Wishing I hadn't switched to maintaince

heybales

So this time drop 2 lbs below goal weight, because when you maintain you will at least gain that much water weight as you top of glucose stores.

And then increase slowly just in case metabolism slowed down a tad already. That slow increase doesn't change the effect of eventual water weight of course.

And then depending on how you did your diet, you may not get back up to what is considered maintenance by MFP for 3-6 months anyway.

Your weight loss for these last few lbs will tell you about what your real maintenance figure is with whatever the exercise has been during these last few lbs lost.
Of course if your workout stays the same, then valid figure.

phyllisgehrke

I agree you have to play with the numbers.
I have been on maintenance for over 3 months and have not gained any weight.
Just need to find the right number and still log all of your food and drink your water.
Good Luck in your maintenance

cmdwaters

Surely the sudden jump from 1500 (which is too low to start with) to into 2000's was too much for the body/metabolism to cope with? Hence a weight gain.

I was eating about the same amount and realised I wasnt eating enough (thanks to advice from my fanatical nutritionist sister) so i inched up 100-150 per week. Now at 2000 and still losing..

Whenever i decide to go maintenance I'll inch up.

theycallyoumister

Sometimes I feel like this too. I find maintenance tougher than losing. As others have said it's tricky.

kelly_e_montana

It's glycogen. When you go to maintenance, you gain back water weight that is depleted when you're in a prolonged deficit.

If the scale number bothers you, lose 2-5 pounds more than you'd planned and then go to maintenance. Personally, I say lift heavy and don't worry about the number on the scale. Worry about the image in the mirror.

Yep, glycogen. It it bugs you, you really do need to lose 5 pounds more than you want before you switch to maintenance or it's going to happen every time. As soon as you go off maintenance, you'll lose 5 pounds and switch back to maintenance, whoop, it's back. It's your glycogen stores replenishing.

SLLRunner

Me getting to my goal was a great effort, a got there with little problems, but the last 2 months after switching has turned out out to be a complete failure, I began on 2200 (a big jump from 1500), but I slowly seemed to gaining, 2 weeks later I switched to 2000, then soon it was obvious i'll never see my goal weight again at that level, 2 weeks ago I switched to 1900 calories a day, 2 weeks later still a slight gain.

So i'm now 7-8 pounds up from my goal, I was losing weight nicely and too quickily before the switch, and I going to down my calories to almost my old weight loss score.

So it's back to weight loss mode again, I be going back to the 'General Diet and Weight Loss Help' forum and leaving this Maintaining area and this time I think I'll lose 8 pounds below my happy goal weight (if I can get there again), so the weight fluctuations won't bother me so much.

Oh well, you learn from your mistakes... was just horrible to just when I was doing so well...

Maintenance is trial and error all the way.I think I am finally maintaining my weight in a short range of 3 or so pounds,, but when I first started maintenance I could not stop losing weight. Every week it seemed I was losing a half pound to a pound. Got my thyroid checked, normal. Nothing else wrong with me. So, I just started upping the calories until now where I'm holding my weight range.

The difference between your method and mine is by the time I was at my last 16 pounds to lose, I set my goal to lose .5 pounds a week. By the time I reached maintenance, I had a walk to maintenance calories rather than a leap. Going from 1500 to 2200 is a huge jump, so it's no wonder you put on some weight. I suspect some of that is water too, especially because you said you dropped some weight pretty quickly recently.

To lose the weight you gained, I suggest setting your goals to lose .25 or .5 pounds a week. Or, perhaps start with .5 and then with the last few pounds, go to .25. That way you're just walking to maintenance instead of jumping.

SLLRunner

I know when you weight more, it makes me feel bigger, bad news is I havent seen my goal weight since the day I reached it, and my maintance calorie limit is going to be disappointing low, far off from MFP calculation of 2380, even 1,900 isnt doing it, maybe i'm eating more than I think, thats the only possibilty I can think off.

That could be true too.

raindawg

I've been on maintenance three weeks now and am experimenting. My deficit calories were 1,400 then jumped to 2,000 for maintenance. I quickly gained 2 1/2 lbs and went back on deficit mode right away. I'm back to goal and have been trying 1,800 over the last week. I lost another 1 lb so will need to up it more.