Advice on Finding Maintenance Calories

bonjoeytan

Hey everyone, just curious what your guys' experience has been with the estimated maintenance calories by MyFitnessPal and other online sources compared to what you found to be your actual maintenance, whether it was accurate or not.

I'm 5'6 Asian male hovering around 129 ish pounds, I go to the gym 6 days a week. M/W/F = weightlifting + cycling, T/Th/F = running + core/abs.

Just recently finished a weight loss journey, and am eating more but doing so cautiously because most sources say I should be able to maintain in the 2.2k-2.4k calories range, given all my stats and activity level. However if I were to compromise between my hunger levels and the estimated maintenance calories, I'd probably say I'd b happier around maybe 2.8k or so haha. Am currently experimenting with that but wondering if I'm just being too optimistic and that I need to 'stick it out' in the 2.3k ish range until my hunger levels normalize as my body get used to this new norm after losing over 35 pounds this year. I'd like to say I'm active, idk if I can put myself as a 'real' runner status or anything, but for running I usually go around 4.15 miles in half an hour, and for cycling around 8.5 miles in about half an hour with resistance. It'd be nice to think maybe I am able to eat more, but at the same time I'm aware of the disclaimer that most people overestimate their activity level and caloric needs, so just thought others take on this might help give me an idea of where I should be eating at or what I could expect.

In terms of diet, of course I try to eat healthy whole foods the majority of the time. High protein, veggies, fruits, etc are My staples. But still allow for eating out, having a processed treat, etc every now and then like on a weekend Saturday

AnnPT77

There's a thread here where other MFPers - most of them actually already in maintenance - share experiences and methods for determining maintenance calories:

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

If MFP or some other so-called calorie calculator has given you estimates that are fairly accurate in predicting your weight loss rate in the past, the same source will probably be fairly accurate in predicting your maintenance calories. The caveat is that some people find that as they go to maintenance, a bit of adaptive thermogenesis reverses, and they can eat more to maintain than they'd expected. (If that happens, timelines vary, but it might be after a month or so.)

MFP's estimated maintenance calories for me were way too low . . . by about the same proportion that I'd lost faster (or been able to eat more) versus its estimates during weight loss. Ditto for my good brand/model fitness tracker that provides reasonably useful estimates for others, based on others' posts here. Conclusion: For some reason, I'm statistically unusual. It happens.

Any calculator (even fitness tracker) is just giving you a statistical estimate, basically the average for people demographically similar to you. If you're average, the estimates will be close. Some people are noticeably off average, either high or low. A rare few people are surprisingly far off from average, still either high or low, and the reasons why may not be obvious.

tomcustombuilder

Eat normally for a week and count those calories. If your weight has been fairly stable those are your maintenance calories. Any calculator is a very rough estimate.

bonjoeytan

AnnPT77 wrote: »

There's a thread here where other MFPers - most of them actually already in maintenance - share experiences and methods for determining maintenance calories:

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

If MFP or some other so-called calorie calculator has given you estimates that are fairly accurate in predicting your weight loss rate in the past, the same source will probably be fairly accurate in predicting your maintenance calories. The caveat is that some people find that as they go to maintenance, a bit of adaptive thermogenesis reverses, and they can eat more to maintain than they'd expected. (If that happens, timelines vary, but it might be after a month or so.)

MFP's estimated maintenance calories for me were way too low . . . by about the same proportion that I'd lost faster (or been able to eat more) versus its estimates during weight loss. Ditto for my good brand/model fitness tracker that provides reasonably useful estimates for others, based on others' posts here. Conclusion: For some reason, I'm statistically unusual. It happens.

Any calculator (even fitness tracker) is just giving you a statistical estimate, basically the average for people demographically similar to you. If you're average, the estimates will be close. Some people are noticeably off average, either high or low. A rare few people are surprisingly far off from average, still either high or low, and the reasons why may not be obvious.

Thanks, yes I noticed the week I got off my weight loss diet and started ramping up calories, my weight loss accelerated rapidly for some reason despite me not intending to lose any additional weight, so it makes me wonder as you mentioned if my body just needs time to adjust to the new norm

tomcustombuilder

bonjoeytan wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

There's a thread here where other MFPers - most of them actually already in maintenance - share experiences and methods for determining maintenance calories:

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

If MFP or some other so-called calorie calculator has given you estimates that are fairly accurate in predicting your weight loss rate in the past, the same source will probably be fairly accurate in predicting your maintenance calories. The caveat is that some people find that as they go to maintenance, a bit of adaptive thermogenesis reverses, and they can eat more to maintain than they'd expected. (If that happens, timelines vary, but it might be after a month or so.)

MFP's estimated maintenance calories for me were way too low . . . by about the same proportion that I'd lost faster (or been able to eat more) versus its estimates during weight loss. Ditto for my good brand/model fitness tracker that provides reasonably useful estimates for others, based on others' posts here. Conclusion: For some reason, I'm statistically unusual. It happens.

Any calculator (even fitness tracker) is just giving you a statistical estimate, basically the average for people demographically similar to you. If you're average, the estimates will be close. Some people are noticeably off average, either high or low. A rare few people are surprisingly far off from average, still either high or low, and the reasons why may not be obvious.

Thanks, yes I noticed the week I got off my weight loss diet and started ramping up calories, my weight loss accelerated rapidly for some reason despite me not intending to lose any additional weight, so it makes me wonder as you mentioned if my body just needs time to adjust to the new norm

Your body is slow to respond to calorie changes. Your loss after raising calories can be attributed to the prior 2 weeks or so of dieting. Raising calories will never cause fatloss however it may cause water loss via a whoosh effect if you've been dieting for awhile