Maintenance calories

polarberry022
polarberry022 Posts: 16 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi people. Does anyone have suggestions for calculating maintenance calories? I have no problem losing weight but I am having trouble stopping. I am 21 years old, 5'6 & 114.5 lbs. I have a desk job M-F where I am sedentary, however I am a long distance runner. I normally do 2 short runs (2-4 miles) and 1 long run (6-13 miles) per week, and 1-2 days of cross training (normally pilates or yoga).

Links, resources, personal accounts are all appreciated. Thank you xx

Replies

  • clafrentz
    clafrentz Posts: 4 Member
    It's looks like you JUST posted your comment. Which is funny because I was going to post the EXACT same thing and decided to do a search for what other people had posted on this topic. I'm a bit older (33) and shorter (5'4"), but about the same weight (111lbs) and need to figure out how to transition into maintenance. I'm also a long distance runner (will start training for marathon #2 in a few weeks).

    I find that my issue is more of a paranoia thing. I've been so careful with what I eat for so long so that I can lose the weight that the thought of increasing my calories to stop losing and just maintain is really scary. It's hard to break from that thought that eating a bit more will wreck the weight loss.

    I think what I'm going to do is increase my calories by 100-200/day for a month and see if my weight stabilizes. Of course, I'll have to eat more when I get to my really long (20 mile) runs, but I'm hoping I can get a handle on it by continuing to log calories and exercise.

    Hope that helps!
  • jayche
    jayche Posts: 1,128 Member
    Experiment a little and figure out whats working for you as maintenance, not everyone's maintenance calories are going to be the same even if they do all the same activities throughout the day. Personally I found that my maintenance is much higher than what MFP suggests for my body weight, so I kept upping my calories until I started to stabilize in weight. Then I upped it some more because I'm looking to gain some weight.

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