Questions about Maintaining

etherealanwar
etherealanwar Posts: 465 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
Hello All!


I have finally decided it was time for me to go into Maintenance after going from 200 lbs at 5'4" to 130 lbs over a span of 2.5 years. My timing could have been better since I started a week before I went on vacation where my weight only spiked up to 131-132. I will not lie I indulged while on vacation and attempted my best to track my calories which gave me an average of 1900-2000ish for the week. I came back home and my weight had gone up to 136 and has now been fluctuating in the range of 134-136 after a week and a half of eating an average of 1750 calories. MFP is set to sedentary which gives me 1650 calories but I lift 4 days a week and my steps range from 5k-10k a day so I do get a calorie adjustment most days.

I'll be honest I am not happy that I am 4-6lbs higher than when I finished losing weight. I feel like I may have potentially gained some fat from the vacation but is the rest really just the result of going up to maintenance calories? Before switching to maintenance I was averaging 1400 calories a day. I just don't know what to look out for while maintaining. When do I go back into lose it mode? When I go above 135 and stay above for x amount of time? What is your tactic on maintaining and how do you deal with vacation weight spikes?


Any insight would be helpful!

Replies

  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,223 Member
    Like most things discussed here, you'll ultimately need to find what works for you. Many find success maintaining by defining an acceptable weight range rather than a specific weight and using a trending app like HappyScale or even excel can be useful in keeping perspective to spikes and valleys in scale weight. The proportion of carbs included in upping your calories is going to be a big factor in how much water weight you add.
  • kgirlhart
    kgirlhart Posts: 5,162 Member
    Congrats on your loss! One thing that is really helpful in maintenance is to set a weight range and don't just focus on one number. Just like when you were losing your weight will fluctuate because of water retention due to higher sodium meals, menstrual cycle, exercise. Right now you are probably fluctuating up because of water and excess food in your system. Give it a little time and it should even out. If not then maybe decrease calories by 50 - 100 per day and give it a while and re-evaluate. Finding your maintenance calorie goal can take a little bit of trial and error. At least it did for me. There is a monthly maintainers check in thread that might be helpful too.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,416 Member
    In addition to the weight range thing - can't you just lose the 4-6 pounds?

    I mean it's not either/or. Stay at a deficit for a couple weeks and you'll be back down.

    Have you read the fluctuations thing? https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

    Travel, stress, over-eating, time of month, composition of the food you recently ate, sleep, all kinds of things affect weight.

    Well done on getting to maintenance. It's not *A* single number.

  • etherealanwar
    etherealanwar Posts: 465 Member
    cmriverside wrote: »
    In addition to the weight range thing - can't you just lose the 4-6 pounds?

    I mean it's not either/or. Stay at a deficit for a couple weeks and you'll be back down.

    Have you read the fluctuations thing? https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

    Travel, stress, over-eating, time of month, composition of the food you recently ate, sleep, all kinds of things affect weight.

    Well done on getting to maintenance. It's not *A* single number.

    Well I originally wanted to reach 120 lbs because I knew I would inevitably go up in weight when transitioning into maintenance because of more carbs and food waste in my system. I was just so tired of dieting since it’s been going on 3 years now that I decided to just switch to maintenance for now and tackle these last 10 lbs maybe next year. I’m just not sure how much of a weight spike to expect from going into maintenance that this 6 lbs is rather worrrisome. Is it just in the beginning and then it will level off? Perhaps I’ve overshot my maintenance calories and I’m actually gaining.

    I am also aware that maintenance is a range and I went into it planning on staying between 130-135 so the fact I’m already above the range has me questioning how things are going.

    I’m just curious how others handled going into maintenance and what their experience was.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    You said yourself you have a range, most maintainers do, if I veer above that range for more than a few weeks its back to calorie deficit I go. (I'm a long term maintainer)
  • Rammer123
    Rammer123 Posts: 679 Member
    edited August 2020
    etherealanwar wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    In addition to the weight range thing - can't you just lose the 4-6 pounds?

    I mean it's not either/or. Stay at a deficit for a couple weeks and you'll be back down.

    Have you read the fluctuations thing? https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

    Travel, stress, over-eating, time of month, composition of the food you recently ate, sleep, all kinds of things affect weight.

    Well done on getting to maintenance. It's not *A* single number.

    Well I originally wanted to reach 120 lbs because I knew I would inevitably go up in weight when transitioning into maintenance because of more carbs and food waste in my system. I was just so tired of dieting since it’s been going on 3 years now that I decided to just switch to maintenance for now and tackle these last 10 lbs maybe next year. I’m just not sure how much of a weight spike to expect from going into maintenance that this 6 lbs is rather worrrisome. Is it just in the beginning and then it will level off? Perhaps I’ve overshot my maintenance calories and I’m actually gaining.

    I am also aware that maintenance is a range and I went into it planning on staying between 130-135 so the fact I’m already above the range has me questioning how things are going.

    I’m just curious how others handled going into maintenance and what their experience was.

    How do you feel at the current weight? Try and put aside how you feel about the numbers and decide how you feel about yourself. I have seen many times people in your situation going down a really bad rabbit hole trying to reach an unattainable number and getting stuck in this back and forth trying to get down to a weight that is not sustainable for their body.

    IMO. I think based off the information you've posted here. I think you've earned and created a well deserved body you should be proud of. You've lost over 35% of your body weight over a decent amount of time. You say you are tired of dieting and so I think you shouldn't. Don't even try and get back down to 130, for what? To then go back to maintenance and maintain at 134 rather than 136 or whatever it may be. Just be flexible with yourself. Try and concentrate on a larger range maybe 132-138 as your maintenance.

