How do I find my maintenance? Then build muscle ?

nina123genesis

Currently F 5’2 132, I consume 1,200 calories since January 2022 and that has gotten me to lose 1lb per week, which has gotten me from 180lbs to 132lbs now. My issue is that when I reach my goal weight(120) , what do I do ? I can’t continue the same diet bc I’ll disappear into thin air, but I also don’t want to gain the weight back. I’ve gone to online calculators but they don’t seem accurate at all. Im just asking for advice from anyone out there that has had experience in this or what I could do, because a few years ago I was in this same spot and ended up losing all my progress because I wanted to build muscle . This next part of my question is: once I reach my maintenance calories, how much should I add to build muscle ? Building muscle tips ? I hope this post does not get anyone angry, I’m just kinda lost and don’t want to ruin what I’ve worked for.

Lietchi

Have you read this topic? You would find it helpful, I think.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10638211/how-to-find-your-maintenance-calorie-level/p1

As for building muscle, I'm no expert but you have several options:
- you could try just doing 'recomp' (recomposition): eating at maintenance while doing strength training. For people who have been training/building muscle for a longer time, this might not work as well, and even for newbies it's usually a slow process
- eating at a slight calorie surplus would yield better results if you've been training for a longer time. As I understand it, the larger the calorie surplus, the more fat you're likely to gain along with the added muscle. I hope other people have more expert advice on precise numbers.

For building muscle: sufficient protein is necessary (but no need to exaggerate either). I like this calculator:
https://examine.com/protein-intake-calculator/

And obviously equally important is to have a good progressive workout routine, which I can't really help you with, but you can find ideas here: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

mtaratoot

If you have consistently been losing 1.0 pounds per week, that suggests you are running a deficit of about 500 calories per day. If you continue losing at this rate, you've got twelve weeks to go.

You might consider slowly increasing your calories now and paying close attention to your intake and your loss rate. You might find that you can slow down your loss to a half pound per week. Yes, that means you've still got six months to get to your goal, but slow and steady is a safe way to go.

As you slowly start increasing your intake and closely monitoring your weight, you'll be able to fine-tune your calorie budget. If you start working on increasing muscle now rather than waiting until you get to goal weight, you might find it rewarding. You should continue to monitor your calorie budget to see for yourself where you should set your intake. There's no reason to wait until you get to goal to start building muscle, and there's reasons you should NOT wait.

If you haven't already, think about setting a maintenance RANGE rather than a set goal weight. You will likely find that you fluctuate several pounds up and down over the course of weeks or days. I've gained and lost over five pounds in one day, and that's why I usually look at weight trends rather than an individual scale reading. You can use a spreadsheet and run a simple rolling average, or you can use one of the tools that can calculate a weighted moving average that gives more importance to the most recent scale weight than the one from ten days ago.

cupcakesandproteinshakes

Definitely start lifting now. To preserve muscle mass. Look at the lifting thread above.

erginc2005

2 very critical points outlined above.

#1 - Don't just go from 1200 calories to 1700 calories b/c you want to build muscle. Add back slowly - perhaps 100 calories per week and they should be very specific calories (not just carbs) to aid in your muscle development.

#2 - If you're not already lifting weights you should start immediately. Doesn't have to be crazy heavy but you need to resistance train otherwise a good portion of the weight you're losing is coming from muscle which you've previously stated you want to retain. You're going to lose muscle regardless by being in a deficit but you can reduce the amount of muscle loss by lifting weights for at least 30 minutes 3-4 times per week.

LiveOnceBeHappy

Well done on your weight loss. I have no input on muscle building, but I just wanted to congratulate you!