Another dumb reason maintenance is hard

Options
2»

Replies

  • brynnsmom
    brynnsmom Posts: 945 Member
    Options
    I'm set at a 200ish deficit. This lets me deal with any weekend splurges or miscalculations that might occur, and I've been pretty spot on weight wise for about 2 months now.

    This is true for me also...I let up on the weekend and eat at a slight deficit during the week to make up for it. I make a real effort to log at least six days a week. I've been maintaining for several years now. I have a 3 lb range that I allow myself to fluctuate in.
  • dashaclaire
    dashaclaire Posts: 127 Member
    Options
    this is why im planning on perma-cutting
    that way i can go ham on the weekends and still be in the clear


    Mmmmm ham....
  • cyoka13
    cyoka13 Posts: 288 Member
    Options
    I'm set at a 200ish deficit. This lets me deal with any weekend splurges or miscalculations that might occur, and I've been pretty spot on weight wise for about 2 months now.

    This is true for me also...I let up on the weekend and eat at a slight deficit during the week to make up for it. I make a real effort to log at least six days a week. I've been maintaining for several years now. I have a 3 lb range that I allow myself to fluctuate in.

    Same here. I have been maintaining for a little less then a year. I keep my cals set at 1600, but in reality I eat closer to 1900/2000 cals per day. I think if I had my cals set to my TDEE, it would be easier for me to think a few extra hundred cals per day on a regular basis do not matter. I have a little bit of wiggle room this way to account for eating out and not weighing my food.
  • msbunnie68
    msbunnie68 Posts: 1,894 Member
    Options
    Maintenance is the exact reason why I encourage people to look at their portion sizes and learn how much of certain foods they should be eating, rather than find substitutes. Loading your plate up like a mountain with cauliflower 'pizza' and cauliflower 'rice' teaches nothing about how much pizza and rice is a portion size in the real world (unless your plan is to eat cauliflower pizza and cauliflower 'rice' til the end of days).

    All the weighing of food, measuring and recipe tweaking etc should be getting us used to how we should continue to eat at maintenance not just treated as a quick fix to lose weight then yeahhhhaaaaaa FOOOOOD!
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,943 Member
    Options
    (she says after saying for months that it's not)

    If you are over 500 calories a day while losing weight, you'll just stall because you've just lost your deficit.

    If you are over 500 calories a day on MAINTENANCE you're going to gain. No deficit to buffer you.

    It may obvious to everyone else, but it wasn't to me.
    I know what you mean. Yep, I sure do. :smile:
  • astronomicals
    astronomicals Posts: 1,537 Member
    Options
    average your week.. balance it out...

    thats is all
  • Vailara
    Vailara Posts: 2,452 Member
    Options
    I know you can balance it out over the week, but what worries is me is that the "buffer" took care of any underestimates of intake, etc. I know that in maintenance if I underestimate my intake by, say, 50 calories a day (easily done!), I will eventually gain weight, whereas it didn't matter too much when I was losing weight because I'd still have a deficit.

    In practice, though ... I've maintained for the last few months without having to be precise at all. Some days I've logged, and some days I haven't. This has surprised me! I'm now trying to lose a little bit more and finding it much harder (I'd thought maintenance woudl be harder).
  • ritteea
    ritteea Posts: 6
    Options
    That's what i usually do also...calories deficit during weekdays so that i can afford some extra calories during weekends
  • MyChocolateDiet
    MyChocolateDiet Posts: 22,281 Member
    Options
    I don't actually think maintenance is hard.

    It really isn't.

    Are you sure you are actually having a problem with maintenance and not that the weight comes back on in a spurt. One related to an event or set of circumstances? If you could stay steady with your logging and then go back and look at what was happening around the time of gaining could that help you to better manage those types of situations in the future?

    This is what I'm working on right now.

    Once again I have managed to successfully and easily maintain without even logging or counting cals.

    That's why I consider it easy. I can do it for long stretches. I sincerely beleive the body wants to stay at that healthy normalized weight and as long as we do not get in the way of that through all the myriad of interferences we as humans come up with our bodies would reach that stasis and we could enjoy our bodies with little attention besides an overall attitude toward healthy eating and decent amounts of movement.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,372 Member
    Options
    Heck I'm still trying to lose but have mostly been maintaining for 2 months as it is. I'll probably stick to my 250 calorie deficit forever, lol.

