Maintaining after reaching your goal

jackier19

I wanted to ask everyone how they maintain their goal weight? I'm having a hard time doing this bc I can't get out of the calorie strict mind set. Mfp says I should eat 1650 to maintain and that scares me! I havent gone over my 1200 (maybe a few times) since June. Have any of you had this problem? I'm also looking to tone up now that I've surpassed my goal weight (126.8 this morning) so do the calories change for that as well? Any advice is much appreciated!

Suedre

I hear you. I went to a sports nutritionist and she has me on nearly 2200/day. At first it was really hard because my mind was so resistant. As it turns out, it seems like she is going to be dead on balls accurate. I haven't lost a single pound, but I can see and feel a difference in my body. I say give it two weeks or so and see how it goes. She really helped me accept that food is fuel and you have to have the right amount/type of fuel to make the body really efficient. I feel great and I'm looking better everday (yeah, my skin - totally clear. who knew?!)

erickirb

work up to it slowly. Add 100 cals to your 1200 keep that intake of 1300 for 3-4 weeks, then add another 100 for 3-4 weeks, keep doing this until you get to maintenance cals, this will allow your body time to adjust to eating more and give you security that you will not gain. You may find when doing this that you maintenance is slightly higher or lower than MFP suggest. You maintenance may be 1700 or may even be 1550. Congrats on getting to this point.

vayax

I just reached my goal 2 weeks ago...I didn't want to jump from 1200 straight to 1600 so I increased 200 and I'll be increasing 200 when I feel good about it... I have had a hard time reaching the extra 200 because I got so used to eating 1200 that I'm never hungry...

I suggest you do it slowly... good luck

RZO42488

Toning (working out/strength building) burns calories, unfortunately MFP does not have this structured into your overall calorie intake. Similar to what Erick said, slowly add 100-200 calories a week and by still working out and toning you will shred those extra calories off.

bizco

Increase your calories gradually until you reach your maintenance of 1,650. Eating 100-150 extra calories for 1 week, then another 100-150 for week 2, and so on. You can manually change your calorie goal to accomplish this. Go to My Home>>Goals>>Change Goals>>Custom. The first field is "calories." Change it to 1,300 calories, then change it to 1,400 calories, and so on. Save your changes.

When you reach your maintenance level of 1,650 make sure you change your settings to "maintain my current weight." MFP will automatically update everything.

Congratulations on reaching your goal! Job well done!

lobster888

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/191617-maintenance-thread

I hope I copied this right. The above is a maintenace thread - It's part two (part one has a lot information in it - if you want to go back and read) . It's for people maitaining - it has idears, suggestions, tips , struggles and such that everyone shares. It's supportive and motivating also. Check it out.


Oh I agree with erickirb below - you have to find your maintenance. My calorie intake for maintenace is directly linked to my exercise. Also for me, a lower carb diet works well. But everyone is different.

Have a happy healthy day!!!

jackier19

Thank y'all for the good ideas. I really like the idea of adding 100 calories every few weeks. It makes me feel less anxious about having to consume more food. And vayax, I'm not hungry consuming 1200 either. I'm so used to it that i don't really want more food! And congrats to y'all for reaching your goals as well. Should I only up 100 calories if I plan to do more weights to tone? How should that work?

erickirb

Thank y'all for the good ideas. I really like the idea of adding 100 calories every few weeks. It makes me feel less anxious about having to consume more food. And vayax, I'm not hungry consuming 1200 either. I'm so used to it that i don't really want more food! And congrats to y'all for reaching your goals as well. Should I only up 100 calories if I plan to do more weights to tone? How should that work?

Just add the 100-150 and eat your exercise calories.

jackier19

Lobster888- thank you for the link! I'll def check it out! I didn't think maintaining would be as hard as losing the weight. Lol!

kelsully

I wanted to ask everyone how they maintain their goal weight? I'm having a hard time doing this bc I can't get out of the calorie strict mind set. Mfp says I should eat 1650 to maintain and that scares me! I havent gone over my 1200 (maybe a few times) since June. Have any of you had this problem? I'm also looking to tone up now that I've surpassed my goal weight (126.8 this morning) so do the calories change for that as well? Any advice is much appreciated!

Add calories back like 100 at a time and see how your body adjusts for about 2 weeks. I found MFP maintenace goal a tad to high for me so I had to tinker with my numbers to find a goal that was smack in the middle of maintenance and losing....but I am little..(and by that I mean short) so there was only a 220 cal difference between maintenance and losing.....I am set at 1300 and feel good and maintaining but I do pay attention to my NET cals not total...my total cals for the day might be anywhere from 1600-2200 because of eating exercise cals.

BR1986FB

After 5 rounds of P90X/Insanity I switched over to a more Crossfit based approach to working out. I went from training 7+ hours a week to less than 3. The REAL key is my nutrition. I don't do carbs well so I essentially ditched them. I studied up on paleo nutrition and I won't look back. I take in less than 50g's of carbs per day from mostly veggies. I will eventually have some blueberries, blackberries or an apple. The bulk of my diet comes from "healthy" fat & protein. The way I eat, there's no way I'm going to gain weight back. I'm still shedding fat in droves.

jackier19

Yeah, I'm going to really pay attention to eating my exercise calories. I didn't always do that before. Thank y'all for the help! Its great to have your support!