Maintenance advice

agibsonky

I am almost to my goal weight and plan on hitting it hard this summer to get the last 6 pounds off. When I change to maintenance on MFP with an activity level of lightly active, it gives me 1730 calories...After eating 1250-1350 for 16 months, that sounds like a LOT...I still have some toning to do, and would like to add a bit more lean muscle mass and decrease body fat percentage a bit more - I'm right at 22% right now. As far as activity, I work full time, about half and half on my feet and in a chair, and have the typical household duties every day. I don't watch TV, but will occasionally take a bit of time to read or get on MFP - maybe an hour a day, but usually am up doing something, plus exercise 5 days a week.

Is that 1730 realistic? Are there any maintainers out there who have had great success with the calories MFP recommends? I have to say, I'm a bit nervous about eating 1700 calories a day...I don't even know if I can do that on a regular basis...I tend to eat at that level once a week or so, but it's usually because I get started on junk and can't stop...as long as I stick with the healthy eating plan, I don't know that I can consistantly get that high on calories...

WifeMomDVM

I have 12 lbs to go and am wondering this also... sounds like alot to eat after living off of 1200 a day for so long!

TS65

Remember, to lose one pound per week, MFP puts you on a 500 calorie defecit. To maintain that weight, you would add back in that 500 calories. 1200+500= 1700.

If it makes you that nervous. Add back 100-200 calories per day for a week or 2 - until you start to gain. It may take a few weeks to figure out what works for you - but you'll know for sure then.

Nikstergirl

That actually makes sense. If you're set up to lose a pound a week, that's 3500 defecit. Divide that by 7 days.. 500 cals per day. So if you are eating 1200ish to lose, you would eat 500 more, or 1700 to maintain. Personally, I have no idea where I should be. I'm comfortable eating where I am currently (1300 for me) and will continue this until my body tells me I need more. If that means I'm done after these last 9 pounds, that's fine. If I lose another 5-10 after that.. all the better!

My plan is simple. More jogging and more logging. If I do this for the rest of my life (which I'm sure I can) I should never gain back that weight I worked so hard to lose!!!!! Of course, this is my theory... yet to be tested!

4lafz

I am 3 lbs from maintenance and just changed my goal to lose .5 a week - it gave more more calories so I can learn and "slide into maintenance".

reneelee

I'm going through my blog here on MFP and finding a few pieces I think are worth sharing on the main board. This piece specifically was a blurb from a conversation I was having with a relatively lean female who was "having problems" getting leaner.

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Where I'm going with this is... being a light female, you don't have a lot of room to wiggle, calorically speaking. 12 calories per pound is typically where I'll start my clients who are interested in fat loss. That's assuming a maintenance of around 14-15 calories per pound and frequent exercise.

So in your case, 12 x 122 = 1500ish calories per day.

You're most likely eating close to that after you eat your exercise calories back. Plus, keep in mind that mostly everyone under-reports actual calorie intake. Humans are just very poor at doing this accurately. I have papers showing dietitians significantly under-reporting their true intake, believe it or not.

So in this case, we're assuming your maintenance is 14 x 122 = 1700 leaving you with a 200 cal/day deficit.

Given that there are 3500 cals in one pound of fat, assuming all you lost was fat (which isn't the case), it would take you 17-18 days just to lose one pound.

And even with that, smaller women who are trying to diet invariably deal with all sorts of water balance issues. Part of it is glycogen, as mentioned above. Each gram of glycogen that is stored carries along 3 grams of water. But it also has loads to do with hormone balances that tend to get wonky in women in your position.

So your fat loss could be happening at this excruciatingly slow pace and even then, you won't realize it on the scale as it can be masked by 2-5 lbs of water weight.

I see it all the time... women in similar shoes heading in the "right" direction but they never stick with things long enough to realize it. They solely use the scale to measure progress so they never actually realize they're losing fat and this is coupled with short-term perceptions/expectations. They never stick to the plan b/c they allow water weight to dominate their emotional well-being. More often then not they cave, binge, and try again next week or month or whatever. It's a viscous cycle.

More often than not, managing expectation along with tracking weight/body comp over many weeks and plotting a trend is what's called for. Or to put it differently, it's a matter of patience, assuming you have your nutrition and exercise dialed in correctly.

I'm just finishing working with a woman who's a fitness competitor. Over the course of a 2 month cut she averaged under .5 lbs of fat loss per week. And her weight remained the same throughout much of that time. Think about that.

Also, keep in mind that your maintenance may very well be under 14 calories per pound. Say it's 13. That puts maintenance at 1600 and if you're consuming 1500 cals/day, that gives you an average daily deficit of only 100 cals. At that rate, again assuming you lose nothing but fat, it would take you 35 days to lose one pound of fat.

See where I'm going with this?
- Steve

Found this info from steve he is a member of MFP and has a lot of good information. Hope this helps,