From dieting to maintaining...help!?!?

mnattinger

Hi All,

I recently reached my goal weight of roughly 140 lbs. I'm a 5' 8" male with a white collar job, but I like to keep active by doing around 40-60 min of cardio a day along with a 20 minute yoga session. My caloric intake was limited to 1200 calories + exercise calories (roughly 400-450 calories a day, which I never ate back fully), which I've become used to. However, I felt pretty lightheaded yesterday, and figure that it's time to start maintaining my weight and not lose weight anymore. I want to focus on toning my body now, but a change in gears is more problematic than I thought it would be.

Basically, I am looking for some advice as to how I am suppose to stop the "dieting" process and begin the maintaining process. I really don't want to put the weight back on (as I'm sure no one on this site wants to do).

Should I:

a) Change my calorie intake by eating more?
-along with that, how should I increase my caloric intake....gradually I assume, but at what rate?

b) Scale back my exercise routines?
-along with that, how should I scale that back?...Also, I'm finding that really difficult to do, because once you begin exercising and see results it's really difficult to cut that out (I get a great energy and confidence boost from a good workout).

c) A combination of the two?
-what's the right mix though?

MFP says that I should be eating around 2010 calories a day (this is without adding exercise) to maintain my current weight, but being a vegetarian and growing accustomed to no eating a whole lot has left me in a tough spot. My goal is to stay at 140 lbs and feel healthy, alert, and energetic each day.

I appreciate any information and advice and am more than willing to share my vegetarian dieting plan that allowed me to lose a little over 36 lbs since the beginning of May until August.

Thanks again,
Matt

LH2011

Hi I am maintain about a month and at first I really struggled to eat my 1820 calories as I was so used to 1200 and much smaller portions so I started on advise given by MFP by just increasing by 50-100 per week and slowly building up. I still walk everyday and don't intend to stop but my walking is now about exercise and health rather than losing weight.

Some days I only manage 1500 calories and then over the last few weeks I have been able to relax a bit at the weekends and have sometimes eatten up to 2000 which is still ok with my walking calories I think its all about balance!!!! I am learning its important to eat your calories with the right clean food its still a learning curve and I would say will be for quite some time.

Well done on reaching your goal and good luck.

Chrissy2627

This is a good question. I am not to my goal weight yet, but have been dropping weight fairly quickly and have been wondering the same thing!

momof3and3

I know there are plenty of threads about maintance...but this is what works for me (but this past year I stopped caring and need to lose 10lbs again):

Start upping your daily caloric intake...you add back calories, slowly...try for 100 calories back a day at frst. Do it with lean proteins and good carbs. So have an additional snack somewhere in your day. Keep exercising the way you have been. If you can maintain that weight, then add back another 100 calories....and so on and so on until you find the daily calories intake that fits for YOUR maintance.

I would keep exercising. As you are now stronger and healthier you might have to change it up...lifting heavier weights, running faster/longer etc....to see anymore change. If you increas your exercise, you might have to re-adjust your calories.

So basically, you add calories back slowly but keep exercising the way you want.

Congratulations on your weight loss and reaching your goal!

nph1960

I've been "on maintenance" for about three months. Not really an expert, but here's my advice, for what its worth:

- Yes, gradually increase your calories. I would guess that each week you can add an average of 200 - 300 cal to your daily intake and monitor that for a few weeks. If you put on a pound or two, try sticking to that daily calorie number or just below. If it gets to three or four, you'll want to cut back by a couple hundred daily calories.
- No, don't cut back on your workouts, as long as you are enjoying them, and your body isn't getting over-worked. What you are doing sounds awesome.
- Start to wean yourself off of daily logging, and learn how to estimate how much to eat without actually counting.
- Learn how to manage an occasional excess with a few days of tighter dieting.

Good luck!