Any maintenance gurus out there??

angel101netta

Is anyone here on maintenance? I wanted to ask a few questions if thats okay.

Question 1
Did you automatically set your food diary to maintenace calories or did you go up a few hundred calories at a time?

Question 2
If you set your food diary to maintenance calories that my fitness pal choses for you, did your weight go up? And if it does go up, is it water weight ? will it settle back down to goal weight?

Its really concerning me maintenace, im worried to put on weight and also worried cause I dont want to lose any more.
Thanks advance for the advice

ilovescarymovies

bump

LeslieAnnex3

Eventually I'll get up the courage to post full body shots. Hmm

MommyRobin

Bump. I'm worried about maintenance, too.

PrincessNikkiBoo

Bump

Antonella64

Angel your worrying about this too much honey !! I only upped mine 100 and watch my weight if it looks like I'm eating a lot on the weekend I just cut back on Monday! I continue to walk And do bigger walks if I've eaten more ! I didn't get a weight gain other than a kilo up or down which I manage by that strategy !! Water weight is hormonal and that happens each month for me but honestly love maintenance it feels a bit more free! Just try upping and watch it ! As long as you eat healthy you should be able to maintain !! Believe in yourself Angel you can do this

angel101netta

Angel your worrying about this too much honey !! I only upped mine 100 and watch my weight if it looks like I'm eating a lot on the weekend I just cut back on Monday! I continue to walk And do bigger walks if I've eaten more ! I didn't get a weight gain other than a kilo up or down which I manage by that strategy !! Water weight is hormonal and that happens each month for me but honestly love maintenance it feels a bit more free! Just try upping and watch it ! As long as you eat healthy you should be able to maintain !! Believe in yourself Angel you can do this

I gotta stop worrying, I know thanks heaps for your advice Hun, will take it on board and will take each day as it comes.

bathsheba_c

bumpityumpumpump

patrox247

I think that maintenance is easier for some people than for others. For me it is a lot tougher than losing weight. I was very strict with my calorie count over the last year which resulted in a 153 lb weight loss. During that time I never went over my calorie count even once. The structure of the strict diet was easier for me than the freedom of maintenance. I am constantly putting on weight and having to lose it since I hit my goal weight. I feel like a yoyo.

larnsperger

I'm on maintenance. I' find it much harder because as someone else mentioned I do better with lots of structure. I've been on maintenance before. In the past I've maintained my calories M-F and allowed myself freedom for the weekends. This time, I left my calories at 1200 for a few weeks and I continued to lose which I didn't want to do. I bit the bullet and changed my settings according to MFP and it raised my calories to 1530 per day. I was skeptical but I've been successfully maintaining at 1530 M-F and a few more than that on weekends. I also make sure I get at least a 30 minute walk in a day or gym time. The secret to maintenance is logging or at the very least being VERY mindful of what you eat, You also need to make yourself face the scale monthly so that any gain can be brought back under control before its out of hand. I treat maintenance the same as I did the loss part of the journey, I've changed the weigh I eat and I am committed to exercise and that is a way of life that I can maintain one day at a time. It helps not to put so much pressure on yourself and think to far into the future, that can become paralyzingly and derail your thought process, and lets face it weight loss and healthy habits are mostly a head game!

Antonella64

You see we are all really saying the same thing ! Maintenance still has structure you only increase to what your comfortable with and for me it was about 100 more I'm still counting cals and walking so it's still a commitment ! Weigh often maybe once a week ! You'll be ok Angel!

sjlapins

I am not an expert on this by any means, but I would suggest increasing your calories by 100 until you reach your maintenance. I tried increasing to what MFP recommends for me and I think it was too much of an increase too fast. I have been increasing my calories by 100 calories every 1-2 weeks and it seems to be working.

Good luck!!

The_Enginerd

I've been on maintenance since November 2011. When I was withing 5 lbs of my goal, I switched my goal from losing 1 lb per week to losing 1/2 l/b per week, then to maintain weight once I met my goal.

I coasted down about 3 lbs within a month of switching to mainenance, and then I actually kept slightly losing weight on the maintenance calories MFP set up for me. I now average 2200-2250 per day versus the 2150 MFP chose for me. I weighed myself weekly and looked for the trend, and was losing something like 1 lb every month or two at 2150 calories/day.

There is also a Maintenance Group with some awesome tips posted there.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/152-maintenance

joanneg572

Hi Angel!!
Warm congrats on your fabulous weight loss!!

