Finding your maintenance level using trial and error

rose313

Who has found an accurate maintenance level for themselves using the calorie intake for weeks they gained, weeks they lost, and weeks they did neither?

For example, I ate an average of 1600 calories a week for the month of June and lost very slightly, about a quarter pound a week to half a pound a week.

For the past week I've been eating 1900 and gained slightly. (Edit: I should note that every time I've eaten 1900 I've gained.)

Is it safe to assume my maintenance level is really about 1800?

I eat healthy and am usually under or at my carb, fat, and protein goals. My macros are 50/30/20. I'm 5'2, 155 pounds, I do mostly lifting and some cardio, and am lightly active. I lose inches easily, my goal weight is 135.

AngryDiet

I've done this.

I've measured my intake and my weight change, noted 3500 kcal per pound (or 500 kcal a day for a one pound change in a week) and arrived at my TDEE. I had about 3 months of data before I felt confident in the number I had arrived at, because the body doesn't shed weight uniformly.

FYI, it's probably about 500 kcal lower than most calculators estimate... and actually pretty close to what MFP thinks I am.

rose313

I've done this.

I've measured my intake and my weight change, noted 3500 kcal per pound (or 500 kcal a day for a one pound change in a week) and arrived at my TDEE. I had about 3 months of data before I felt confident in the number I had arrived at, because the body doesn't shed weight uniformly.

FYI, it's probably about 500 kcal lower than most calculators estimate... and actually pretty close to what MFP thinks I am.

I noticed MFP was on the low side. It estimates my maintenance at 1760 for sedentary and 1900 for lightly active. I thought that was low at first, but now I'm really thinking it's the most accurate for me.

AngryDiet

I find the various activity settings (sedentary, lightly active, etc) to be too vague. I never know what I am. That's one difficulty with the calculators, and one reason why monitoring is a better way to go about it.

The other is that it's hard to estimate calories, both in and out, despite the tools we have. So by monitoring, you tend to "normalize" away the errors, provided you do them reasonably consistently. Your number might be way off from reality, but it's still an excellent way to manage your food intake.

rose313

I find the various activity settings (sedentary, lightly active, etc) to be too vague. I never know what I am. That's one difficulty with the calculators, and one reason why monitoring is a better way to go about it.

The other is that it's hard to estimate calories, both in and out, despite the tools we have. So by monitoring, you tend to "normalize" away the errors, provided you do them reasonably consistently. Your number might be way off from reality, but it's still an excellent way to manage your food intake.

I was thinking the same thing. I consider myself active, but my numbers are far more accurate using the sedentary setting. My lightly active maintenance number (1900) causes me to gain. My sedentary maintenance number (1760) causes me to maintain, and anything below that, I lose. Very slowly, but I do lose. So even though I do exercise the sedentary numbers just work better for me.

From my experience using every calculator out there, I notice that some will say lightly active means exercising 3 times a week, some will say 5 times a week, some will put it in the form of hours, and some will say it means you hardly exercise. So I prefer to just consider myself sedentary because I do have a desk job, and that's something that seems to be pretty uniform no matter what calculator I use.