At Goal & Successfully Maintaining. So Why Am I Doing This All Over Again?

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  • EliseTK1
    EliseTK1 Posts: 483 Member
    springlering62 wrote: »
    qv09zf4ul5lu.jpeg

    From 139 on Sunday to 135 on Wednesday, simply by going back to plan and doing and eating same stuff as usual- which included a carefully recorded CookOut burger and onion rings meal for dinner last night.

    Spending last week at an average 3600+ per day didn’t kill me. I didn’t fall off the wagon, I didn’t wake up fat, my clothes still fit.

    Our bodies are very accommodating and resilient. I sometimes think they’re just so darn happy to have any love and attention after so many years of dietary abuse, that it’s their way of rewarding us. 🤔

    Life happens.

    Sometimes, ya just gotta enjoy the whole bag of Beaver Nuggets and then get over and past it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

    6v0b32oxleg1.jpeg

    This gives me a great deal of hope, thank you.

    Also- yay Buc-ee’s!!
  • ggeise14
    ggeise14 Posts: 387 Member
    I've never heard of Buc-ee's. It's been months since I've traveled south (from MN here). Are they like "Corn Nuts"?
  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,223 Member
    ggeise14 wrote: »
    I've never heard of Buc-ee's. It's been months since I've traveled south (from MN here). Are they like "Corn Nuts"?

    Buc-ee's is the chain of stores. I'm not exactly sure what the beaver nuggets are composed of.
  • dralicephd
    dralicephd Posts: 402 Member
    edited April 2022
    ggeise14 wrote: »
    I've never heard of Buc-ee's. It's been months since I've traveled south (from MN here). Are they like "Corn Nuts"?

    I'm from the West Coast and have never heard of the store or snack either. Just googled Beaver Nuggets: "A delectable puffy yet crunchy corn nugget with a brown sugar caramel coating"

    Maybe sort-of a Cracker Jack version of Corn Nuts? Or maybe like the cereal, Sugar Smacks?

    @springlering62 help us out! :wink:
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,700 Member
    edited April 2022
    Think big ole Corn Pops smothered in caramel corn stuff that makes your teeth stick together.

    A loving ode to the glories of corn syrup, which is the #2 ingredient. 😬.
  • coblujay
    coblujay Posts: 688 Member
    Have a wonderful trip!
  • fatty2begone
    fatty2begone Posts: 249 Member
    It really is like a body in the bag :o .
    The Bee Gees, Donna Summers, and anything Disco inspired is running through my head currently. Love me the Disco Ball
  • EliseTK1
    EliseTK1 Posts: 483 Member
    @springlering62 @AnnPT77 and anyone else who has lost a significant amount of weight and maintained it:

    What is the difference in your maintenance calories compared to what it was when you started? How much strength training do you do vs. cardio vs. nothing?

    I am trying to gauge what my maintenance calories may be once I’m at goal. I’m 22 lbs down and have noted that it takes more time and/or effort to burn the same calories I did when I started. (Expected of course.) With how active I am, I’ve averaged around 2300 kcal daily for maintenance. (I did the math based on my rate of loss.) I’m guessing that will decrease over the last 20 lbs.
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    I got organically more active as I dripped weight. The result of that is that, weirdly, I eat about 100 calories a day MORE now than when I started. About 2500 calorows/day. I think my lowest even losing was 1500. I run about 20 miles/week, hike another 10. Do about 90 minutes a week of weight stuff. And do some recreational sports, swim, paddle board and horseback ride.

    I do want to emphasize though that I do none of this for any reason because I want to and its fun. I did some long before i started losing weighr, and what I added I added because it was fun.

    Except the weights. I do those for health but find them pretty boring.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,644 Member
    EliseTK1 wrote: »
    @springlering62 @AnnPT77 and anyone else who has lost a significant amount of weight and maintained it:

    What is the difference in your maintenance calories compared to what it was when you started? How much strength training do you do vs. cardio vs. nothing?

