Transitioning from weight loss to maintenance

wampahoofus

My scale is telling me that I am only 0.2lbs away from my goal today. I want to stop losing now and go into maintenance. Does anyone have advice on how to accomplish this gracefully?

themedalist

Slowly increase your calories over time until you find a balance. Scale fluctuations daily are normal, as are fluctuations until you find your true maintenance calories.

But my best advice is to really think about and implement your maintenance plan. Almost all of us who maintain our weight have a plan. "I eat fewer calories during the week so I can splurge on the weekend" is a plan. "I eat moderately and exercise, weigh myself regularly and adjust whenever my weight exceeds a 5 pound threshold" is another plan. Figure out what will work for you and make it happen. You worked really hard to lose weight; a maintenance plan will ensure you don't undo all your hard earned losses.

I wrote a blog post on the importance of having a maintenance plan, if you're interested:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/themedalist/view/what-s-your-maintenance-plan-624676

themedalist

And congrats on a tremendous accomplishment!

canadjineh

Congrats, Wampahoofus (love the name, btw): As poster above said, add things in gradually stay at a certain level for a week to see your results, and give yourself a healthy range for normal weight fluctuation. Mine is 6 lbs (2 under goal and 3 above), that way it's easy to get back in control without a whole lotta stress.

tremroy1

Congratulations.......your stress eating would be a concern to your maintenance program. You must try and control your stress. This will help you to maintain. Increasing calories is necessary. This should be done gradually. I dont like the term cheating. I do not advocate this as this will lead to more over eating and loss of control. Excersise is important as this allows us to burn more calories. Tracking on a daily basis is a good plan to help you control or monitor your intake. Good Luck

ianthy

Hi

I am following the advice you have been by other posters. I am now 8lbs away maintenance - this is the zone that has caught me out in the past. Suddenly my weight starts to increase and then I am back on the diet again. So this time I am adding just 100 cals per day for a week and then seeing how it goes. I have been following this plan for 2 weeks and still lost 1.5 lbs last week, so some way to go before I reach my maintenance level. I will reach my target and a point where I can come off weight loss and focus on maintenance without taking big steps ... as you put it gracefully.

Well done on your weight loss.

SezxyStef

as one poster said get a plan.

My plan started 4 weeks ago...I upped from 1600-1700...then the next week another 100 calories a day. I stayed at 1800 for 2 weeks...hit my goal.

However I found that upping 100 a week did cause water retention so I slowed it to 50 a week.

I am at 1850 this week...I am trying to get to 2100.

I have my plan in place...I am still exercising just like I did before...but to be frank...I am having a hard time getting my calories in.

I know I have given advice about how to do it...eat calorie dense foods like avocadoes, peanut butter etc. I do that. I personally can't drink whole fat milk (makes me ill) I will be switching to full fat cheese as soon as my low fat stuff is gone but to be honest, I am completely satisfied with my food atm. I am not deprived, I am not hungry, my workouts aren't suffering...

That is the only issue I've had with maintenance so far...but at least there is recognition of it and I have a "mini plan" to get over it.

this week I have 800 calories to use up this week over and above what my food intake is to reach goal this week....might be time for an ice cream or a few drinks..

jmcdonald2011

I'm still to far off my goal weight to have input - but I wanted to say great job!!

Linnaea27

I've been doing this for the past 3 weeks or so. I hit my goal weight yesterday, after slowly increasing calories from my "lose 0.5 lb/week" amount for a few weeks. I started by raising my calories from 1360 to 1400, stayed there for a week or two, then raised them again to 1500, where I've been for a week and a half. My actual maintenance calories are I think 1620 or so, and I'm now trying to increase my intake again to match that. So far it's hard because I'm used to eating less, and I am super active at this time of year, so my actual calorie allowance is over 2000 a day! It really is difficult to eat that much. Like SezxyStef, I am finding that I have to work on eating *more* since my stomach is used to a certain (lesser) amount. For me, it's time to start buying full-fat cheese again, and I can finally enjoy a proper amount of pizza without having to work at fitting it in!

The suggestion others have given of upping your calorie intake by 100 cals/day each week until you hit your maintenance number is a good one. I'm seeing how this week goes with my new maintenance calorie goal. I am hoping my use of the slow increase will prevent water retention.

One thing that's helping me think about this and hopefully be more successful is watching my calorie intake by the week, rather than by the day. My activity level varies a lot from day to day, so sometimes I'll be super active and way under my calorie goal, and then sometimes I won't exercise but will be hungry, so I'll go over. I look at the weekly net calories in "Reports" to make sure I'm eating the correct amount each week, and if I have some left over now that I'm maintaining, well, I'll have a couple glasses of wine or make a yummy dessert that I haven't had in too long!

mamadon

I'm doing exactly what a few others have said. I hit maintanance two months ago. I have upped my calories by 100 every two weeks. I only weighed myself at the end of each two week period. So far I have maintained. If I start to gain, I know I will need to adjust. Congratulations on your accomplishment!

Beckilovespizza

Slowly increase your calories over time until you find a balance. Scale fluctuations daily are normal, as are fluctuations until you find your true maintenance calories.

