How many calories will be Maintenance for you?

I maintain on about 2300 a day with a BMI of 18.5.

According to TDEE calculators right now my TDEE is about 2300, but MFP generally thinks I will gain weight if I eat 2000 calories.

I'm 4ft 10in - at my current weight of 118lbs I should be able to maintain with 1,620 calories a day depending on my activity levels.

At my goal weight of 98lbs, my maintenance cals will be 1,485.

Calories feel like a lot or a little depending on what you eat. 1650 is almost 300 calories more than I'm eating now, which is very comfortable for me most days. I'm 5'10" and older than I expect you are.

What makes those calories comfortable is . . .

I walk an hour or so a day pretty fast, which buys me a few hundred extra calories
I eat very little bread, rice, potatoes, or pre-packaged foods, which all have a lot of calories. I only drink once a week, and rarely more than 200 calories.
I eat everything I like, but in small portions. So I'll eat a square of high quality chocolate (35 calories) or a 1/4 cup of ice cream (85).

You can eat 2000 calories on a big greasy burger or more veggies than you can fit in your stomach. It's your choice.

5'2" 125 lbs
maintaining for a year eating between 1900-2500/day.

I'm currently maintaining at 67kgs on 1850-1900 + exercise cals. Been at maintenance about a month and have continued to lose a little weight. Christmas set me back a little but I am still below my original goal weight. I'm 5'9" and 44 years old.

My maintenance is a little over 2000, I'm 4ft 10in and 98.4lbs so this seems like alot! I'm not even that active.

I owuld double check your activity level. I have a desk job, but had to set mine to a high activity level to get it to line up with my actual maintenance number (which is around 2100 at 5'3"). The only way to know for sure is to try it.

The best way to try is to err on the side of more calories, and back off if you gain weight, because coming in from the other side, too little calories, and you may be artificially lowering your TDEE, cheating yourself out of food! Don't be afraid of going over a little- it would take 500 extra calories a day to gain a lb in a week, so you would really have to go way over to do any serious damage. If you end up gaining 1/2 lb, you can take it back off in another week. It shouldn't be terribly stressful.

I can't wait til I get to the point where I need to know that number. I gain weight SUPER easy so it will probably be around 1650 - 1800 I'd guess for me. I'm 5'10.

I'm 5'8" and 142 pounds (not sure what my BMI is, but I lift heavy things 6x a week, so I'm pretty well muscled). I am also still nursing my son, who is 18 months old. I pay no attention to the calories MFP tells me I should have, because *I* know that my maintenance calories are about 3100 - 3500/day, depending on how hard I work out and how much my son is nursing.

Lucy

I owuld double check your activity level. I have a desk job, but had to set mine to a high activity level to get it to line up with my actual maintenance number (which is around 2100 at 5'3"). The only way to know for sure is to try it.

The best way to try is to err on the side of more calories, and back off if you gain weight, because coming in from the other side, too little calories, and you may be artificially lowering your TDEE, cheating yourself out of food! Don't be afraid of going over a little- it would take 500 extra calories a day to gain a lb in a week, so you would really have to go way over to do any serious damage. If you end up gaining 1/2 lb, you can take it back off in another week. It shouldn't be terribly stressful.

EXCELLENT advice.

Also, don;t pay attention to that little note from MFP when you complete for the day. It's not an exact science! I continued to lose weight on what MFP said was "maintenance".

Maintenance according to MFP is 1650 for me. I ate that much yesterday and it said I will stay at 155 if I continue to eat 1650. I am 5ft 5inches.. that sure don't seem like much. I played with it and when I enter more it says I will gain...

Keep in mind that it will also depend on how you are set up in MFP. I'm currently set up as sedentary and I log exercise and eat those calories back. I get a lot more exercise than I used to and when It's all said and done, I will be doing some form of aerobic activity 5-6 days per week and heavy lifting 3 days per week. When I get to that point, I'm going to re-evaluate my setup and probably go to "active". I've already done some preliminary calculations and it seems about right, but I'll probably have to make a few manual adjustments to my goals just as I did for losing weight.

At my current weight and MFP settings, my maintenance goal would be 2,250 (I think closer to 2,320 based on the tweaks I've already made)...If I change to "active" and don't log or eat exercise calories back, MFP says 2,610...I'm thinking probably closer to 2,700 but I'll have to play with it.

Depends on how active you are. The more active you are.. the more you need to maintain(: mine is around 2100 calories.