    I am trying to gauge what my maintenance calories may be once I’m at goal. I’m 22 lbs down and have noted that it takes more time and/or effort to burn the same calories I did when I started. (Expected of course.) With how active I am, I’ve averaged around 2300 kcal daily for maintenance. (I did the math based on my rate of loss.) I’m guessing that will decrease over the last 20 lbs.

    Curses: I started a reply, was almost done, lost the whole long thing! I'll try again.

    I don't know what my maintenance calories were when I started losing: About the first half of weight loss, the first maybe 25-30 pounds, was rough-estimated calorie reductions. I didn't join MFP until after that, so I don't know what I was eating exactly enough to be useful. It was after logging in MFP that I found out (by losing too (bleep) fast) that MFP and a lot of other so-called calorie calculators materially underestimate my calorie needs (as does my good brand/model tracker), because apparently I'm some kind of non-average weirdo.

    I doubt that your maintenance calories will be much lower than what you're seeing now, with only 20 pounds to go, for a variety of reasons. Some thoughts about that:

    * TDEE calculator (Sailrabbit) estimates that my sedentary maintenance calories at my maintenance weight vs. 20 pounds above would only differ by around 100 calories. My actual maintenance wasn't much lower (if any) than what I'd estimated during the last month or two of loss (but I did intentionally slow loss down in the last stage, so the weight change over a couple of months was maybe less than 10 pounds?).

    * Some people find that as they get lighter, they feel livelier and naturally move more (spontaneous movement, slightly higher exercise intensity), because moving is easier and more fun for a lighter person. They then burn a few more calories through movement.

    * You don't say how long you've been active, or what exercise you do. It's common, as fitness increases, to gradually increase exercise intensity (keeping the same perceived exertion level), so burn a few more exercise calories kind of automagically that way.

    * You mention exercise calories dropping as one gets lighter. Well, sort of. If one uses MFP to estimate exercise the research-based methods it uses do vary the estimate linearly with changes in body weight (at constant intensity/type of exercise). That's a reasonable methodology for some exercises, and less valid for others, depending on how much body weight per se influences the intensity of the particular exercise. So, the estimates may go down more than the actuals do. Or less. Or whatever. (These are not big numbers, probably, in any case . . . but it's a wild card.)

    * Some people find that when they go to maintenance calories, they start gradually, slowly losing again after a few weeks/months, at that calorie level, because of adaptive thermogenesis.

    I don't know whether it may help, but there's a thread in the Maintaining Weight part of the Community where people talk about methods of estimating maintenance calories.

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10638211/how-to-find-your-maintenance-calorie-level/p1

    I'm not sure how much it helps to comment on my exercise routine, since we're all so different.

    I've continued to use the "MFP method" in maintenance, basically: I set a base calorie goal, carefully estimate and log exercise when I do it, and eat those calories, too. (I use different methods for estimating calories for different types of exercise.) At 5'5", trying to maintain around mid-120s pounds, age 66, sedentary outside of intentional exercise, I have my base calorie goal set at 1850. I think my actual maintenance base is more like 1950-2000, maybe a bit more, but I intentionally "calorie bank" a bit to indulge occasionally.

    I nearly always have one weekly rest day, with little or no formal exercise.

    In the warm seasons, I row (on water) for around an hour 4 days a week (weather permitting), which involves some incidental boat carrying and such. Often I take an hour or so bike ride (road/paved trail) another couple of days a week, so 10 miles or so. Last summer, I worked my way up to walking about 5 miles on 3 of the rowing days, around 3.2-4mph pace. That's the basic routine, with maybe some random other things thrown in occasionally.

