When do you know start to maintaining?

Austin7474

Little back story.. growing up I’ve always been overweight 300plus through middle school around 400 in college. But recently started going crazy in the gym and have had the will power of the gods with my diet. I’ve made my way to 205 and am wondering when I should adjust my diet to I don’t potentially wither away I’m 6’1” 205lbs eating around 1700-1900 calories a day.

wunderkindking

You should be eating back calories burned at the gym. Whether you continue to lose or not is kind of down to you and where you feel good, are happy with yourself and you're happy with your lifestyle as a sustainable thing.

For me maintenance happened at 'like heck I'm going to get more active or eat less from where I am'. It really was that simple. Eating less stopped being a thing I was willing to do and being MORE physically active was a thing I knew I didn't have time for. So I maintain where I was when that happened. That's lower than I initially thought and a few pounds higher than my 'final plan' but works out fine.

AnnPT77

I kept adjusting my goal weight downward a few pounds at a time, having been afflicted initially by "at X age you should not be as thin as you were in your 20s" thinking. In my case, I could see that my initial goal wasn't right for me and my body, even at X age.

As I got closer to my (theoretical, initial) goal, I'd already slowed weight loss down to a slow rate. Given that slow loss rate, I had time, so I started thinking about benchmarks - fairly specific things I could see or feel - that would let me know I'd reached a sensible goal weight.

With those benchmarks in mind, I literally woke up one morning, did a "self-inventory" and decided it was time to zero in on maintenance calories.

I'm intentionally not saying what the appearance/feeling benchmarks were for me, because I think that *should* be super individualized and personal.

You can figure this out. Keep in mind that it's not irrevocable: You can decide you're at goal weight, later change your mind. Maybe you decide you'd like to be a little leaner for health or appearance reasons, or that you have more energy at a higher/lower weight, or that you want your maintenance calories to be a little higher for sustainability reasons . . . any of that is fine.

You've absolutely proven you know how to lose weight, if you need to. I'm sure you know how to gain a little weight gradually, if you decide you need to (same skill set, pretty much). Form a theory about your maintenance weight, hang out there for a bit, re-evaluate if you need to. All good!

Congratulations - you're in a great spot. Nice work!

mjglantz

Congratulations! I sort of backed into my goal and calorie goal. At one time aimed to get to low 170's (5'8") and when I got there I didn't do much differently and kept losing. Long story short, I ended up in cardiac rehab and adjusted my weight goal to 162 which is in the normal BMI range. Got there and kept working out and kept losing. Figured I was eating about 1500-1600 calories/day and working out and my weight would settle. It did around 145 and when I stopped losing that's when I started gradually adding back in calories. With working out every day (some days on the gentle side) I aim for 2,000 calories/day and my weight's stayed around 142 for about 8 years. Everyone is different and you'll figure it out too.

rosebarnalice

My original target was 160.
When I got to about 175 in January, I changed my weekly weight loss goal from 1 lb per week to .5 lbs per week with the idea that I would coast slowly into maintenance ~1500 calories a day.

When I hit my 160 goal in March, I didn't change my calorie goal, and MFP said I was at maintenance. Even so, I kept losing very slowly--and by the middle of September I had dropped another 15 lbs--where I've maintained for 2.5 months, still eating ~1500 calories a day, even though MFP saysi I should be gaining weight :-)

cwolfman13

I never had a weight goal...mostly I wanted to correct a bunch of bad blood markers, but my goal was to be around 15%ish BF. I got there when I hit right around 180 Lbs @ 5'10". I got into endurance cycling for about 5 years and at one point dropped to 175 and about 12%, but I didn't maintain that for very long. 180 @ 15%ish is my sweet spot.

happimess01

cwolfman13 wrote: »

I never had a weight goal...mostly I wanted to correct a bunch of bad blood markers, but my goal was to be around 15%ish BF. I got there when I hit right around 180 Lbs @ 5'10". I got into endurance cycling for about 5 years and at one point dropped to 175 and about 12%, but I didn't maintain that for very long. 180 @ 15%ish is my sweet spot.

I am aiming to get to 15%bf as well, for now at least. @cwolfman13, is 15% bf a good place to finally splurge on clothes bcuz I might wanna cut a little further and then go on a bulk? Curious to hear about your experience

makethistimedifferent

when you're happy with who you see in the mirror.

__Di__

I started off at just under 176lbs (5ft 8" tall), lost some and got down to 161lbs, then hovered around that weight for just under one year, then I decided "no, my original aim was to get down to 130 lbs". So with the help of my husband (who also wanted to lose a few pounds and joined MFP to log food and exercise) I set to it. After five months at 1200 calories per day, I was 132 lbs. I began to introduce slightly more food and then a few weeks later I finally reached my goal of 130lbs (well it touched 129.8). My daily intake is now set at 1400 calories and that maintains.

You see, when I had just that two pound left to lose, I figured that if I up my calories only when I reached my goal, I would continue to lose for a few weeks (which is what happened when I reached 132 lbs). By the time I had reached my goal I knew exactly the amount would keep my weight steady.

Doing it different this time though as previous goals achieved several years ago resulted in me no longer logging food and so putting all the weight back on so I still log everyday, that too is helping me stick to my goal weight.

Xellercin

I never had a goal weight, I had a goal lifestyle and that produced an optimal weight for my body over time.

rosiekin

Well done on your weight loss.

My goal was 154. When I reached that, I added in 100 calories a day and weighed myself after a month. I'd lost weight so upped another 100 calories a day for the next month and lost again. I did this for 5 months in total during which time I'd painlessly dropped down to 139lbs.
Although it had never been my intention to go under 154, on reflection, I definitely looked better after I'd lost that extra stone.

If you're fairly happy with your current weight, perhaps you could slowly introduce more calories now. You'll probably continue to lose more weight until you reach a point when your weight loss stops and you reach your maintenance calories number.