Increasing your calorie goal

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ekaustin7
ekaustin7 Posts: 185 Member
in Food and Nutrition
This is for all of you out there who are in maintenance after losing - did you find it hard at first to eat up to your calorie goal? I'm slowly bumping my goal up to maintenance and I'm finding that I'm stuffed, but still have hundreds of calories left to eat for the day. I don't want to lose any more weight, but I also don't want to eat until I can't function just to hit my goal. Does it get easier after a few weeks?

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  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
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    What was your goal before and what is it now?

    The change should be slowwww. When I was getting close to maintenance, I raised my calories 50 at a time over like 2 months, because I was not just changing the calories, but tapering the weight loss itself. 1650 or 1700 is not difficult to get to from 1600, etc, so I never experienced any feeling of not being able to meet my calories.
  • ekaustin7
    ekaustin7 Posts: 185 Member
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    What was your goal before and what is it now?

    The change should be slowwww. When I was getting close to maintenance, I raised my calories 50 at a time over like 2 months, because I was not just changing the calories, but tapering the weight loss itself. 1650 or 1700 is not difficult to get to from 1600, etc, so I never experienced any feeling of not being able to meet my calories.

    I have been eating about 1720 for the last two months. I raised it to 1800 last week, and plan to raise it 50 calories a week until I hit 2000.
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    Options
    What was your goal before and what is it now?

    The change should be slowwww. When I was getting close to maintenance, I raised my calories 50 at a time over like 2 months, because I was not just changing the calories, but tapering the weight loss itself. 1650 or 1700 is not difficult to get to from 1600, etc, so I never experienced any feeling of not being able to meet my calories.

    I have been eating about 1720 for the last two months. I raised it to 1800 last week, and plan to raise it 50 calories a week until I hit 2000.

    Are you eating different foods? I'm having trouble understanding why 1720 would be ok but at 1800 you have hundreds leftover? Or is that basically what you're asking?
  • MG_Fit
    MG_Fit Posts: 1,143 Member
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    Just grab another one of those beers in your hand and you'll be good to go :drinker:
  • Oishii
    Oishii Posts: 2,675 Member
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    I found it hard. I like low calorie density food, like soup and salad, but they filled my stomach too much as I was trying to reach maintenance. I also found that my maintenance was WAY above what mfp predicted (around 2400+ exercise, rather than 1700+ exercise), so there were a lot of calories to find space for.

    I had the same issue sporadically as a child, unable to finish a personal pizza for example. I don't know why.
  • ksuetorres
    ksuetorres Posts: 139 Member
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    I had a mental issue with it. It was so much work to lose the weight that I was freaking out that if I started eating more I would just put the weight back on. However, I've been on MFP's maintenance goals for several months and I'm still losing weight, albeit more slowly. So I manually adjusted my net calorie goal up by 150. I don't want to lose any more weight! I'm perfect!!! LOL
  • Sjenny5891
    Sjenny5891 Posts: 717 Member
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    My origional goal was 1200. Maintnance was1490 until I changed my activity level to active... now it's 1600+ exercise.

    I think I wouldn't have had problems with that, but I added Zumba two days a week and swimming three more. I'm having a problem eating back the extra 500 calories a day MFP gives me for that.
  • ekaustin7
    ekaustin7 Posts: 185 Member
    Options
    What was your goal before and what is it now?

    The change should be slowwww. When I was getting close to maintenance, I raised my calories 50 at a time over like 2 months, because I was not just changing the calories, but tapering the weight loss itself. 1650 or 1700 is not difficult to get to from 1600, etc, so I never experienced any feeling of not being able to meet my calories.

    I have been eating about 1720 for the last two months. I raised it to 1800 last week, and plan to raise it 50 calories a week until I hit 2000.

    Are you eating different foods? I'm having trouble understanding why 1720 would be ok but at 1800 you have hundreds leftover? Or is that basically what you're asking?

    I'm not worried about making it to 1800, I'm worried about getting up to 2000. There have been days where I feel like I'm stuffed full and haven't eaten back any of my exercise calories yet (I burn on average 450 calories per workout), so I'm still in a 500 calorie a day deficit even though I don't want to keep losing weight. I'm just hoping that if I fill myself, my stomach will stretch ever so slightly to be able to allow higher amounts of food. Either that, or I'm going to have to go to more calorie dense foods like full-fat butter, cheese, etc.

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