Ready for maintenance, I think.

jfinnivan

I am one pound away from my goal weight, but I'm not completely sure if I should loose some more pounds before maintenance. For most of my weight loss I haven't been lifting weights because of some injuries. I've started lifting a few weeks ago, easing into it slowly. Looking in the mirror, I'm not completely happy with my waist. There's still more fat than I'm happy with, which is why I'm considering loosing another 5 pounds.
My question is, should I loose an additional 5 pounds to reduce the waist, or go into maintenance mode now and up my weightlifting workouts? By increasing my weight training and eating more calories (from being in maintenance mode), I will put on muscle, but will my waist continue to reduce? I have no desire to bulk up by lifting and eating massive amounts of protein. I just want to balance my body by moderately increasing muscle size, especially in the upper body.
Thanks for any help.

Yooperm35

I was told to start maintenance about 5# before goal. Probably so your body doesn't get confused when you up your calories? I'm guessing you would add calories slowly

melsinct

I have 6 pounds to go until goal and just started doing core strength training (Pilates) because my mid-section is a lot softer than I would like and I don't think another six pounds will fix it. I am set to lose 0.5 pounds/week per MFP (which is a 250 calorie daily deficit) and when I hit goal, I will go to maintenance even if I am still holding on to some belly fat. I am going to give my strength training a chance to do its magic, then revisit the thought of losing a little more weight after a couple of months. I am not sure if that is the right thing to do or not, but it seems like a reasonable plan for me.

Congrats on almost being at your goal!

Elle408

I tried to do the same, got to my goal weight, realised I still wasn't happy with my shape and thought that losing more weight was the answer, which would have actually put me towards an underweight BMI which I didn't want. I then did more strength training and worked on eating better foods and lost 2 clothes sizes without losing any more weight! So I definitely think working on you strength training and fat burning could work whilst in maintenance mode.

editara13

Stay on maintenance mode now and start some ab exercises from you tube and get some dumbbells. You body is ready to get ripped now my friend :-)


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gioisa75

Bump!

mikeyrp

I agree with Mel - meet it half way, setting your loss to 1/2 lb a week and then stop when you are happy based on what you see in the mirror... I had the same thing - initial goal was 12 stone, (168lb) still had some bits I didn't approve of so set my goal to 11 and a half stone (161 lb) - then at 164.5 lb I looked in the mirror and thought "that actually looks about right" - so I went to maintenance....

Soft landing your weight loss is a good idea as its weird suddenly having a load of calories you don't know what to do with - especially if you want to eat them in a healthy way. (It is a bit frustrating if you can see the finish line and you slow down though! To be honest I didn't do this and wish I had).

jfinnivan

bump