Making the Transitions

Kfry7910

Since January I've lost 28 pounds (I started at 178). I'm 5'3" and my original goal weight is to be ROUGHLY around 140 (although I'm currently pleased with myself at 150 I know I could stand to lose another 5-10 pounds but I'm not super stressed about it). For the past month or so my weight loss has slowed down a bunch and today I decided to make the transition to losing 1/2 a pound a week instead of 1. I was wondering at what point in weight loss did everyone decide to transition to .5 pounds or maintenance? I've been reading up and was just curious on what everyone else has done or what they plan on doing. Any input is greatly appreciated!

nxd10

Congratulations!

Have you entered your new, lower weight on MFP and asked it to recalculate? If you don't enter your new weight and recalculate calories, you will slow and stop your weight loss.

I didn't lower my weekly goal until I hit my final goal. Then, when I went to maintenance, I lowered to 1/2 pound a week. And then upped from there.

Other people slow down when they were within 5 or 10 pounds of their goal. I actually don't see the point in that. You slow down naturally as you get closer to the bottom end of healthy weight anyway. It seems like you would just slow down that slow progress at the end anyway. Just me though.

katznkt

Honestly, I still can't figure that out. My original goal was 145. Never thought I'd get there. But I did and still wasn't happy. So then I went down to 140. Still not happy. At 135 I'm happy. I'm not truly in maintenance mentally, but I've seem to maintain this weight easily. I think I'm going to shoot for 5 more and then just focus on body comp.

For me, it is just what feels and looks like what I have always dreamed of looking like. I just never realized it might actually happen.

Ideabaker

Bump

aedreana

I chose my ideal weight by experimenting with weights both higher and lower. The determining factor was that I don't want to lose too much volume in my bustline.

SezxyStef

I started upping my calories once I got within 5 pounds of goal. I've always lost more than MFP says I should be losing (even eating back exercise calories), which wasn't a problem when I was trying to lose. Now that I want to maintain, I find myself still upping my calories, so maybe I should have started earlier in the process.

I found this too actually...but I started at about 7lbs...my goal was 155 and by the time I hit maitenance calories I was at 152.5 which is fine...

To the OP typically the suggestion is at 10-20lbs start your reverse diet...and by doing that you actually get your body used to the extra food slowly and don't slam on and extra 2-3lbs of water weight or glycogen stores as they replenish...

I like you had a goal...and I hit it in Feb (actually a bit below) but wasn't where I wanted to be so set another goal 10lbs less...when I hit that I went to maitenance for the summer but have continued to lift...and may cut again in the fall down to 145 just to see if I like what I see even more so...

My determing factor what I see when I look in the mirror...and yes I have a realistic view of what I look like.

Kfry7910

Thank you! And yes, I've been entering my lower weights and recalculating. I had originally started at around 1,700 calories and with the weight adjustments throughout the past 7 months it had lowered to 1,490 calories per day, which I normally eat between 1,200 and 1,300 each day (give or take some, but never below 1,200). Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe I read somewhere on here that people sometimes struggle with a plateau or whatever and eat a little more than normal for a week or so and that helps to get their weight loss going again. I wonder if that is something I could try to boost my weight loss? I know the healthy range for my height tops out at like 138.. Sorry for rambling, just a bunch of questions!