Maintaining is turning out to be harder then losing

Fat...cook with more oils/butter...eat nuts and whatnot...nut butters...drink a beer or two...or three...full fat dairy....avocados, etc. You don't have to stuff yourself to get in calories. There are a lot of calorie dense foods out there that are also nutrient dense...also, not every single thing that goes into your pie hole needs to be a nutrient dense food...that's why they call it a pie hole...you can have pie.

LOL...this cracked me up. Mmmmmmm pie......I'll have a slice (or 3) of strawberry rhubarb please!

After two years of maintenance, and watching others go through maintenance, it's not uncommon to lose more weight and sink below your goal weight. It's as if your body is still revved up and still dropping weight.

Don't be too quick to rev up your eating right away. Time will take care of that for you. Vacations, celebrations, holidays and all sorts of occasions will come along when you'll loosen up a bit. And then there will be the inevitable illnesses, injuries, work overloads, trips and such that will cut into your workout schedule as well. You'll start to gain the extra weight you lost back fairly naturally. The trick will be stopping that weight gain. That's when real maintenance starts.

Jeanne

I wish I could trade problems with you. I find it very easy to eat and drink the extra calories needed to maintain or gain. There are a lot of foods on my [ wish I could eat more of them] list. I am sure mine are different than yours but there must be something you used to eat or used to eat more of that you would now be allowed so that you could maintain or gain. Maybe some more pizza or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would work for you.

I find it very easy to maintain weight. The harder you lift, the hungrier you get, so you should have no problem eating back exercise calories.

I think most 'people' are just afraid to eat the maintenance calories. They think they'll gain, even though they won't.

Fry your eggs/foods in butter, coconut oil or any kind of oil you prefer. 1tbsp is a lot of calories. Eat a slice of pizza. Eat some cookies. Stop making it hard.

I found that lifting Super heavy caused my weight to go down. Back when I was losing I didn't have this problem, Then again,although I was lifting heavy, NOWHERE near what I am doing now. I am actually training for a powerlifting comp and I am tryin to NOT dip below my weight because i see a decrease now in my lifts if I do.

Wow, what I would have done to have this problem back in the day! Lifting weights does a body good. But so good it's made me lose WEIGHT! I've actually had to completely kill not only my conditioning days but some of my assistance exercises and just focus on my main lifts for my powerlifting competition.,

ANd I have to still wrap my head around the fact that I need to eat more. After watching what I eat...even putting it down here...it's hard to go from that to more calories. I always told myself I'd relish it when that would happen. Now I struggle. And it's imperative that I do, That you do! I completely understand. Maintaining is harder than losing. Losing weight wasn't the end. It was only the beginning!

No matter how full you get...

There is always room for beer. :drinker:

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In a more serious vein... You should be consuming more protein. Do some research on "good" protein consumption as a function of bodyweight. I'm not going to give advice since there's so much "Broscience" floating out there, but personally I shoot for around 0.8g per lbm of bodyweight. I frequently fall short, but it puts me in the right range to support my running habit.

Your diary shows you consuming 49-76g a day, which seems very low for someone lifting and exercising regularly.

It seemed to me like that too. I actually kept loosing and lost about 5 kg while just trying to maintin. Although i stopped looking at MFP, tried not to be opsessed about me since my trainer, nutritionist and therapist said i should stop immedietly so i could've been easily eating lower than my maintainence even though i did have breakfast-snack-lunch-snack-dinnner and tried to eat as much as protein as i could since i was trying to get muscle. BUT then after few months of continuous loosing( and getting to a breaty dangerous underweight), even though i tried really hard to keep my cals up i started bingeing like crazy an still am bingeing although it has gotten a bit more rare-used to be every or every other day-so my nutritionist gave me 2200 cals diet and i am having no trouble going by it- for now. She said bingeing could come from unbalanced and strict, say too much protein or such, which was probably my case since i was being 100 % healthy, not eating fats and sweets and tried as much as protein i can stuff in my tummy.

So, my advice to you if you don't want to gain it all back(i gained 5 kg in two weeks of constant bingeing) up your cals immedietly because it is very likely fr bingeing to occure. I then developed an ED of binge/ restrict cycle where i would not eat one day than binge the other. Of course i am not saying this will happe to you but i suggest to be careful and even though it may seem now ok- i felt amazing during that period-bingeing is likely to occure. Good luck.

eat peanut butter. it is really easy to eat 300 more calories dude. seriously.

WOW, I can't wait until I have that problem!!
For sure, try and eat more since you're building muscle and doing lots of weights. good luck, lots of great advice here.

Gah! Trial and error. I am having the same problem. I never had a whole lot to lose in the first place, but I've found that I am 'maintaining' a weight that is 3-4 pounds more than I want it to be. (and by that I mean, I have stayed here and not fluctuated down to my ideal weight)

Sometimes I want to say that what I have right now is my ideal weight. I look good, I'm happy and healthy. So, it just comes down to the number on the scale. I haven't found a solution yet, but I have been successful in not going over the weight I never want to see again.

This is me. My body stops happily at a weight that is about 5lbs more than I would like. I am starting to think - "am I in maintenance?" not sure yet....