Advice on Maintaining weight

beaches222

Where did you start when you went into maintenance mode? Can anyone give me pointers on maintaining my weight? I went into the fitness pal tool and changed to maintain and it gives me more calories to eat. Should I continue to follow the calories fitness pals gives me and just continue to workout the same. I really would like to just workout maybe 5 days a week now but not sure is this wrong to do or not. I am not sure why I would eat more calories now that I am in maintenance mode. Anyway I just don't know the answers. Can someone help?

cwolfman13

The only thing that should change is your calorie goal. Obviously you have to eat more to maintain...your previous MFP calorie goal was a deficit from a maintenance level of calories...your deficit was built into your diet...did you think your calorie goal was maintenance? Your exercise should not change at all...exercise is for fitness....why would your fitness goals change just because you have reached some arbitrary goal weight.

I eat the same things I ate when I was losing....I just eat about 500 calories per day more to maintain...I continue to get my fitness on the same as I always did when losing. The biggest mistake people make is going back to old eating habits...they fail to actually teach themselves proper nutrition and how to eat...they just crash diet and/or practice deprivation dieting and never learn anything and just go back to doing whatever they did before. Second biggest mistake is that people stop getting their fitness on...they so closely associate exercise with weight loss and never develop any independent fitness goals...thus, they lose their motivation to work out. In reality, exercise is far more important to maintenance than it is for losing.

cstonewoman

When I reached my goal, I did not change it completely to maintenance mode on here. I set it to lose 0.5lbs/week because 1) the maintenance calories were about 1900 which knowing my body, i would gain on that 2) i often go over my calories. not by much but i figured if i put it on losing 0.5lbs/week and went over some days, that would be about maintaining. So far for me that's worked.

lorieric5037

The only thing that should change is your calorie goal. Obviously you have to eat more to maintain...your previous MFP calorie goal was a deficit from a maintenance level of calories...your deficit was built into your diet...did you think your calorie goal was maintenance? Your exercise should not change at all...exercise is for fitness....why would your fitness goals change just because you have reached some arbitrary goal weight.

I eat the same things I ate when I was losing....I just eat about 500 calories per day more to maintain...I continue to get my fitness on the same as I always did when losing. The biggest mistake people make is going back to old eating habits...they fail to actually teach themselves proper nutrition and how to eat...they just crash diet and/or practice deprivation dieting and never learn anything and just go back to doing whatever they did before. Second biggest mistake is that people stop getting their fitness on...they so closely associate exercise with weight loss and never develop any independent fitness goals...thus, they lose their motivation to work out. In reality, exercise is far more important to maintenance than it is for losing.

This, and don't stop drinking lots of water!

beaches222

Oh thanks so much. Yes that's is what happened when I changed to maintenance mode and it gave me like 2,000 more calories to eat and I know this is not going to work for me. Thanks so much I will try changing to the .5 as well.

beaches222

Thanks for your response and no I am going to continue to eat the way I have been as I really have grown to love the healthy foods as I feel so much BETTER however I was going to consider cutting out one day of working out but maybe I should not do that since I have read your response. Thanks!

beaches222

When I reached my goal, I did not change it completely to maintenance mode on here. I set it to lose 0.5lbs/week because 1) the maintenance calories were about 1900 which knowing my body, i would gain on that 2) i often go over my calories. not by much but i figured if i put it on losing 0.5lbs/week and went over some days, that would be about maintaining. So far for me that's worked.
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Oh thanks so much. Yes that's is what happened when I changed to maintenance mode and it gave me like 2,000 more calories to eat and I know this is not going to work for me. Thanks so much I will try changing to the .5 as well.

Boogage

Since moving to maintenance I have started to increase my calories slowly week by week (slowly so I didn't just gain 5lbs of water weight or whatever) and my weight is holding steady. I got stuck in a rut and was only netting 800 cals for a loooong time and I actually lost weight as I increased to 1400 as my body really needed more fuel to function. Now I'm trying to net 1500 and 1600 on training days but I'm struggling to make it most days at the moment due to my habit of undereating.

I think it will be great to be able to net that sort of amount of calories and maintain as I'll never really have to worry too much if I have a couple of bad days )

Do you need to reassess your fitness goals? My main motivation for deciding to increase cals was because I got to the lowest healthy weight for someone my height and wasn't happy with my body. I decided I wanted to try and build muscle and recomp my body to get a decent shape rather than just continue looking like an anorexic and you need to eat at a slight surplus to do that

beaches222

Thanks so much for the tips. I can at least now kinda know where to start.

TomZot

When I reached my goal, I did not change it completely to maintenance mode on here. I set it to lose 0.5lbs/week because 1) the maintenance calories were about 1900 which knowing my body, i would gain on that 2) i often go over my calories. not by much but i figured if i put it on losing 0.5lbs/week and went over some days, that would be about maintaining. So far for me that's worked.

I did basically the same thing. Have stayed within about a 1 pound range up or down. So far so good.

nxd10

When I reached my goal, I did not change it completely to maintenance mode on here. I set it to lose 0.5lbs/week because 1) the maintenance calories were about 1900 which knowing my body, i would gain on that 2) i often go over my calories. not by much but i figured if i put it on losing 0.5lbs/week and went over some days, that would be about maintaining. So far for me that's worked.

I did basically the same thing. Have stayed within about a 1 pound range up or down. So far so good.

Same here. I also got a fitbit to better monitor my activity so I could eat back my exercise calories.

WhisperAnne

I never kept track of calories when I lost 130 pounds, but when I realized I needed to start maintaining I began counting calories. I'm 5'4 and I estimate to lose all that weight I had 1200 calories a day. To maintain I eat 1300-1600. I usually feel happy with 1300-1400, I cringe and worry when I go higher. I've been the same weight for three years so I must be doing something right.

mg720

When I reached my goal, I did not change it completely to maintenance mode on here. I set it to lose 0.5lbs/week because 1) the maintenance calories were about 1900 which knowing my body, i would gain on that 2) i often go over my calories. not by much but i figured if i put it on losing 0.5lbs/week and went over some days, that would be about maintaining. So far for me that's worked.

i did the same and so far for a little over a year it has been working the only other change i made is that I do not log every single day. i plan out my meals on Sundays for the up coming week, this has helped to keep me on track during maintenance too specifically since i dont log every day now.

1capybara

Im not sure its realistic to count calories for years. Just weight yourself once a week or so and if your weight gets outside your desired range (for ex, plus or minus 2 lbs) make slight adjustments in exercize or food portion size.