    Once it's too cold/snowy for the outdoor activities, I shift into mostly alternating stationary bike and rowing machine. Between US Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, I do a challenge that requires about 45 minutes of those times 6 days a week, and don't feel like doing much else. After Christmas, I usually back the row/bike volume down to more like 30-35 minutes, and add some strength training (mostly dumbbell lifts, sometimes kettlebell) 3 times a week, usually gradually increasing from 20 minutes to maybe 40-45. That never lasts, because I dislike strength training quite a lot, and have zero self-discipline. This year, I think it lasted until March. Now I'm back at just the rowing/cycling. Sometimes I throw in core workouts (around 30 minutes, lots of stuff on the exercise ball), sometimes I do half an hour of yoga in the morning. I'm a flake, especially in Winter.

    Most exercise days, I end up with a calorie goal between 2000 and 2500 calories, toward the lower end in Winter, upper in Summer.

    I go through periods where I do less exercise, even none briefly, but I've been working out regularly and often for enough years (decades) that I quickly start feeling moody, stiff, depressive, tense, and other Bad Things when I don't work out. That gets me to start working out again before long. Now, I don't much worry if I slack off, because I'm pretty confident that'll kick in.

    FWIW, rowing is one of the strength-y-er forms of cardio (in the lower body push, upper body pull directions), and it can be mildly progressive in strength demand, done properly. I'm not devoid of muscle, and most of it comes from rowing, which I've now been doing for over 20 years (started when obese), and I'm not terrible at it for my demographic, intensity-wise. It's not as simple as "cardio can't build muscle", y'know? It matters what the cardio is. Lifting is a more efficient route, for sure, though.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,892 Member
    EliseTK1 wrote: »
    @springlering62 @AnnPT77 and anyone else who has lost a significant amount of weight and maintained it:

    What is the difference in your maintenance calories compared to what it was when you started? How much strength training do you do vs. cardio vs. nothing?

    I am trying to gauge what my maintenance calories may be once I’m at goal. I’m 22 lbs down and have noted that it takes more time and/or effort to burn the same calories I did when I started. (Expected of course.) With how active I am, I’ve averaged around 2300 kcal daily for maintenance. (I did the math based on my rate of loss.) I’m guessing that will decrease over the last 20 lbs.

    For the bolded: this observation is based on what? A smaller body burns less calories, yes. But if you're basing your observation on burns given by a HRM or fitness tracker with HRM, beware that this may not reflect your calorie burn accurately. As you get fitter, your heart rate will decrease for the same intensity exercise, which will lead fitness trackers to (incorrectly) give a lower calorie burn.
    My Garmin gives me lower burns for running now, disproportionately lower compared to the weight I've lost (I'm losing veeeery slowly at the moment). I think it's one of the reasons the difference between my actual TDEE and the TDEE according to my Garmin is increasing.

    Side note: I'm not technically in maintenance yet (I keep reassessing my goal weight) but like several posters above me, my TDEE now is probably higher than it was before (75lbs ago), because my activity level has increased a lot (a gradual thing). My strength training is minimal: I find it boring, I prefer running and walking.
  • EliseTK1
    EliseTK1 Posts: 483 Member
    @wunderkindking @AnnPT77 @springlering62 This is so much excellent information- thank you for sharing!

    @Lietchi Yep, you're right- I'm basing this on my reported calorie burns during exercise from my Apple Watch. My heart rate has absolutely decreased as I've gotten fitter. Over the last month or so I have been eating slightly more on average and losing weight at the same rate. I am in the same boat as many of you that as my fitness improves, movement becomes even easier and more fun, so I am naturally more active and pushing harder during workouts. I get restless on days when I'm doing office work and have to sit for several hours, and I tend to compensate for it at the gym.

    However my watch has also been overestimating my "resting energy" by a couple hundred kcal, always has. I basically just ignore it and go by my weight trends.

    I have been fairly active for many years, but since Jan 1 I've stuck to a regimen of highly varied cardio 6-7 days/week plus weight training 2-3 days/week with the goal of maintaining my lean body mass as I lose weight. (I love weight training. It's my zen.) My plan is to continue this process until I get to my goal weight range, then switch to maintenance calories and change up my lifting routine with the intent to do a slow recomp.

