Weight maintanance

kmarsh19851985

Hi all, my name is Kate. I am new to the forum but have been logging my cals on fitness pal since January this year. At the beginning I weighed 131 pounds and have since got lower than my target weight , im now 115 pounds. I feel quite happy with my weight now and don't want to loose any more as I'm startings to loose it from all the wrong places!! I just wanted to clarify something with weight maintanance. My target calories are now set at around 1630, I'm not reaching this many calories ATM as I'm quite worried about putting weight back on. This is the question...if I eat 1630 calories but my exercise gives me an extra 300, will I gain weight by eating these, will I loose weight if I don't? I'm sorry if my question sounds a bit silly! This is confusing me and I feel a little stressed by it, just want to start relaxing again in regards to food. Just want to manintain but i think this is harder than actually loosing weight!! Thanks for reading, I look forward to your responses.

TavistockToad

you need to eat your exercise calories, or you will always have a deficit and be losing weight.

you may alos find MFP maintenance is a bit low, it says 1600 for me, but i net 1800 to maintain.

add the cals 100 per week and you shouldnt see any weight gain at all. good luck!

kmarsh19851985

Thanks for your reply. You make it sound so easy! MFP is so addictive isn't it? It has made me see how large my portion sizes were at evening meal times! I'm walking my dog for a bit longer than I used to which helps. Not only with weight loss but Iv found that walking is my favourite exercise! I used to do a lot of exercise in the gym but since Iv joined forces with my gorgeous JRT, we walk for miles every day! Thanks for your friend request, Iv added you.

Meg_78

I can only come at it from the opposite direction, but at least its a point of view.....I was gaining, and so I had my set calories, then I ate back my exercise cals too.. now I am maintaining and yes I am still eating back my exercise cals, but I have been playing around with my maintenance cals for the past month so I can find the right balance for me (I don't go by MFP estimates they are too low for me), I stared at a high number (2000), and when I didn't gain or lose, I took it down by 100 cals, and when I also maintained on that I took it down another 100 to 1800 (I only did this cause I was eating 2000 cals plus exercise was getting to be a challenge) I have maintained the whole time give or take about half a pound (up and down)

Basically just try it, eat your cals if you are going of MFP numbers for maintenance, but not if you just manually set your TDEE, just eat that. if you start to gain or lose, then you will need to tweak it by 50-100 cals a day. I personally don't weigh in daily, I do it weekly.

TavistockToad

i dont weigh very often, and when i do i dont take much notice of the number, i go by my clothes a lot more.

i have been maintaining for a while now, and at first it was weird being 'allowed' to eat more and then not go mad and just eat rubbish, but i tried to increase my portions and add healthy things - like my usual morning snack now is 20g of nuts - an easy 100 cals! and i have full fat cottage cheese instead of low fat but i do also allow myself a few more treats than when i was trying to lose.

these days i cant imagine only eating 1200 cals!!!

one other thing is to find a maintenance range rather than one number as your weight will fluctuate, especially as yo uadd mor ecals (just from the physical weight of more food) so you are 115, so i would go for 112-117. if you're in that range fine, if you creep over 117/118 for more than a week then reduce the cals a little.

and yes, TOTALLY addicted to MFP!!!!!

kmarsh19851985

Thanks, both of your posts are so informative and I'm so please I posted this question! I have become a little obsessive with weighing myself, I know it's not very healthy. I'm trying to weigh myself less now though and going by my clothes. It seems to be a trial and error procedure, It is so much nicer being able to allow your self a treat now and again. I always allow a cheat meal once a week which I love! Did you allow a cheat meal or cheat day once per week? Thanks again for your great advice x