I maintain, but don't track workouts.

NeahF

I maintain calories of 2100, weigh 120 lb, and I'm 5'5. Oh, and I'm a female. I do about 2-3 workouts a day (CrossFit, cardio, weight training) when at home. I'm a wrestler, too, when that's in season and I've had the occasional wrestling practice while in off-season. I also do track and will do cross country. Moral of the story, I'm very active and spend a good amount of my time working out. However, I do not track my exercise and have no idea how many calories I burn. I feel good on the maintenance calories although sometimes I add 200-300 if I need it at the end of the day. What are your thoughts on tracking exercise? Does calorie intake need to increase? Also, I've found myself SOMETIMES losing a pound or two over a week of maintaining which is where the extra apple or even a meal comes in.

JBanx256

FWIW, I don't track my workouts either. When I was in contest prep mode, I had to track my daily step count, but now I just do my thing and roll with it. It works, so I don't see the point in adding needless layers of complexity.

MostlyWater

I'll be you're young. There is no way that would work for me in my 50's.

PAV8888

Obviously, on the face of it, your calories are quite low for maintenance given your stated activity level and exercise.

While there is also no particular mention as to how diligently you're counting the calories in, which makes me believe that you're likely eating appreciably more than 2100, you seem to corroborate that **whatever it is that you're eating** is a low maintenance for you given that you sometimes lose weight and then eat a bit more to compensate.

There are many ways through which people keep to an energy balance.

So why are you contemplating changes? It sounds that you're neither gaining, nor losing, in a persistent manner based on your current methods. So all is good, right?

To my mind it sounds as if you could probably increase your calories by half a protein bar or so a day (or the equivalent calories in apples/bananas or Twinkies) and still maintain at the same weight level. The increase might be as high as a full protein bar, or as low as a quarter one, or nothing: you won't know till you try and then observe the results of your actions on your weight trend!

That said, the above trial method is what I would probably go with if I were you because it doesn't sound as if you're too much into extra diligent counting and because some of your exercise sounds as more difficult to quantify--plus things have more or less been working ok so far!

AnnPT77

There's no real need to track exercise separately in maintenance**, as long as you're maintaining weight where you want it, eating how you want to eat.

PAV has a point, that you might be able to push your intake up a little and still maintain (if you'd want to: Some people enjoy that little bit extra calorie wiggle room).

** There's no theoretical need to do it while losing or gaining, either, even though separate exercise calorie logging is The MFP Way (and it's what I like to do myself, BTW). I kind of think tracking exercise separately may be a good thing for people who combine new-to-exercise and new-to-calorie-counting, because it's really easy to put an ambitious workout plan into a TDEE calculator, get a calorie goal, find the workout plan a little much so slack off it partly or fully, then decide calorie counting doesn't work. At least the MFP method gets that source of noise and distortion out of the data (though there still are plenty of others, including the challenge of accurate exercise estimating ).

sijomial

The goal is to maintain weight - different people use different tools to achieve that.
I log my exercise but not my food for example. Monitoring my weight trend and mindful eating works for me but many long-term maintainers get benefit from logging everything whether casually or diligently.

My exercise is high volume but also very variable so I find it useful to have an idea of my caloric needs. e.g. last week over 6,000 exercise calories (effectively complete dietary freedom!), week before was under 3,000 (some mindful moderation required).

Very much doubt your calorie balance is what you believe with the volume of exercise you are doing but does it matter if you achieve your goal over an extended period of time?
If it stops working for you then you have a whole range of tools you can pick up.

" Also, I've found myself SOMETIMES losing a pound or two over a week of maintaining which is where the extra apple or even a meal comes in. "
Fluctuation or trend? If trend weight then that's a bit more than a few apples to cancel out 7,000 cals!

J72FIT

azlynblu wrote: »

I maintain calories of 2100, weigh 120 lb, and I'm 5'5. Oh, and I'm a female. I do about 2-3 workouts a day (CrossFit, cardio, weight training) when at home. I'm a wrestler, too, when that's in season and I've had the occasional wrestling practice while in off-season. I also do track and will do cross country. Moral of the story, I'm very active and spend a good amount of my time working out. However, I do not track my exercise and have no idea how many calories I burn. I feel good on the maintenance calories although sometimes I add 200-300 if I need it at the end of the day. What are your thoughts on tracking exercise? Does calorie intake need to increase? Also, I've found myself SOMETIMES losing a pound or two over a week of maintaining which is where the extra apple or even a meal comes in.

