Changing calorie goal to maintain

ldcheers

I will hit my weight loss goal soon so I will be upping my daily calorie goal. If I change the calorie goal does it revert back to day one? Thanks for any advice on the app changes I need to make in order to move into maintenance.

sollyn23l2

Just go in and switch your goal from lose to maintain. No, it shouldn't start over at day 1

springlering62

I’ve changed my goal a zillion times, and it’s still showing a several year long unbroken streak.

So no, it won’t make you start over.

What will make you start over is thinking “woo hoo I reached goal!” and falling back into those same bad habits that made you overweight.

Or calorie slippage. Fifty here, a hundred there, surely it won’t matter. Generally it doesn’t but when you get careless it snowballs.

Best advice I ever got here- from the reams of truly helpful advice I got:

always treat maintenance like you still have ten pounds to lose.

spiriteagle99

Congratulations on being so close to your goal. You can change your goal from lose to maintain or just enter the number of calories you believe you need to maintain that weight loss. That may change. Just like when losing weight, some of us burn more calories than the average, some burn fewer. For a while, at least, it helps to continue to log so that you can figure out what your body actually needs to maintain the weight loss.

I've been maintaining a 50+ pound weight loss for several years. I changed my goal when I realized that the number of calories suggested by MFP was not enough for me. Then I changed it again. I continue to log because it helps keep me on track. Otherwise I tend to start eating a little more here and a little more there. It adds up. I do not want to be on the weight-loss yoyo ever again, so for me, logging helps. YMMV

AnnPT77

I'm not sure what you mean by "revert to day 1"?

I can't think of anything that reverted when I upped my calories to maintenance, though it's been a while (like 9+ years ago 😆). Certainly nothing important reverted - streak counts or starting weight or anything like that. Even my old calorie goals are still on the old diary pages.

You wouldn't want to update your starting weight on MFP, but you can keep updating your current weight as needed. Mostly, just go to your goals area in the app and change your overall goal to "maintain weight".

If the weight-loss calorie goal MFP gave you yielded roughly the expected weight loss rate, that may be all you need to do. If you found that you lost faster or slower than MFP expected, you might need to adjust your calorie goal accordingly. There's a thread here about various ways to figure out maintenance calories, if that's an issue for you:

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

If you haven't already done so, I'd encourage you to read some of the threads in this section where people discuss how they maintain weight - habits and practices. They vary from one person to the next, which is enlightening in itself, I think . . . but you may find some tips that will help you transition smoothly into the maintenance phase.

For sure, I think a key one is to think of goal weight as a range up and down in a given region of a few pounds, rather than one exact fixed number. Bodies are weird. 😆 Real maintenance weight bumps up and down a bit within a day or across a few days or so.

Actual regain doesn't tend to look like a sudden unexpected jump. Usually that kind of thing is just water retention weirdness, or waste in the digestive tract - temporary. Real regain looks more like a slow gradual up-creep on the scale, kinda sneaky. If I see that gradually uphill slope over many weeks in my weight trending app, that's an indicator for me that it may be time for an adjustment.

Best wishes in maintenance!

pony4us

I just want to add what worked for me…sort of the opposite of "think like you have to lose ten pounds"

When I got to about 10 pounds from goal I looked up what my calories would be at goal weight, and that is what I ate. True the loss was slow and also true I didn't have a lot to lose about 20 pounds. But for me living like I was at maintenance was easy, as is maintenance for the last few years. No flipping a switch, no changes just keep on keeping on. The calculation was sort of close to reality and gave me time to figure out how I was going to be more healthy and happy from then on. Just maybe a different point of view.