How to switch to "maintenance" ?

mmstgr

I'm not even close to being ready for this, but it has just popped into my head, and I think others might wonder about it too.

So have some of you done it?

When you reached your ideal weight, did you switch right to the maintenance calories?

Or did you gradually increase them over time?

Did you find it difficult to start eating more than you were used to?

nermal6873

I'm getting close to maintenance and have been thinking about these same questions. Can't wait to hear what some people have to say

LizKurz

I maintained quite a bit of weight loss (till this last baby set me back) by increasing 200 a week until I was eating maintainence.

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

Well generally speaking you want to increase your calories incrementally and monitor your weight while doing it. Food has mass though and you'll likely see a weight gain no matter what--if your carbs were lower and you introduce more then you'll gain water weight as well. Generally people freak out and think "maintenance" is less than it is because of the superficial gain after raising calories...here's a quote from an article by Leigh Peele.


"At any given moment you are carrying a good amount of expendable weight. When you go into a deficit, a large portion of that expendable weight goes away. You lose water, food volume, and glycogen. It doesn’t matter if you’re “low carbing” or not, these things happen. If you are on a low carb diet, you will loose more water weight.

What happens when the diet is done?

The expendable weight will come back, as it should. There is a small degree of water weight you can lose permanently, but this is only a small portion of your overall weight.

At any given time during a deficit program, you can be off of your actual weight in the negative by 3 to 10 pounds. This can be even higher for men or woman of higher body fat levels. Whatever weight you lose quickly in that first week, don’t count it. The majority of that weight will come back. It’s the weight you lose the following weeks that should cause you to jump up and down. That is the real weight, the post 14th day weight."

AeolianHarp

Depends on who you listen to.

Lyle McDonald recommends going up back to maintenance over two weeks (I think. I always forget his position on this one). The other option he suggests (the one I'm sure of) is a 1-2 day refeed (meaning very high carbs and low fat) then hop on to maintenance after. The problem with the refeed method is that people are psychologically fragile and it causes a large spike in weight, so it's not really recommended for the mentally weak.

Some other people (this is the route I'm going to take) recommend reverse dieting, which essentially is increasing calories slowly on a weekly basis back to maintenance but over an extended period of time. For example, you would increase your calories 50-100 a week (mostly carbs and some fat) until you reach your maintenance. For me, I'd increase calories slowly 100 every week until I reach my bulking calories.

harebearva

I typically eat at a 20% deficit when losing weight. To get back to maintenance, I increase my intake by 10% and eat that for a week, then increase another 10% at which point I'm at maintenance. For me personally that means roughly +/- 200 calories weekly. This is different for everybody of course because everybody's maintenance is different. This is why I perfer to deal with a percentage of weight instead of a strict calorie amount. This works for me.

Birder150

I have 93 more pounds to go to get to my goal weight.
I am eating at my goal weight maintenance calories now so there will be no transition for me. I'll just keep eating like this for the rest of my life.
It's much easier for me to do this than 'dieting' in the typical sense of being at too high of a deficit.
It's comfortable and almost effortless.

irishkiss

I tried both. Immediatly increased and gained weight and was very upset. So then I freaked and went back to deficit, then I increased a little at a time. I still gained but not so fast and eventually am staying steady at the weight I want. It took a while for my body to say ok to it though.

LorinaLynn

When I got within 10 pounds of my goal, I switched from one pound a week to a half pound a week, then as I continued to lose, I left it at 1500 calories (always plus exercise calories), so what was once a 250 calorie daily deficit ended up being a 200 calories deficit. At five pounds from goal, I stopped logging on weekends. So when I finally pulled the trigger, it wasn't much of a jump from eating to lose and eating to maintain.

I've officially been on maintenance for about 5 months, and I'm still tweaking my calories to find the right amount. For a while I gained a little on 1700 (not enough to make any difference in how my clothes fit... I actually continued to get smaller) then I started losing on 1700, and bumped it up a bit more.

NeverGivesUp

I play around with maintaining for a few weeks and then get serious about losing again. Then I don't gain anything. The weight loss is slower but I know it is for life this time around. I also play around with not tracking because i do not see myself tracking in the long term either.

pinkhu13

I play around with maintaining for a few weeks and then get serious about losing again. Then I don't gain anything. The weight loss is slower but I know it is for life this time around. I also play around with not tracking because i do not see myself tracking in the long term either.

This is my goal too..to be able to not track because I don't want to do this forever. I'm not at maintenance yet but I have my settings at lose 1lb a week. When I start working out consistantly during this summer I plan to bump it up by 200 calories and go from there. I'll figure out maintenance whenever it's time but I know it will end up being gradual.

lornathewizzard

I'm not even close to being ready for this, but it has just popped into my head, and I think others might wonder about it too.