It depends on your goals...

mmapags

MostlyWater wrote: »

I'll be you're young. There is no way that would work for me in my 50's.

Age has nothing to do with it. I'm 69 and I no longer track my workouts nor my calories. The only things I track are my weight trend and my waist measurement. I lost around 40 lbs and have been in maintenance for 2 years. If the scale or my waist start going in the wrong direction for a couple of weeks, I track and get back under control.

As an older person, I kind of resent it when people use age as a reason something can't be done. Eat a healthy diet, exercise and one can pretty much do anything they ever could.

J72FIT

mmapags wrote: »

The only things I track are my weight trend and my waist measurement.

Same here except I track my shoulder and neck measurements as well...

AnnPT77

mmapags wrote: »

MostlyWater wrote: »

I'll be you're young. There is no way that would work for me in my 50's.

Age has nothing to do with it. I'm 69 and I no longer track my workouts nor my calories. The only things I track are my weight trend and my waist measurement. I lost around 40 lbs and have been in maintenance for 2 years. If the scale or my waist start going in the wrong direction for a couple of weeks, I track and get back under control.

As an older person, I kind of resent it when people use age as a reason something can't be done. Eat a healthy diet, exercise and one can pretty much do anything they ever could.

As an aside, not clear to me which aspect of the OP case wouldn't work for her, that made her suspect the OP is young: Could be not tracking exercise, could be doing 3 workouts a day, could be eating 2100 (sometimes plus 200-300) and maintaining weight.

I hope you know I'm 100% with you that I can do pretty much anything at 64 that I could do when much younger . . . except recover from extremes as quickly, speaking personally only. And I also resent silly age-related assumptions that represent damagingly low expectations of folks our age. (Health-condition-related or disability-related or weight-related assumptions, maybe more defensible; and those things are statistically more complicated with age . . . but they aren't age itself.)

I could certainly do any of the 3 things listed in my initial paragraph above, taken separately, and be fine. (I couldn't do the 3 daily sessions of that kind of exercise and maintain on 2100, probably not even 2400. I'd have to do the math, but I'm thinking I'd have to go somewhere 2500+ to maintain, with that schedule (and I'm also 5'5", BTW, and only 10-12 pounds heavier).

But I don't know exactly which thing(s) the PP thought weren't doable when old.

mmapags

AnnPT77 wrote: »

mmapags wrote: »

MostlyWater wrote: »

I'll be you're young. There is no way that would work for me in my 50's.

Age has nothing to do with it. I'm 69 and I no longer track my workouts nor my calories. The only things I track are my weight trend and my waist measurement. I lost around 40 lbs and have been in maintenance for 2 years. If the scale or my waist start going in the wrong direction for a couple of weeks, I track and get back under control.

As an older person, I kind of resent it when people use age as a reason something can't be done. Eat a healthy diet, exercise and one can pretty much do anything they ever could.

As an aside, not clear to me which aspect of the OP case wouldn't work for her, that made her suspect the OP is young: Could be not tracking exercise, could be doing 3 workouts a day, could be eating 2100 (sometimes plus 200-300) and maintaining weight.

I hope you know I'm 100% with you that I can do pretty much anything at 64 that I could do when much younger . . . except recover from extremes as quickly, speaking personally only. And I also resent silly age-related assumptions that represent damagingly low expectations of folks our age. (Health-condition-related or disability-related or weight-related assumptions, maybe more defensible; and those things are statistically more complicated with age . . . but they aren't age itself.)

I could certainly do any of the 3 things listed in my initial paragraph above, taken separately, and be fine. (I couldn't do the 3 daily sessions of that kind of exercise and maintain on 2100, probably not even 2400. I'd have to do the math, but I'm thinking I'd have to go somewhere 2500+ to maintain, with that schedule (and I'm also 5'5", BTW, and only 10-12 pounds heavier).

But I don't know exactly which thing(s) the PP thought weren't doable when old.

I knew you would agree on age not being much of a limiter. About the only difference I notice is what you referenced. If I go really hard, it takes a little more recovery time that when I was younger. The rest is a matter of mind set. Either you decide you are (or can work yourself to be) capable or you decide you are going to be "old".

cwolfman13

2100 seems low for your activity level, but no idea how diligently you are tracking that and what the level of accuracy is. The bottom line is maintaining is maintaining...if you're maintaining you're eating adequately to maintain weight.

I don't track anything, exercise or food and I can maintain weight just fine. If I start dropping unintended weight I just add in a snack or two...if my weight is going up as a general trend, I just cut back on some things.