Approaching Maintenance

brittlb07

I am a 30 year old, 5’4’’ female of small frame with two kiddos. I started 2019 at 146 and I am now down to 122. While my original goal was 120, I am not happy yet and plan to aim for 115-118. Not much muscle.

Anyways... at 1250 calories I am lucky to lose a pound every two weeks now that I’m at the end, so I am thinking I am still about two months from full maintenance. I’ve been in losing weight mode so long that I don’t even know how to approach this! Is there a way to figure out how many calories I should eat to maintain at that point? I have a very polarizing all or nothing eating behavior so the thought of not actively losing weight really worries me... like I’ll creep back to 146 in a blink.

I am new to this thread so perhaps there are already a lot of helpful posts that answer my questions. But I’d love to hear inspiration or suggestions from others close to my weight etc.

Kathryn247

Hello! It's called a "reverse diet," although I'm not sure why.

Add 100 calories a day to your current goal, stick to that for a week or two and see how it goes. Then add another 100 a day and see how it goes. Increase gradually until you reach equilibrium.

kgirlhart

If your logging is accurate and you're losing at a rate of .5 pound per week then that is a 250 calorie deficit per day. So in theory you should be able to add 250 calories per day so your maintenance would be 1500 per day. Adding 100 per day as @kathryn247 suggested is a good idea. You may find that as you stop eating at a deficit you will become more active and your maintenance may be even higher than that. Good luck and congratulations on your weight loss.

AnnPT77

There's a thread here discussing various approaches to figuring out maintenance calories:

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

sijomial

Re. "I have a very polarizing all or nothing eating behavior so the thought of not actively losing weight really worries me... like I’ll creep back to 146 in a blink."

Yes there is definitely an emotional aspect to switching to maintenance.

Your logical mind knows that the process of manipulating your calorie balance worked for weight loss and will still work for maintenance and for weight regain - the rules don't change and the underlying physics of energy balance don't change.

But that annoying emotional voice (The Chimp using the terminology from The Chimp Paradox book) is still going to react to a blip on the scales and start shouting that CICO doesn't work, all the weight will pile back on etc. etc.
Recognising it's emotion not logic is the first step to calming your Chimp. It does get easier over time so don't put yourself under pressure to be "perfect" or get it right straight away, timescales and viewpoints extend massively at maintenance and need to as well.

A mental trick to replace the reward of seeing the number on your scales go down and calling it success is to regard every day within your chosen maintenance range as a success (not stagnation) - you get the same reward every day (well almost every day!) instead of once in a while.