Maintaining after reaching goal weight.

sammie121403

Today, I reached my goal weight...well 0.2 pounds below it. I have lost 40.2 pounds in just under 5 months. I feel great. Now, I am worried about the maintaining. I do not binge, if I crave something "not good" for me, I eat a small portion of it and log it into my journal. I guess I had finally really had enough of the fad diets (and never really losing) that I came into using MFP and cal counting with exercise very well. I plan to add 100-200 cals a day once I begin maintaining and to keep exercising as I was. My worry is the weight will come creeping back if I up to too many cals per day. MFP tells me to maintain, I need like 2300 cals a day, not gonna happen. I was lucky to reach my 1300 while dieting. Anyone doing the maintaining part now?

herblackwings39

Congratulations! I'm not at maintenance so I have no educated helpful advice for you though.

The_Enginerd

I've been doing the maintaining part for a good while, about 18 months. Keep adding calories until you find you are maintaining your weight. A common strategy is to add 100 cal/day every week until you hit maintenance. I took the route of switching from losing 1 lb/week to 1/2 lb/week when I was within 5 lbs of my goal weight, than to maintenance when I hit my goal weight. This was a jump of 250 cal/day each time. You get used to eating more, and you can add more of the stuff you enjoy and higher calorie healthy items like nuts, avocados, olive oil, etc.

I have to NET 2200 calories to maintain, so on my running days I'm eating 3000 calories.

Not a very active group, but there is some good information here to read:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/forums/show/169-maintenance

momzeeee

Congrats on hitting goal! I started transitioning into maintenance in March and I'm still tweaking it Feel free to add me as a friend if you like!