after the goal...are you able to eat & not gain an ounce bac

funnygirl0940

I'm getting ready to meet my goal but I notice that once I start eating regular calories to maintain my present weight it jumps up 1.5 pounds. Do you lose a little under to keep your goal weight? I was figuring 10-12 calories per pound. How have you maintained?

SHBoss1673

I keep right at my goal RANGE. You shouldn't have a goal weight, that's to restrictive IMHO.

Celo24

I keep right at my goal RANGE. You shouldn't have a goal weight, that's to restrictive IMHO.

Agree. My goal range is 165-169. You'll drive yourself nuts if you try to stick on one number and never fluctuate.

JennLifts

Yea, i've found I'm safe to eat between 1870 and 2500. When I switched to maintain, I made two adjustments. A) eat exercise, so you don't have a deficit. Remove the deficit you had to loose, which shoots you up a fair bit. When you change the setting to maintain, it will adjust. But it also isn't exact, so you'll probably just have to wait and see how your body does and if you start gaining, drop a bit. But don't get too hard on yourself about it. Your body will adjust, and so will you to how it feels to eating more.

hpsnickers1

I agree. There are too many things that cause the number to fluctuate. And you might be surprised at eating your maintenance calories. It might jump a little at first then possibly you will lose some more. Right now I'm at maintenance and have lost a bit more weight. I don't meet it everyday but try to get as close as I can and sometimes go over.

I recently purchased the BodyMedia Fit (24/7 armband) and learned that I burn between 1700-1800 on very, very lazy days and between 2000-2300 on exercise or busy workdays - I have a deskjob). I'm 5'2" and 122.6lbs. (.4lb loss this morning!!)

funnygirl0940

ahh, the guy with the right answers So you're saying plan on having a 5 pound variable range to work with??? Obviously if we have more sodium one day to the next, it'll make a difference. But for example. 2 days ago I weighed 156. Since I'd lost 6.5 pounds in a week, I ate enough to maintain that weight plus exercise yesterday...this a.m. I weigh 157.5...and I'm scratching my head? Why would it go up so much when I should be maintaining? I eat very low sodium...actually, should add more sea salt to the diet. What's going to happen when I reach my goal?

You were right about the cortisol, I think. I just had a battery of blood work done in the past week, lowered my calories to a steady 1200(dr's orders), although I'm sure it was a range from 1068ish-1500ish because I was using MFP for logging and it's very inaccurate! I found another more accurate program to log my food better but love the moral support here & I'm not going anywhere ;o) Anywhoo, my coritisol is low, ph low, hemoglobin low, glucose low. Endocrinologist said I couldn't be healthier and my adrenals aren't exhausted but I'm so fatigued! Even though all those tests were at the low range or a point below average, she says i'm fine. Wonderful scores! I don't want to gain back what I just lost again!!!

SHBoss1673

ahh, the guy with the right answers So you're saying plan on having a 5 pound variable range to work with??? Obviously if we have more sodium one day to the next, it'll make a difference. But for example. 2 days ago I weighed 156. Since I'd lost 6.5 pounds in a week, I ate enough to maintain that weight plus exercise yesterday...this a.m. I weigh 157.5...and I'm scratching my head? Why would it go up so much when I should be maintaining? I eat very low sodium...actually, should add more sea salt to the diet. What's going to happen when I reach my goal?

You were right about the cortisol, I think. I just had a battery of blood work done in the past week, lowered my calories to a steady 1200(dr's orders), although I'm sure it was a range from 1068ish-1500ish because I was using MFP for logging and it's very inaccurate! I found another more accurate program to log my food better but love the moral support here & I'm not going anywhere ;o) Anywhoo, my coritisol is low, ph low, hemoglobin low, glucose low. Endocrinologist said I couldn't be healthier and my adrenals aren't exhausted but I'm so fatigued! Even though all those tests were at the low range or a point below average, she says i'm fine. Wonderful scores! I don't want to gain back what I just lost again!!!

