Anyone Here Have Experience Maintaining Weight?

TKRV

I didn't have a lot to lose when I first joined MFP. I was mostly looking for a way to track my health and help me figure out the calorie intake I need to work out and be healthy. I am happy to say that I am at the point where all I want to do is maintain my current weight. To that end, I have a few questions.

In your experience, will consuming all the calories MFP suggest really maintain my weight? I'm just nervous since I've gotten used to eating less.

Is there anything I should look into outside of calories that will determine whether or not I maintain or gain?

Any other advice for maintaining weight would be greatly appreciated.

Please and Thank you. ^_^

summer8it

I've been maintaining my weight since early summer. It's a bit of a process of trial and error to figure out exactly where you need to be, calorie-wise, in order to maintain. For me, I've found that my maintenance point is actually about 100 calories a day higher than MFP says it should be.

Honestly, maintenance is just the same as losing-mode. You keep doing the same things: exercising, eating well, logging everything. You just get to eat a bit more, that's all!

TKRV

Let's say I weigh in in a month a few pounds heavier. With MFP automatically adjust my calorie intake to get me back down or will it stay the same?

summer8it

I honestly don't know if MFP is sophisticated enough to do that, but you can certainly change your own goal settings if you start to see a gain, or if you continue to lose and want to stop that trend.

LorinaLynn

Well, first off, if you weigh a few pounds more in a few months, take photos, measurements and see how your clothes fit before deciding if you should try to lose those pounds or not. I'm about 10 pounds above my low weight, but look better in photos and the jeans I bought at 125 are falling down at 135. So I don't give a flying fart that I weigh more.

But if you do decide to lose, you'll need to adjust your calorie goal.

Personally, MFP calories are too low for me. I do better calculating my TDEE and eating that.

PamL66

I met my goal a while back, but wasn't comfortable with the 1800 calories that MFP set to maintain. After a few days, I changed the option to "Lose 1/2 pound per week" and it put me at 1410. I manually set the calories to 1500. some days I go a bit over that, and some days under. I'm fighting a knee problem (Baker's Cyst) right now and can't exercise like I had been. I've still actually lost 3 more pounds since changing the goal.

kls13la

I've been maintaining for around two months now. I'm not completely sure what my maintenance calories should be, although I manually set it around 1700-1800 plus exercise calories. (MFP puts me around 1600 -- way too low.) I've gotten more lax recently than when I was in losing mode, and don't log as much on the weekends. I also eat more. So, I think I'm probably actually eating more like 2000 a day plus exercise and have been maintaining just fine, much to my surprise.

As said above, it's really not that much different except I am eating more. I do still weigh myself every morning to make sure my weight isn't creeping up. So far, so good. It's really about trial and error. I also thought I'd have issues with getting used to eating more, but once I got past the first week or so it hasn't been a problem.

caseythirteen

I would consider myself in maintenance mode since I'm not looking to drop any weight. I personally do the TDEE method and don't track exercise calories. I feel like it's easier to keep up with long term and requires just a bit less thought for me. I do subtract about 10-15% from TDEE though. I'm not doing that to lose but I do it because a) I don't have a digital scale so I'm sure I'm underestimating calories on certain things and b) because I'm typically over on the weekend so at least Monday through Thursday I try and be a bit under. Since I'm really trying to make changes that can be a lifestyle, the easier I can make it for myself the better!

catpow2

Yes--it's trial and error. I haven't been trying to lose weight for awhile, and I have pretty consistently maintained. I lost about 5 pounds in the late summer/early fall, but have since gained it back because I was lax on diet and inconsistent on exercise--no big deal. I think staying within 5 lbs or so of where you want to be IS maintenance.

I set my calorie goal to what I think is the 'low' side of maintenance, meaning about 100-150 fewer calories than I think I need. I don't always track on the weekends but generally try to make good food choices. And I eat something bad (like eating a donut for breakfast), I try make healthy food choices for the rest of the day.