    Part of me is just paranoid that if something happens and I end up unable to do the kind of activity I do now, I will have to drop my calories considerably lower than I'm comfortable with. I know this is not a thing I can control beyond doing what I can to stay healthy/active and avoiding injury. I had a bad experience last year with unexpectedly needing foot surgery and being unable to exercise normally for two months. I gained a considerable amount of weight in a short period of time. This is a mental thing- I KNOW that my habits are different now, and I am actively working every day to maintain those habits and be flexible when needed. I just don't have the confidence in my ability to deal with those issues yet because I have never successfully done it. After a lifetime of reverting to bad habits anytime something unexpected happens, I am anticipating every possibility so that I can be ready to tackle it, just in case.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,892 Member
    I empathize. My current level of activity is because I enjoy being active, but also because I enjoy the quantity of food I can eat now.

    I've worried about the same issue, whether I could eat less if I had an injury. I was overtraining a while back and forced myself to slow down a little and I'll admit, it was hard... I don't have a magical solution for that issue 🤷🏻 I think it's a very frequent issue too, judging by how many elite athletes become overweight when they stop competing. So at least you're not alone? 🙂 For myself, I think I'd go back to skipping breakfast to stick to my calorie goal (I started eating breakfast to increase my protein intake while losing weight).
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,700 Member
    edited April 2022
    @EliseTK1
    >” However my watch has also been overestimating my "resting energy" by a couple hundred kcal, always has. I basically just ignore it and go by my weight trends.”<

    But is it? I think there’s studies that if you do a challenging workout, you’ll continue to burn extra calories for a long period afterwards.

    So if you e upped your exercise, maybe it’s recognizing that during rest periods.

    Again, my own N=1, but if I do a stand-alone class I get far fewer calories than if I’ve done another class immediately before. I’ve noticed this with both yoga and aquafit.

    For example, I’ve got a couple of instructors who repeat power yoga classes during the week, and then change them up the following week.

    I can do a Wednesday class and Apple gives me low to mid 200’s. I can do a power class Saturday morning, immediately followed by repeating the near identical class I did Wednesday, and because my heart rate etc is already up, even with half an hour break between classes, I’ll typically pick up another 50-100 calories than same class I did Wednesday.

    Ditto for aquafit, which is pretty standard. I often do spin/hiit or a cardio class, strip my shirt and shorts down to the suit hidden underneath and run to join my husband in the pool. I’ll get far more calories for that aquafit than I would have for a similar aquafit that didn’t have a class beforehand.

    So, if you’re exercising more, it seems logical that Apple’s magic whatever is recognizing that you’re burning extra during rest periods as well.

    Did that make sense?

    @AnnPT77 ?
  • EliseTK1
    EliseTK1 Posts: 483 Member
    @Lietchi So true.

    @springlering62 I see what you’re saying. I’m pretty sure it’s overestimating though, going by all the data including my as-accurate-as-possible intake data and my rate of loss. I would expect to be losing a full two pounds a week if it were accurate, but I’m hanging out around 1.15-1.25.

    I’ve had my resting metabolic rate tested quite a few times over the years, courtesy of my profession and my hubby’s. When I was in college it was far lower than expected for my age, height, and weight. (I had very little muscle.) More recently it was closer to what MFP predicts it should be, I believe thanks to my years of building strength. I’m guessing my lower metabolic rate is at least partially genetic. It’s not crazy low, just on the lower side of normal variation.
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    edited April 2022
    EliseTK1 wrote: »
    @wunderkindking @AnnPT77 @springlering62 This is so much excellent information- thank you for sharing!

