When Does Maintenance Morph Back Into Needing To Lose Again?

SueGeer

OK guys & gals.......i reached my goal weight on 8th June 2011 (my 49th birthday - a lovely pressie to myself!). Since then i've gained 5lbs.......mainly through complacency and emotional eating, especially this last couple of weeks :grumble:

So what would you do if you were me? Stay on maintenance (currently on 1400) & hope for a slow-mo towards goal; or really get back into it & drop down to 1200 and try harder next time round? I must admit, I'm enjoying the extra 200 cals a little TOO much :laugh:

Thanks

Sue x

joejccva71

If your maintance (TDEE) was 1400 calories, then you are going to need to eat at a deficit of that in order to re-lose the weight you gained.

janeinspain

are you sure that the 200 extra cals are to be blamed? the emotional eating sounds more like exceeding those 1400 cals/day. I think that you should stick to 1400, just track them carefully and make them healthy. don't forget to exercise every now and then. take another weight-check in about 2 weeks.

erickirb

OK guys & gals.......i reached my goal weight on 8th June 2011 (my 49th birthday - a lovely pressie to myself!). Since then i've gained 5lbs.......mainly through complacency and emotional eating, especially this last couple of weeks :grumble:

So what would you do if you were me? Stay on maintenance (currently on 1400) & hope for a slow-mo towards goal; or really get back into it & drop down to 1200 and try harder next time round? I must admit, I'm enjoying the extra 200 cals a little TOO much :laugh:

Thanks

Sue x

Are you sure your maintenance is 1400, that is really low (your profile shows 130 as a goal 1400 is probably your BMR, not your maintenance if that is the case) Where did you get the 1400 from?

To see what your maintenance is with no exercise go to goals and look at the top right "calories burned from normal daily activity".

Teliooo

It is only 5 pounds. Stay how you are but just work out until the excess is gone. i.e just burn some extra cals but only eat half the burned cals back. x

humanskin

Why not go halfway and aim for 1300? That way you're still at a deficit and losing a little bit at a time, but also still enjoying your life. You should also note that 5 lbs can can be water weight. Make sure you're still drinking lots of water and flushing out your body.

DKLinDeutschland

I agree...1400 sounds super low for maintenance.

iamhealingmyself

If you're gaining weight on maintenance you're either eating more than allotted calories or you maintenance is set too high. The 5lbs have obviously bothered you even though it's not that much and could be multitude of things aside from the little binge. Maintenance is not a free pass to return to how you were when you first got here. It's a time when you get to put into practice all the things you learned along the way. Is it just eating a little more or have you slacked off in exercise as well? If that's the case maybe getting back into action will shed those pounds without changing your calories. Have you changed the types of foods your eating? Maybe you've taken back a trigger food that makes you want to eat more or less healthy. Evaluate your diet since you started maintenance. Is TOM a factor? could be water weight and it will come off on it's own.

The main thing is to really know what you're feeling over these 5 lbs. Personally, I don't sweat 5 lbs because I can go up or down 5 in any given week without even changing my routine. For me, it's when they don't go that I look at what I'm doing more closely.

If they bother you, do something about it but stop feeling like you're a failure or that you've fallen off the wagon or that you can't do this long term. Just like starting this program, you will have bumps along the way.

Good luck to you and congratulations on meeting your goals!

Larius

OK guys & gals.......i reached my goal weight on 8th June 2011 (my 49th birthday - a lovely pressie to myself!). Since then i've gained 5lbs.......mainly through complacency and emotional eating, especially this last couple of weeks :grumble:

So what would you do if you were me? Stay on maintenance (currently on 1400) & hope for a slow-mo towards goal; or really get back into it & drop down to 1200 and try harder next time round? I must admit, I'm enjoying the extra 200 cals a little TOO much :laugh:

Thanks

Sue x

Are you sure your maintenance is 1400, that is really low (your profile shows 130 as a goal 1400 is probably your BMR, not your maintenance if that is the case) Where did you get the 1400 from?

To see what your maintenance is with no exercise go to goals and look at the top right "calories burned from normal daily activity".

Agreed. Try this to calculate your maintenance Calories: http://calorieneedscalculator.com/index.html

Sieggie

Drop it back down to 1200 or else you'll be like me......I let it go and some how (like I didn't know how two years later) I'm back to needing to lose 20lbs (it was 28lbs).

Good Luck!

marywilsoncline

I switched to maintaince september 1st and MFP gave me 1650 in calories w/o exercise. I can't stop exercising so I'm getting the 1650 plus exercise calories to eat and I can't eat them back. However, working out five to six times a week and the uped calories (I started at 1200) seems to be working for me in regards to maintaining. When I start gaining weight back, I will drop back down to 1200 a day. But the 1400 your on seems to be very low for maintaining.

SueGeer

OK guys & gals.......i reached my goal weight on 8th June 2011 (my 49th birthday - a lovely pressie to myself!). Since then i've gained 5lbs.......mainly through complacency and emotional eating, especially this last couple of weeks :grumble:

So what would you do if you were me? Stay on maintenance (currently on 1400) & hope for a slow-mo towards goal; or really get back into it & drop down to 1200 and try harder next time round? I must admit, I'm enjoying the extra 200 cals a little TOO much :laugh:

Thanks

Sue x

Are you sure your maintenance is 1400, that is really low (your profile shows 130 as a goal 1400 is probably your BMR, not your maintenance if that is the case) Where did you get the 1400 from?

To see what your maintenance is with no exercise go to goals and look at the top right "calories burned from normal daily activity".

Agreed. Try this to calculate your maintenance Calories: http://calorieneedscalculator.com/index.html

My maintenance calories are supposed to be 1540....I reset it to 1400 as I was scared to go too high......perhaps I should go to 1540?