But my best advice is to really think about and implement your maintenance plan. Almost all of us who maintain our weight have a plan. "I eat fewer calories during the week so I can splurge on the weekend" is a plan. "I eat moderately and exercise, weigh myself regularly and adjust whenever my weight exceeds a 5 pound threshold" is another plan. Figure out what will work for you and make it happen. You worked really hard to lose weight; a maintenance plan will ensure you don't undo all your hard earned losses.

I wrote a blog post on the importance of having a maintenance plan, if you're interested:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/themedalist/view/what-s-your-maintenance-plan-624676

I just read your blog, thank u for sharing ur plan and also the metaphor of building the room makes perfect sense. I will remember this next time I reach for the chocolate. Great blog and very motivating!

rsclause

As I started to hit my goal I became truthful about my activity level. I was mostly sedentary at work and moderately active for woking out. I had really upped my workouts so I put that to a higher level. At the same time I adjusted my weight loss goal to 1/2 lb a week from two pounds. I then added calories to my breakfast adding more fruit, nuts and chia seeds to and milk to my oatmeal. I was having some trouble still losing so I added beer. Well, it was what got me here in the first place. Now I have decided that the beer will end up on my stomach again so I am off to the costco to buy some protein bars and such. Hoping that the protein will help with adding calories without the fat. I am on a mission to have a "six-pack". My point is that it is fun to look at the data and play around with your diet and exercise. I don't go on and off diets now and never really did before. I just adjust to maintain, its my new lifestyle now. I also noticed we have a lot of 50 lbs. lost here, nice job everyone!

PJPrimrose

I won't repeat everyone else but I will congratulate you! All that hard work paided off! Whoop!

wampahoofus

Thanks Everyone! There is a lot of good advice here. My take aways are:

- Put a plan together to stay on top of things - I plan to weigh in daily with an acceptable weight range in mind.
- Increase slowly - I will start adding 100 calories/day twice a week until I get to the "losing 0.5 lbs" goal, see how that goes and then start increasing to true maintenance if I am stabilzing or still losing.
- Avoid cheats and binges. Stay away from eating as comfort or relieving stress!

macchiatto

Slowly increase your calories over time until you find a balance. Scale fluctuations daily are normal, as are fluctuations until you find your true maintenance calories.

But my best advice is to really think about and implement your maintenance plan. Almost all of us who maintain our weight have a plan. "I eat fewer calories during the week so I can splurge on the weekend" is a plan. "I eat moderately and exercise, weigh myself regularly and adjust whenever my weight exceeds a 5 pound threshold" is another plan. Figure out what will work for you and make it happen. You worked really hard to lose weight; a maintenance plan will ensure you don't undo all your hard earned losses.

I wrote a blog post on the importance of having a maintenance plan, if you're interested:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/themedalist/view/what-s-your-maintenance-plan-624676

Great blog post; thanks!

I've hit my goal weight a couple of times (both times were terribly timed though; right before a major stressful event that lasted several weeks so I bounced back up a few pounds) but am close again. This is helpful.

Vertisol

<quote>I wrote a blog post on the importance of having a maintenance plan, if you're interested:
</quote>

Thank you so much for this.

I am within a couple of weeks of reaching my goal and am struggling to figure out how to transition - if I wanted to I could keep on losing weight (because I now know how to do that) but I know that is not healthy. So what to do to move towards a path of maintenance?

I have bookmarked your blog post as a great start to figuring out how to do this. Successful maintainers are a precious source of information!!

I noticed there is a great sticky with resources for people starting to lose weight but nothing for people transitioning to maintenance. Much as I hate asking for an improvement to a free resource, I think if 'those in the know' could put together a sticky, it may be a very valuable resource to enable people to stay on the rails.

MargaretSobers

Daily fluctuation in scale is normal dont worry about these. It is good to be on correct way and check weight, but my suggestion is focus on your plan first. Check your weight after a week. If you want to maintain weight, then add more calories if you are loosing weight and cut the extra calory if you are getting weight gain.

LassVegas

Congratulations!
And agreed - it is absolutely the single most important thing to have a plan.
no plan = weight gain
And the plan has to include what it is that you're going to do once you notice that weight is creeping up. It can't just be that you'll stay within a certain range. You need to know what you're going to do when/if you hit the outside of that range well in advance so you can put it into action as soon as it happens. You don't want to be trying to figure that out on the fly. And for a number of reasons, going back to what you did to lose the weight in the first place may not be the answer or realistic at that point.

JenJBS

Congratulations!

I started the transition to maintenance last week. I went from a 250 calorie deficit to a 100 calorie deficit. So far it's keeping me from worrying that I'll put any weight back on since I'm still at a small deficit. I'm planning to stay at this level for a couple months, and see what my weight does. Then I will adjust as needed. I may just always stay at a 50-100 calorie deficit so I don't have to weigh food, since I have a little built in room for error.

I guess my advice, for anything it's worth, is to take time with the transition, not just jump from a 250 - 500 calorie deficit to full maintenance calories.

Again, Congratulations!

rsclause

For me, and I am new to maintenance, I feel like its a time for fine tuning. Nothing drastic just tweaking the new you.