    @Lietchi Yep, you're right- I'm basing this on my reported calorie burns during exercise from my Apple Watch. My heart rate has absolutely decreased as I've gotten fitter. Over the last month or so I have been eating slightly more on average and losing weight at the same rate. I am in the same boat as many of you that as my fitness improves, movement becomes even easier and more fun, so I am naturally more active and pushing harder during workouts. I get restless on days when I'm doing office work and have to sit for several hours, and I tend to compensate for it at the gym.

    However my watch has also been overestimating my "resting energy" by a couple hundred kcal, always has. I basically just ignore it and go by my weight trends.

    I have been fairly active for many years, but since Jan 1 I've stuck to a regimen of highly varied cardio 6-7 days/week plus weight training 2-3 days/week with the goal of maintaining my lean body mass as I lose weight. (I love weight training. It's my zen.) My plan is to continue this process until I get to my goal weight range, then switch to maintenance calories and change up my lifting routine with the intent to do a slow recomp.

    Part of me is just paranoid that if something happens and I end up unable to do the kind of activity I do now, I will have to drop my calories considerably lower than I'm comfortable with. I know this is not a thing I can control beyond doing what I can to stay healthy/active and avoiding injury. I had a bad experience last year with unexpectedly needing foot surgery and being unable to exercise normally for two months. I gained a considerable amount of weight in a short period of time. This is a mental thing- I KNOW that my habits are different now, and I am actively working every day to maintain those habits and be flexible when needed. I just don't have the confidence in my ability to deal with those issues yet because I have never successfully done it. After a lifetime of reverting to bad habits anytime something unexpected happens, I am anticipating every possibility so that I can be ready to tackle it, just in case.

    I empathize, but at the same time some time in maintenance has taught me that maintenance isn't... static? For me, anyway.

    For me it's kind of a slow rolling repeated gain/loss cycle. Forget my hormones and the changes brought about by those. Actual LIFE isn't static and so seasonally, at least, if not weekly or monthly my energy output and calorie intake change.

    For me maintenance has been basically very slowly gaining and losing the same several pounds over and over again. EXPECTING that and knowing that's just what it's going to be has helped me not throw in the towel and revert to worse habits.

    I have NO DOUBT that I'd gain 10 pounds if I was forced back to inactivity as I was last summer (broke my ankle) but I also have NO DOUBT I'd lose it again. Not sure I'd consider either one of those coming out of maintenance, much less failure. It's a wider swing in my weight than I regularly have due to muscle soreness and sodium intake spikes by all of about 3 pounds.

    My weight REGULARLY spikes 5-7 pounds after a very active weekend, OR a weekend that's heavy on carbs/salt just because. Then disappears over the following week. I couldn't even give you an exact weight I actually am absent water retention due to various factors. I could tell you what I weighed this morning but not a 'real' weight.

    My pants get tight, I eat less.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,644 Member
    edited April 2022
    springlering62 wrote: »
    @EliseTK1
    >” However my watch has also been overestimating my "resting energy" by a couple hundred kcal, always has. I basically just ignore it and go by my weight trends.”<

    But is it? I think there’s studies that if you do a challenging workout, you’ll continue to burn extra calories for a long period afterwards.

    So if you e upped your exercise, maybe it’s recognizing that during rest periods.

    Again, my own N=1, but if I do a stand-alone class I get far fewer calories than if I’ve done another class immediately before. I’ve noticed this with both yoga and aquafit.

    For example, I’ve got a couple of instructors who repeat power yoga classes during the week, and then change them up the following week.

    I can do a Wednesday class and Apple gives me low to mid 200’s. I can do a power class Saturday morning, immediately followed by repeating the near identical class I did Wednesday, and because my heart rate etc is already up, even with half an hour break between classes, I’ll typically pick up another 50-100 calories than same class I did Wednesday.

    Ditto for aquafit, which is pretty standard. I often do spin/hiit or a cardio class, strip my shirt and shorts down to the suit hidden underneath and run to join my husband in the pool. I’ll get far more calories for that aquafit than I would have for a similar aquafit that didn’t have a class beforehand.

