Question about Maintaining Weight

cnelson820

I am at the last three pounds of a 100 pound weight loss. I have taken up running but I'm having trouble figuring out what to do for maintence. In the past I have not eaten back my exercise calories. I was originally not planning on doing this after I get up to a mainenence amount, but I have started running longer distances and burning 1200+ calories at a time. A couple times I have gotten very light headed after and had trouble cooking food for myself afer I was finished running. I did feel fine after eating but I'm guessing I'll need to figure out how many of these calories to eat back.

I have been adding back in 50 calories every other week for the past two months when I was 10 pounds over goal to ease my way up to maintenence. I still have 2.6 lbs left to loose and im at 1500 calories per day. With MFP set to sedentary lifestyle its says I would need to eat 1610 calories a day to maintain and that just seems like too few, so I'm thinking eating back exercise might be ok.

Just wondering advice on this. I have been overweight my whole life and have never been able to maintain weight at a low amount but have no worries that this is something I can do. I have invested too much into loosing the 100 lbs and have replaced my whole wardrobe (several times) with the intention of never having to go back.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

kitinboots

I would continue gradually increasing your calories, not until you hit a certain number, but until your body is naturally maintaining it's current weight.
In fact, a smart thing to do would be keep going until you see a small increase in weight, and drop back down 50 or so calories. That should bring you back to maintenance.

IMO 'eating back exercise calories' teaches us to think of exercise in the wrong light. That extra mile you ran doesn't mean you get a slightly bigger dinner, it means you felt like going an extra mile, which is awesome. And on the days you don't workout your body still needs plenty of food to recover.

kitinboots

Andif you're running long distances then your daily calories shouldbe much higher than 1500. But keep adding them in slowly - you'll find you can handle a lot more than you think.