Any maintenance gurus out there??

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

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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.

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!

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

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.

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

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....