    So, if you’re exercising more, it seems logical that Apple’s magic whatever is recognizing that you’re burning extra during rest periods as well.

    Did that make sense?

    @AnnPT77 ?

    Err, um, maybe. Or maybe not.

    EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption - "afterburn") is real, but any research I've seen suggests it's numerically underwhelming.

    It's usually expressed as a percentage of the base calories from the exercise. About the highest I've seen reported is around 15%. IOW, for each 100 calories burned during the exercise, 15 calories of EPOC . . . at the high-ish end. That's usually non huge.

    It varies by exercise type - research still ongoing, but loosely what I've seen looks like high intensity or high strength challenge exercise tends to have higher EPOC. If higher intensity work has a higher EPOC, that's in a context where higher intensity work is more duration-limited, kind of by definition. The implication is that we may get more EPOC calories from long easy cardio than from necessarily-shorter very hard cardio, even though the hard cardio has "much higher EPOC" (in percentage terms).

    When taking 2 classes back to back, I think there's a misleading aspect. There's a thing called "cardiac drift".

    Simplistically, if we do a constant intensity but slightly (or more) challenging thing, heart rate increases, maybe a little faster at first (kind of a warm-up effect). Assume we keep going - exact same intensity (such as jogging pace on level surface), so same work (in the physics sense), so same rate of calorie burn. That's where one tends to see "cardiac drift" most clearly.

    Eventually the rate of HR increase levels off a bit, but it will tend to continue to slowly creep upward as long as that intensity of exercise continues. (How far, how fast - loosely a function of fitness level with respect to that activity/intensity.)

    Bottom line: Workload isn't increasing, so calorie burn isn't increasing for real. But heart rate is increasing, so a heart-rate-based calorie estimate will typically estimate an increasing rate of calorie burn.

    You can see this pretty clearly in this HR chart from a recent workout, where I did 3 x 2k with short easier 2 minutes bits in between (including a drink of water) and a cool down at the end. (Each 2k took just under 10 minutes, and I was very close to the same pace during each of the 2k pieces, so very close to constant workload. I don't have a good graph of it, but my watt output is pretty level throughout the 2k pieces, so calorie burn rate is also pretty consistent.) You can see the warm up in the first piece, a big drop during the easy/drink phases, but each 2k piece gradually climbs higher in heart rate. That's pretty much just cardiac drift, not extra calorie burn.

    x3hgnxxeuydz.png

    With back to back classes, you'd get a variant on the heart rate drift eject, making it look like the 2nd class burned more calories than the device would estimate if you'd started the same activity from a rested state. It won't show as clearly on a HR chart from something like the classes, because the exertion tends to be somewhat variable during the session. However, the general effect, that once you elevate heart rate and keep going, you'll see some cardiac drift effect - that's going to be happening invisible-hand fashion. At least that's how I understand it.

    Whether either estimate (class starting from rested, vs. right after another class) is accurate is a whole other question (based on what HRM are good/bad at estimating, how fit you are vs. what the algorithm thinks, how close your HRmax is to age estimates (if the device doesn't know a measured value), etc.

    Probably close enough to be useful.

    So, yes, EPOC is real. I don't know whether your HRM will see it, because it's a relatively small and gradual thing, over (potentially) a long-ish time period. The effect on calorie estimates from back-to-back classes, or longer duration activities, isn't mostly about EPOC, but cardiac drift will distort pure HR calorie estimates in those scenarios.

    HRM estimates are close enough to be useful for calorie estimating many exercises, but the further one gets (in any dimension) from moderate steady state cardio without a large strength/strain/heat component, the less likely they are to being accurate, and it's tenuous to read into small differences IMO. (I see people thinking something like hot yoga burns more calories than the same work done in cooler rooms, but . . . not really. Heat on its own tends to raise heart rate, and yeah, there's possibly a tiny bump in calorie burn from body-temp-controlling functions, but most of the higher estimate is just that HR speeds up to increase blood flow to facilitate cooling. The extra heartbeats burn a couple of calories, but the increased HR doesn't signal higher oxygen uptake, and it's oxygen utilization that correlates better with calorie burn. HR is just a proxy for oxygen utilization, not an exact correlate.)

