am trying to fill up the calories by making my regular meals bigger and having more treats, but I’m nervous that if I get too close to this 2300 goal, I’ll be tempting fate and returning to old ways of eating (fast-food addicted, huge portions, binging, etc). I currently eat about 1900-2000 on weekdays and 2200-2300 on weekends, but I’m still losing and I’m scared to bump up these numbers.

Logically I know that if I try a period of eating an average of 2300 a day, even if it’s too high for me and I start gaining, I can always bump it back down. But I think I’m so nervous that a big event is gonna pop up on the social calendar and I won’t have the calories for it, so I keep my weekday deficit just in case. It’s like I’m purchasing insurance on a big calorie blow-out that never comes, and that’s why I keep losing.

Has anyone else experienced this? It’s an interesting behavioral problem that I’m having trouble kicking, but I’d like to hear from you if you’ve felt something similar. Thanks!

pierinifitness

Congratulations on your amazing accomplishment. Savor in delight and be proud of all the hard work you did to arrive.

My maintenance experience mirrors yours. My two cents is it will all adjust on its own time which might differ from yours.

Behavior-wise, my mindset is there’s no way from here to the highway that I’ll drop my guard again because it’s too much work to chisel off extra weight. If I err on the side of being a little below the low of my ideal range, so be it, it’s not a major problem.

Great for you, enjoy your weekend strutting around being your “new” YOU.

pjwrt

'Grats!

I'm a few pounds under my target weight, but something has been bugging me for a while now. It's great we're concerned about our weight. I've been fit almost for my entire 61 years, but really...why are we obsessing about a pound or two?

I think relaxing and enjoying the challenge is better for the long term and less dramatic if the scale is wrong by a few pounds for weeks at a time. As long as it is only for a brief time.

Have fun. Being fit is the very best thing anyone can do for their body and mind, but it has got to be fun.

pierinifitness

Deleted, realized my comment belongs elsewhere, apologies.

spiriteagle99

I had the same issue. I ended up losing 10 extra pounds. Since then I've regained a few pounds, but am actually happy at this lower weight. I found the number that MFP gave me for maintenance to be too low, so I raised my goal by 200 calories and that seemed to work. Try eating at MFP's recommendation. If you continue to lose, increase your calories. If you start to gain, lower it. You should continue to log and weigh yourself until you find your balance point.

reversemigration

gallicinvasion wrote: »

It’s like I’m purchasing insurance on a big calorie blow-out that never comes, and that’s why I keep losing.

I love the way you phrase this, and funnily enough I was just about to comment on my weekly check-in that my weight has been continuing to slip below range for the past few weeks. I've been banking during the week for high calorie Sundays, but clearly my average CO > CI.

A mental block I'm working with is that I like to splurge. Rather than having small treats on most days and running a slight deficit to allow for slightly more on the weekend, I run a much larger deficit during the week so I can eat All The Food on Saturday or Sunday. Part of this is due to increased activity now that it's nice out, but the other part is either increasing CI during the week or on the weekend. Increasing CI on the weekend above and beyond what it currently is seems binge-y, so I need to convince myself to increase weekdays.

You're not the only one!

cmriverside

I've never understood the "banking" calories thing.

I have better results long-term by keeping up with my daily TDEE and eating the food on the day I need it.

Binge/restrict is too dangerous and reflects a mindset of lacking or of hoarding. That's a dangerous psychological place of fear for me.

MikePTY

First of all, congrats on your big loss. That's quite an accomplishment.

2300 calories tracks from what you are reporting though. You lost weight pretty aggressively (90 pounds in 11 months is close to 2 pounds a week), so if you were losing 2 pounds at around 1300, that means that you need 1000 more calories a day to hit maintenance, which would bring you to 2300. Since you were still losing well on up to 1700 a day, if anything, it seems like 2300 might still be a tad low for you. I'd imagine you're probably closer to 2500 🙈

I know that can seem daunting, but you can still work your way up there slowly. But if you do want to maintain, it seems likely that you are going to need a fair bit more.

One thing I've learned about big event/binge days is that if they are isolated and one off, they really do not affect your progress in any meaningful way. They will make the scale look scary for a few days, but the vast majority of that is water weight. It goes away after a few days.

We didn't gain all the weight we did by a day here and there of bad eating. It took consistent overeating to get us there. So you don't need catostrophic insurance, because one day can never knock the house down.

csplatt

You probably will gain about 2 lb at maintenance because there is more food sitting in your intestines each day, but it’s not fat! Hang in there!

gallicinvasion

cmriverside wrote: »

I've never understood the "banking" calories thing.

I have better results long-term by keeping up with my daily TDEE and eating the food on the day I need it.

Binge/restrict is too dangerous and reflects a mindset of lacking or of hoarding. That's a dangerous psychological place of fear for me.

Yeah I definitely feel like this calorie insurance thing I’m doing is coming from that place!

nxd10

I lost weight a while after upping my calories, then I evened off a few months in. Then I had to drop BACK on calories. I think your body knows where it wants to be. Make sure you eat ENOUGH. Then see where you settle.

gallicinvasion

MikePTY wrote: »

First of all, congrats on your big loss. That's quite an accomplishment.

2300 calories tracks from what you are reporting though. You lost weight pretty aggressively (90 pounds in 11 months is close to 2 pounds a week), so if you were losing 2 pounds at around 1300, that means that you need 1000 more calories a day to hit maintenance, which would bring you to 2300. Since you were still losing well on up to 1700 a day, if anything, it seems like 2300 might still be a tad low for you. I'd imagine you're probably closer to 2500 🙈

I know that can seem daunting, but you can still work your way up there slowly. But if you do want to maintain, it seems likely that you are going to need a fair bit more.

One thing I've learned about big event/binge days is that if they are isolated and one off, they really do not affect your progress in any meaningful way. They will make the scale look scary for a few days, but the vast majority of that is water weight. It goes away after a few days.

We didn't gain all the weight we did by a day here and there of bad eating. It took consistent overeating to get us there. So you don't need catostrophic insurance, because one day can never knock the house down.

Thank you for this! I definitely have to let all your comments reinforce the logical part of my brain trying to tell myself it’s okay to eat 2300 at an average. I still log all food, weigh big-calorie items, weigh myself, and record exercise, so as long as I keep these habits, the rest is just tweaking the number.