I've been at maintenance for about 6 1/2 months.
I slowly upped the calories from 1360 and ended up around 2000/day.
I'm 55 years, 5'9" and weigh around 135.
I try to eat as healthy as possible and continue to log everyday..
I don't usually have cheat days, cause I find it too hard to get back on track after.
I do a brisk 45 minute walk/treadmill each weekday and double that on the weekends.
My weight bounces around about 4 - 4.5 pounds with TOM, Sodium, etc.
It definitely took a while to get used to eating so much and to not freak out every time I gained .2!
Here is a before/after picture and a snapshot of my weigh graph.
Hope that helps!!
Just take one day at a time and keep moving forward!!!
You are going to rock maintenance!!
Joy on your journey,
Jo

neandermagnon

Is anyone here on maintenance? I wanted to ask a few questions if thats okay.

Question 1
Did you automatically set your food diary to maintenace calories or did you go up a few hundred calories at a time?

I stopped logging when I started maintaining. This wasn't a deliberate move, I just moved from one country to another, ate sensibly, didn't have time to log, and my weight was stable, so I just kept doing that.

I have tracked my calories from time to time since then to see how much I'm actually eating, and because I'm planning bulking/cutting cycles that require eating more or less than my maintenance calories. I can't do that if I don't know what my maintenance calories are.

Question 2
If you set your food diary to maintenance calories that my fitness pal choses for you, did your weight go up? And if it does go up, is it water weight ? will it settle back down to goal weight?

MFP predicts that I'd maintain on 1500 cals, based on my weight and height. I actually maintain on more like 1900 cals, and I'd lose weight on 1500 cals. I'm sure MFP would put me at the standard 1200 cals/day for fat loss, however I've lost a lot of weight and never eaten that few calories in order to get there.

My weight fluctates by at least 5lb over the course of a typical week, and I'm a lot more focused on tracking my body fat percentage and lean body mass, and even more importantly what I look like in the mirror, than what I weigh on the scale. Weight fluctuations are mostly water weight, and if you focus on weight too much, these water weight fluctuations can really mess with your head. Look in the mirror and take other measurements instead. If you have skinfold calipers, use those, but you can use a tape measure to track inches and also there are online calculators that estimate body fat percentage using circumference measurements. They mess with your head less than the scale does.

Songbirdcw

Been in maintenance for over 2 mos now. I have not gained any weight. I've actually kept losing inches. I exercise 4-6x a week. I did not change my calories because I exercise so much. I have remained consistent with my exercise and diet so that I will not fall off the wagon.

LorinaLynn

Maintenance since June 2011.

I didn't directly increase my calories to maintenance. Instead, I stopped logging on weekends and holidays. And every now and then, I'd stop logging for a few weeks. Sometimes my weight would go down a little, sometimes up a little, but as long as my clothes kept fitting (sometimes they'd get too big, even with weight gain), I didn't care what that number was on the scale.

Beginning September 2012, I stopped using MFP numbers and just went by my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). I started at 2000 calories, and lost weight. Increased it to 2100, lost weight, increased to 2200, lost weight. Started getting visible ribs in my upper chest, and stopped logging for a few weeks, gained about 2 pounds back, and went back to logging at 2300, which is the estimate I got for my TDEE. MFP calories are too low for me, unless I set them to the most active setting AND eat my exercise calories. Using TDEE, I don't count my exercise.

Presently, I have my goal set for 2300, but typically eat between 2000-2300 during the week, and a little more than that on weekends when I don't log.

Photos & stuff here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/886672-1-5-million-calories-in-775-days

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

I went to maintenance according to MFP, and I kept losing for a bit. I realized that I wasn't really sedentary so I increased it to maintenance for lightly active and I've been maintaining a month on that. The first couple of weeks is a little nerve wracking because you see normal fluctuations and are tempted to think you're gaining it back but you just have to realize that it's normal. What I recommend, aside from just being patient with yourself, is to settle on a range you're happy with. So my lowest recorded weight is 129, but I just figure anything in the 129-133 range is fine. It's ok for it to take some time to get used to maintenance. It's a different mindset. It helped me a bit to set a new goal, so I started lifting weights and that gives me something new to focus on.

970Mikaela1

I think that maintenance is easier for some people than for others. For me it is a lot tougher than losing weight. I was very strict with my calorie count over the last year which resulted in a 153 lb weight loss. During that time I never went over my calorie count even once. The structure of the strict diet was easier for me than the freedom of maintenance. I am constantly putting on weight and having to lose it since I hit my goal weight. I feel like a yoyo.

i 100 percent agree with this. Exactly my situation....

RoadsterGirlie

I hit my goal in December of 2011. At the time, I was eating 1400 calories a day. I increased it to 1600, thinking that would be enough to maintain. It wasn't, and I dropped 10 more lbs. I eventually found I could maintain on 2000 calories a day with more on the weekends.

I still log my food every day, the same as a I did in weight loss mode. I still exercise 4 to 5x a week for an hour.

It's not hard at all to stay within my daily calorie goal, but I can see if I wasn't diligent how the weight could come back.

I'm not going to be another dumb statistic - that's not going to be me.

angel101netta

Thanks everyone heaps for your replys:)