5 lbs is probably ok for you, for me it's about a 10 lb window. I.E. 5 lbs above my ideal to 5 lbs below, usually I don't swing any more than 2 lbs up or down, but sometimes, after a bad weekend, I'll be up 3 or 4 lbs, as long as I'm in that window, I don't worry about it. Not that I weigh myself very often, usually it's a morbid curiosity thing after a bad weekend party type scenario, but still, I don't think I've been Higher than 186 in over a year now, and my goal range is 176 to 186. Although that'll be adjusted soon, I'm going to do some hardcore fat burning in a few weeks, which'll temporarily lower my weight to probably around 168 to 170 before I can add it back with muscle mass, I plan on ending up around 180 or so, but that'll take well over a year (building muscle mass is a slow, difficult process unless you want to add fat also, doubt you can't add more than 1 to 2 lbs a month in muscle mass without "help")

Robin1117

Very complicated question. What I have learned over the last year is accepting the weight "range" as SHBoss mentioned as the way to not drive yourself nuts every time the scale fluctuates. I seem to have stayed within a 4 lb range but as you know I try not to weigh myself too often, using how my clothing fits as the best gauge. If the pants get a little tight, that's when I might weigh myself and then if at the high end of range I make sure to eat clean for the next week or 2.

When you switch to "maintain" on the site, the consensus from what I have heard from others is to go slowly upward with your calories so you body gets used to the changes and as you comfortably see you haven't gained anything, you can keep increasing. Many of us have discussed this in length and some can happily eat what MFP recommends we eat to maintain, some of us are not quite sure. The biggest variable that I have seen is probably the "lifestyle" setting--really determining whether we are active, lightly active, etc to make sure we aren't assuming we are more active than we really are and have the maintenance calories set too high.

I'm comfortable maintaining around where you mentioned--about 12 calories /lb and then I add in exercise calories.

funnygirl0940

Robin, when you lost your weight, did you hit plateaus or have a high calorie day during the week so as not to plateau? The first time i lost a lot of weight, this concept was inconceivable to me. I aimed for 1200, finding it very difficult, especially at the level of exercise I was burning and many times ate 1400 calories a day for about 12 weeks. My issue now, is the dizziness & fatigue. I get to thinking it's the low calories, perhaps, but for the past month, w/the last week as an exception, I ate more than I needed to sustain myself and gained 10 pounds!

I think this time, since I've been responding well to the 1200 calories, I'm going to stick w/the 1200 calories w/moderate exercise and not worry about the extra day. I did give myself one yesterday but I could have done w/out it. My problem came when I started logging my marinara sauce & over did it, so I went ahead and gave myself a high calorie day.

Also, I want to work on balancing my vit & minerals out. With the new program, it shows how much copper is in my diet, with many other vitamins and minerals that MPF doesn't offer. High copper also makes the adrenal glands tired. So, I'm going to be busy, trying to make myself menus that are pretty balanced across the board. Learning which are water soluble and not water soluble.

The adventure goes on! Yeah for a whole eating lifestyle & not giving into conventional medicine and supplements! rah rah! ::D

Robin1117

So I tried to go back and see if I could get my old net numbers and see a pattern, but the net calorie reports only go back as far as the last 3 months, and it would take me a long time to pull the numbers manually. One thing I have done from the beginning is eat my exercise calories, and I know when I was losing weight I was definitely over-reporting my exercise calories so I'm thinking that could have skewed the nets in a weird way. I also have always splurged on a date night w/my husband every 2 weeks, and at least 1 night over the weekend. So I'm guessing my calories were pretty steady during the week but I definitely kept some high calorie days in there. I tried really hard to not let this be a "diet" that made me feel like I couldn't enjoy myself when I went out or if entertaining. I don't think I knew enough at the time that I was keeping myself from plateauing but I guess I did just that.

I also think 1200 is too little--I had a really hard time w/it, and that's why I learned very quickly to exercise so I could eat more than that. I never could have stuck with the program otherwise. Right now I use the iphone application for most of my logging in, and there is a weekly graph that shows your net calories for the week vs. plan. When I go over (like with your marinara sauce example), I don't worry too much but by the end of the week I try to have that report balance out so I'm at goal. if that means I do an extra exercise session, or eat less one day, it usually get it to work out.

Any other questions, let me know!

funnygirl0940

great reminder about averaging out the numbers Robin! I did much better today, in fact, I decided I like this diet the dr gave me...i don't follow it too the T. I still have my homemade almond milk in my coffee, 3 almonds & piece of dark chocolate ) This is going to turn out just fine. I'm excited to weigh myself tomorrow because I know it'll reflect what I'm doing, if not tomorrow, in a few days

funnygirl0940

ate the 1200 calories yesterday and went from 157.5 yesterday back down to 156.5 this a.m. sooo, no real damage done...looking forward to my weigh in tomorrow, which really counts for me This strict diet from the endo, that I adjusted a little, is really working for me! You get a lean 7 oz piece of protein mid day & about 2 oz or less last meal of the day...i think it's the big piece of protein and the order that is helping. I don't get "hungry" in the evening. You know, the snacking bug.