    Even some fitness trackers these day are deciding not to use HR as an exercise eatimator for things like strength training (METS, the MFP method, is likely to be closer, especially if corrected for the MFP "activity factor x BMR" theoretical flaw), or distance (and related measures) for things like walking/running. AFAIK, they still use HR from so-called HIIT, which - as with any interval training - likely to cause an over-estimate if HR is the basis (loosely, because HR stays high during easy/rest intervals for a while, making it appear that intense work has gone on longer than it has).
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,644 Member
    EliseTK1 wrote: »
    @wunderkindking @AnnPT77 @springlering62 This is so much excellent information- thank you for sharing!

    @Lietchi Yep, you're right- I'm basing this on my reported calorie burns during exercise from my Apple Watch. My heart rate has absolutely decreased as I've gotten fitter. Over the last month or so I have been eating slightly more on average and losing weight at the same rate. I am in the same boat as many of you that as my fitness improves, movement becomes even easier and more fun, so I am naturally more active and pushing harder during workouts. I get restless on days when I'm doing office work and have to sit for several hours, and I tend to compensate for it at the gym.

    However my watch has also been overestimating my "resting energy" by a couple hundred kcal, always has. I basically just ignore it and go by my weight trends.

    I have been fairly active for many years, but since Jan 1 I've stuck to a regimen of highly varied cardio 6-7 days/week plus weight training 2-3 days/week with the goal of maintaining my lean body mass as I lose weight. (I love weight training. It's my zen.) My plan is to continue this process until I get to my goal weight range, then switch to maintenance calories and change up my lifting routine with the intent to do a slow recomp.

    Part of me is just paranoid that if something happens and I end up unable to do the kind of activity I do now, I will have to drop my calories considerably lower than I'm comfortable with. I know this is not a thing I can control beyond doing what I can to stay healthy/active and avoiding injury. I had a bad experience last year with unexpectedly needing foot surgery and being unable to exercise normally for two months. I gained a considerable amount of weight in a short period of time. This is a mental thing- I KNOW that my habits are different now, and I am actively working every day to maintain those habits and be flexible when needed. I just don't have the confidence in my ability to deal with those issues yet because I have never successfully done it. After a lifetime of reverting to bad habits anytime something unexpected happens, I am anticipating every possibility so that I can be ready to tackle it, just in case.

    For me, using the MFP method of adding exercise calories separately has been pretty effective in getting me through those times of reduced activity (like post-surgery or during injury recovery). There are pros and cons of each, but for me, that's one of the pros of MFP method over TDEE method. I have a decent idea of how to eat with or without normal exercise.

    I'd endorse what @wunderkindking is saying about maintenance being a range of weights, not a single weight, and that there can be some cycling to it. (Personally, I'm less active, in terms of incidental movement, in cold seasons vs. warmer ones, for example. Some of that shows up in steps, or tracker calorie burn estimates, but I think not all.)

    I think you'll do fine. Even if 100 calories daily over true maintenance, it'll take over a month to gain a pound, y'know? And you clearly know how how to lose a pound. I think the common place where people go wrong is either a "diet then go back to normal" eating/exercise pattern (a recipe for yo-yo!), or just stopping being vigilant about scale creep, just letting gradual weight regain go on too long without acting on it. Either of those are actionable patterns, can be avoided or corrected.

    You mention new habits: The easier those habits are, the more they can and will continue on autopilot (or close) if life gets complicated. Revamped habits that require a lot of the near-mythical "motivation" or "will power" to sustain . . . are going to make things more difficult.

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