So have some of you done it?

When you reached your ideal weight, did you switch right to the maintenance calories?

Or did you gradually increase them over time?

Did you find it difficult to start eating more than you were used to?

When I switched to maintenance calories, I just did it, however, it wasn't a huge jump as I was already on settings to lose 0.5lb, so this is the first step I would recommend, when you are approaching your goal (say for example 10-20lbs to go), change the settings. So i went from 1450 to 1680, so it wasn't particularly a big deal. It took a few weeks for me to actually be reaching my weekly total every week, but now it's much easier, and tbh, i often rely on my exercise calories so I can eat more! I'm actually still losing a little bit (I'm down about 6 lbs in 15 weeks of maintenance) so it does take some adjusting.
The best advice i was given when moving into maintenance was to have a weight range that you are happy with. If you go above that range, for example the top of mine is 142 lbs, then you go back to a deficit. I have gone up, but not yet over the top of my range. Otherwise, you will drive yourself crazy thinking about being a specific weight.

And perhaps most importantly - keep up the exercise!

nermal6873

Well generally speaking you want to increase your calories incrementally and monitor your weight while doing it. Food has mass though and you'll likely see a weight gain no matter what--if your carbs were lower and you introduce more then you'll gain water weight as well. Generally people freak out and think "maintenance" is less than it is because of the superficial gain after raising calories...here's a quote from an article by Leigh Peele.


"At any given moment you are carrying a good amount of expendable weight. When you go into a deficit, a large portion of that expendable weight goes away. You lose water, food volume, and glycogen. It doesn’t matter if you’re “low carbing” or not, these things happen. If you are on a low carb diet, you will loose more water weight.

What happens when the diet is done?

The expendable weight will come back, as it should. There is a small degree of water weight you can lose permanently, but this is only a small portion of your overall weight.

At any given time during a deficit program, you can be off of your actual weight in the negative by 3 to 10 pounds. This can be even higher for men or woman of higher body fat levels. Whatever weight you lose quickly in that first week, don’t count it. The majority of that weight will come back. It’s the weight you lose the following weeks that should cause you to jump up and down. That is the real weight, the post 14th day weight."

So, is this saying that if you wanted to maintain at a specific number, you should actually try to get 3-5 pounds under that number? Because when you start maintenance you can count on gaining that water weight back? Just trying to be sure I understand this correctly

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

Well generally speaking you want to increase your calories incrementally and monitor your weight while doing it. Food has mass though and you'll likely see a weight gain no matter what--if your carbs were lower and you introduce more then you'll gain water weight as well. Generally people freak out and think "maintenance" is less than it is because of the superficial gain after raising calories...here's a quote from an article by Leigh Peele.


"At any given moment you are carrying a good amount of expendable weight. When you go into a deficit, a large portion of that expendable weight goes away. You lose water, food volume, and glycogen. It doesn’t matter if you’re “low carbing” or not, these things happen. If you are on a low carb diet, you will loose more water weight.

What happens when the diet is done?

The expendable weight will come back, as it should. There is a small degree of water weight you can lose permanently, but this is only a small portion of your overall weight.

At any given time during a deficit program, you can be off of your actual weight in the negative by 3 to 10 pounds. This can be even higher for men or woman of higher body fat levels. Whatever weight you lose quickly in that first week, don’t count it. The majority of that weight will come back. It’s the weight you lose the following weeks that should cause you to jump up and down. That is the real weight, the post 14th day weight."

So, is this saying that if you wanted to maintain at a specific number, you should actually try to get 3-5 pounds under that number? Because when you start maintenance you can count on gaining that water weight back? Just trying to be sure I understand this correctly

Precisely--you should also have a weight RANGE because human bodies fluctuate wildly. If i tried to stay at 1 number I'd be highly disappointed.

nermal6873

Thanks for the clarification I definitely have a range in mind, but now I know I need to go on maintenance at the lower end of that range rather than higher. I never thought about the water weight-loss aspect before!

AeolianHarp

So, is this saying that if you wanted to maintain at a specific number, you should actually try to get 3-5 pounds under that number? Because when you start maintenance you can count on gaining that water weight back? Just trying to be sure I understand this correctly

I would avoid being attached to a number and instead focus on the physical side. Just because you weigh 4-5lbs more than your target bodyweight doesn't mean you won't look the same. Weight fluctuates a lot, so you won't look the same everyday. Some days my vascularity is good and some days it's non-existent.

But if you want to maintain a specific weight because the number provides some psychological release then you'll want to aim for less than what you have now.