    Sorry for the detour out of topic but.. Francl27 you look stunning in that dress. Where did you get it? Simple yet so flattering.


    Old Navy!
  • Linnaea27
    Linnaea27 Posts: 639 Member
    Options
    (she says after saying for months that it's not)

    If you are over 500 calories a day while losing weight, you'll just stall because you've just lost your deficit.

    If you are over 500 calories a day on MAINTENANCE you're going to gain. No deficit to buffer you.

    It may obvious to everyone else, but it wasn't to me.

    I was just thinking about this last night. I'm just starting the maintaining process and am slowly raising my calorie goal-- first from 1360 to 1400 a couple weeks ago, then last week from 1400 to 1500. Aaaand now if I'm 140 calories over my goal, I am told I will have gained a pound in 5 weeks if I keep eating that way. :( So the maintenance goal is one you can't go over AT ALL or else. :sad: I wonder if it might be easier to give oneself a slight deficit goal so when you go over sometimes, the net result will be maintaining!? I'm thinking of using that approach since I suck at consistently meeting the goal-- I'm usually a hundred or more under or 100-300 over!
  • Iwishyouwell
    Iwishyouwell Posts: 1,888 Member
    Options
    This is why I think there is some great merit to:

    A. Picking a weight maintenance range, not a singular number.
    B. Cutting weight slightly below your goal to allow for a nice buffer.

    It seem pure lunacy to me for somebody to get to a single goal weight, and then work the rest of their days to stay at that one number.
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    Options
    \
    I was just thinking about this last night. I'm just starting the maintaining process and am slowly raising my calorie goal-- first from 1360 to 1400 a couple weeks ago, then last week from 1400 to 1500. Aaaand now if I'm 140 calories over my goal, I am told I will have gained a pound in 5 weeks if I keep eating that way. :( So the maintenance goal is one you can't go over AT ALL or else. :sad: I wonder if it might be easier to give oneself a slight deficit goal so when you go over sometimes, the net result will be maintaining!? I'm thinking of using that approach since I suck at consistently meeting the goal-- I'm usually a hundred or more under or 100-300 over!

    You can turn off the 'you're going to weight X' on your profile OR you can just not close the day and you'll never have to see that.
  • Sharon_C
    Sharon_C Posts: 2,132 Member
    Options
    This is why I track my calories on a weekly basis as well as a daily. As long as I'm under for the week I keep maintaining. That allows me a day or two over calories as long as I balance it with a day or two under.
  • mxmkenney
    mxmkenney Posts: 486 Member
    Options
    It is easier to maintain though because you get to eat more calories daily. If you do go over 500 calories one day, just make up for it throughout the week with eating at a slight deficit for a couple days or get in an extra workout.

    You might gain a pound one week, but if you continue to eat at your maintenance calorie goal, it should even out by the next week.
  • montana_girl
    montana_girl Posts: 1,403 Member
    Options
    ....you can just not close the day and you'll never have to see that.

    ^^This! I stopped hitting the button about completing my day because the estimated number drove me crazy! LOL
  • YesIAm17
    YesIAm17 Posts: 817 Member
    Options
    Feel free to correct me, because I am still cutting and have more homework to do about maintaining and bulking but.......

    Would it not be much less of a concern if you spent an adequate amount of time picking up and putting down heavy things while maintaining? This would then more likely result in muscle gain if you go over rather than fat, which would then increase your fat burning potential making it even easier to maintain, no? And a slight surplus here and there while lifting should pose no risk of the ladies getting supah bulky right?

    I'm already doing some strength training (T25 Gamma) while in deficit, I would imagine this would also mean that if I went over my deficit and beyond maintenance for a day or two here and there that any weight I gain would be more likely to be muscle than fat and ultimately improve my fat burning ability, no?

    Are these not very strong arguments for strength training regardless of if you are cutting, maintaining, or bulking?

    IDK!

    Someone smarter than I should comment on such things :drinker:

Categories