    Maybe certain times of the year you are more comfortable being a little closer to the 138 number and other times you want to be closer to the 132 area. For me I maintain around 208 to 220. Generally in the summer time I get closer to the 208 area to be a little more aesthetic and look better and I naturally eat a little less and more healthy in the summer time as the temperatures warm up. In the winter time I generally gain a little bit of weight as I eat some denser foods and temperatures get colder.

    It's really about how you feel. If you feel good physically at the weight then there should be no reason to worry about a 6 pound weight gain going from a diet to maintenance. If you started dieting again I am almost certain you would be baack at 130 again in a couple weeks. You certainly didn't put on 6 pounds of fat eating 2,000 calories a day I can tell you that much.

    Congrats on the weight loss, thats awesome.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    Sounds like a great effort so far and there's no reason not to go into maintenance. We've all bounced from the bottom weight we've achieved. Your philology has evolved to work to get the fat back right after you've lost weight. We've all read about it. I have gone through many weight loss cycles starting at about age 30. I'm on my second one this year, for example (trying only to lose about 4 lbs gained in quarantine that I already lost in January :( ). This is what it takes. Keep weighing yourself and when you are a few pounds up, cut back a bit on your eating. Your weight will naturally vary by a few pounds, so you need to pick 1) a weight of concern and 2) a weight at which you go into deficit.

    In 2017, I lost about 22lbs (>10% of my body weight). I was really determined not to gain it back, so I kept logging and weighing daily for about a year. The hardest things are the occasional parties or nights out where accurate logging is near impossible. For those, I do a "quick add" of some big number of calories (1000, usually) just to remind myself to under-eat for a couple of days afterward.

    I highly recommend taking advantage of your lighter weight to participate in more cardio activities, if you aren't already. Take up an activity that you find to be fun and for which your lighter weight is an advantage!
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,416 Member
    etherealanwar wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    In addition to the weight range thing - can't you just lose the 4-6 pounds?

    I mean it's not either/or. Stay at a deficit for a couple weeks and you'll be back down.

    Have you read the fluctuations thing? https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

    Travel, stress, over-eating, time of month, composition of the food you recently ate, sleep, all kinds of things affect weight.

    Well done on getting to maintenance. It's not *A* single number.

    Well I originally wanted to reach 120 lbs because I knew I would inevitably go up in weight when transitioning into maintenance because of more carbs and food waste in my system. I was just so tired of dieting since it’s been going on 3 years now that I decided to just switch to maintenance for now and tackle these last 10 lbs maybe next year. I’m just not sure how much of a weight spike to expect from going into maintenance that this 6 lbs is rather worrrisome. Is it just in the beginning and then it will level off? Perhaps I’ve overshot my maintenance calories and I’m actually gaining.

    I am also aware that maintenance is a range and I went into it planning on staying between 130-135 so the fact I’m already above the range has me questioning how things are going.

    I’m just curious how others handled going into maintenance and what their experience was.

    When I stopped eating at a large deficit I was just barely inside my healthy BMI - so just about where you would be at 136. I stayed there (+/- a few pounds) for a year or so. I was sick of being at a deficit, full stop.

    When I decided to lose that last 15-20 pounds I was ready to go at it again.

    I agree with @Rammer123 Give yourself a break. You've done an amazing thing and I bet you look really good. Keep that 120 goal in the back of your mind, you'll get there.

    I've been in Maintenance for 12-13 years. I still have my Goals set at a small deficit. When I go up out of my range, I try to hit that number. When I'm in the range I kind of ignore it for the most part. :wink: That first year is hard, no way around that - but give yourself a pat on the back! You're still in your healthy weight range. You will get down to that number when you get down to that number. My BMI now is 21ish, has been for years, but those last 15 pounds took me nine months to lose. You're now in the marathon part of this game. Welcome.


  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    Hearty congratulations on all you've achieved: Nice work!

    Reinforcing others: It can seem like we need to capital-D Decide about maintenance. We don't. It's not a permanent lock-in.

    If you're tired of restricting, then maintain where you are for a while, if as Rammer says, you can feel happy in your body at this size (ignoring the scale number).

    It's normal to see a little jump on the scale when starting from a moderate to large calorie deficit, as you have, then going to maintenance calories. A few hundred extra calories almost inevitably includes a few more carbs (which hold a little more water in the body while we metabolize them) plus a little more salt/sodium (a little more water needed to balance electrolytes), and inevitably a little more waste in transit on average in the digestive tract. None of those are fat, so the scale impact that shows up is essentially meaningless.

    I think my personal story doesn't apply to you, but you asked: I decided to take a slow, gradual on-ramp to maintenance, adding a hundred or two calories daily, then watching my weight for a week or three before doing it again. (I'm post-menopausal, so I don't have to worry about cycle-related monthly fluctuation patterns.) While doing that, I accidently overshot goal weight by about 4 pounds, so I was starting true maintenance below my maintenance range.

    Over the roughly 4 years since, I gradually gained back a few pounds (like 10-15 😬). Last Fall, I finally decided to gradually drift my weight back down again, very slowly, and have lost around 10 pounds +/-, pretty painlessly, with a tiny deficit since.

    So: No need to stress. As long as you keep things within reasonable bounds, any decisions are pretty manageably reversible.

    If you want to start a little lower in your maintenance range, and that seems worth restricting now for, lose a little more (maybe quite slowly?). If you're just sick of restricting, maybe strive to maintain for a few months, then re-evaluate. You've proven you can lose weight, so you know how, if you decide you want to do it again. I'm betting you can maintain just fine, too.

    Wishing you the best!

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