Is it more difficult to maintain a lower weight?

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MrBiggiesworth
MrBiggiesworth Posts: 846 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
I lost around 30 lbs to get to the low 190's and I have found it ridiculously easy to maintain this weight range. But now that I am here I still feel like I look a little bit too soft and pudgy in places so I want to get down to the mid to high 170's range. I know it will take some calorie restrictions for several months to reach this goal, but I wonder once I get there if it will be more difficult to maintain?

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  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
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    It depends on whether you've been there before and whether it's a good setpoint for your body.

    I have weights I've sat on for years, seem to go back to, and don't have trouble maintaining at: 152, 166, 172. (Yes, it is kind of a pattern). 188 was my top, I was only there for 6 months and dropped easily to 173. Sat there a while and dropped easily to 166. Dropped easily to 155 and then very slowly went to 150. That's where I was for most of my adult life. 152 is supposed to be my 'ideal' weight.

    I don't expect to have a huge amount of trouble sitting here. But I know from past experience that if I tried to drop to 140 or 145, that it would be really tough because it is not a 'natural' weight for me. I've been there before while I was nursing or when I was dancing, but it didn't feel right on me, I was really grumpy if I didn't eat all the time, and I was constantly hungry. I looked great but bounced back up to 150. It's possible that if I worked at it, I could have taught my body that this was a good set point for me (it seems to take around 18 months at a weight to do that, according to research.) But it would have been hard.

    When you look at the charts, what's your ideal weight? If your goal is near that, it shouldn't be hard to maintain unless you have way more muscle than average.
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
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    If you were in your 170's when you were in your 20's I'd go for that.

    When I started this I was hoping for 170 and set my goal for 165. I never thought I hit it. I'm at 150 now and it's easy to maintain. That's where I was at 20.

    NIH will set your 'ideal weight' at a BMI of 21.5. Yeah, there are problems with BMI. Your weight can be much higher if you're in good shape with lots of muscle. But when that's true, you know it and - as you say - your weight is irrelevant because you know you're in great shape.
  • tomcornhole
    tomcornhole Posts: 1,084 Member
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    BLUF: Depends, but it should be just as easy to maintain in the 170's as it is to maintain in the 190's. You might not like how you look in the 170's, though. Especially if you are pursuing abs.

    Longer answer:

    We are following the same journey, although I started at 254 lbs in Mar 2012. My initial target weight was 205 lbs. I got there and thought I looked great and it was, as you say, ridiculously easy to maintain (22% BF). Then I wanted to see some abs and get my BF% down. So I set a new goal of 185 lbs. Got there and thought I looked good (16% BF), but the darn abs were still not popping. So I set a goal of 178. Then my boss told me I looked like a POW and I was an idiot (he was right). Again, it was ridiculously easy to maintain 185 lbs. Just as easy as 205 lbs.

    So I decided to maintain 185 and see if I could lower my BF% while maintaining weight. I weighed in this morning at 184 lbs and I'm at 12-13% BF. Abs are more defined but still not popping. The relentless pursuit of abs is fascinating, but is accomplishing nothing. This ab pursuit has distracted me completely from actually accomplishing anything useful like adding strength or muscle.

    This is what it looks like in pics:

    20130817TomBFcomparisonpics.jpg

    Top left was 254 lbs. Top right was 205 lbs. Bottom left was 185 lbs. Notice the skinny soft look at 16%. Bottom right is still 185 lbs.

    So, I am focusing now on adding LBM. I am going to cut to 180 lbs, not to see my abs but to start a bulk at 10% BF. Then I am going to bulk over the winter. Then see where I am in March. Abs will either be there or they won't.

    Tom
  • 55in13
    55in13 Posts: 1,091 Member
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    I don't know what your height is; mine is 69.5". The reason that is relevant is that I also started losing at 225 and it was not all that hard to get to low 190s and I probably could have easily stayed there, but I was obviously still pudgy. Losing to 170 was harder. It puts me in the healthy range but still above ideal. I was around this weight and slightly above for much of my adult life and so far (over a month at goal, over 2 months within 5) it really hasn't been difficult. I want to go a little lower and stay below 170 instead of having my range (you have to give yourself a small range or you will make yourself crazy) be 170 and above. Ideal for me is closer to 160 anyway. I really badly don't want to believe in the set point stuff, but it does seem much harder to lose below this weight than it was to get to it.
  • dp1228
    dp1228 Posts: 439 Member
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    this is an interesting question. my ultimate GW range is the 140's but I have absolutely no idea if I could get or stay there. I've been overweight since junior high up until a couple of years ago so I honestly don't know what weight my body will feel right at. maintaining is a far away dream right now, but some answers here give me hope that even though it's unfathomable at the moment my GW will be easy enough to maintain.
  • Chief_Rocka
    Chief_Rocka Posts: 4,710 Member
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    When you diet down from a previously high weight, your BMR will be lower than what would be predicted for that weight.

    So you'll have to get comfortable with not being able to eat as much food as you probably really want to, and think you should be able to.
  • 55in13
    55in13 Posts: 1,091 Member
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    When you diet down from a previously high weight, your BMR will be lower than what would be predicted for that weight.

    So you'll have to get comfortable with not being able to eat as much food as you probably really want to, and think you should be able to.
    This I knew. The calculators say sedentary TDEE is around 2000 for me and trial and error says it is closer to 1800. I run quite a bit, so I am not really restricted to that, but it seems like plenty after the loss. Most people get closer to normal after a while and my drop of about 10% is also fairly normal for people who ate at a big deficit for a while. I lost almost 2 pounds a week for the first few months, before slowing the loss toward the end. It causes a slowdown, but not a meltdown. I would do it again; I am one of those people who just could not stick with the slow and steady approach. It should help that this is not a completely new weight for me, though it has been about 10 years.
  • michail71
    michail71 Posts: 120 Member
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    BLUF: Depends, but it should be just as easy to maintain in the 170's as it is to maintain in the 190's. You might not like how you look in the 170's, though. Especially if you are pursuing abs.

    Longer answer:

    We are following the same journey, although I started at 254 lbs in Mar 2012. My initial target weight was 205 lbs. I got there and thought I looked great and it was, as you say, ridiculously easy to maintain (22% BF). Then I wanted to see some abs and get my BF% down. So I set a new goal of 185 lbs. Got there and thought I looked good (16% BF), but the darn abs were still not popping. So I set a goal of 178. Then my boss told me I looked like a POW and I was an idiot (he was right). Again, it was ridiculously easy to maintain 185 lbs. Just as easy as 205 lbs.

    So I decided to maintain 185 and see if I could lower my BF% while maintaining weight. I weighed in this morning at 184 lbs and I'm at 12-13% BF. Abs are more defined but still not popping. The relentless pursuit of abs is fascinating, but is accomplishing nothing. This ab pursuit has distracted me completely from actually accomplishing anything useful like adding strength or muscle.

    This is what it looks like in pics:

    20130817TomBFcomparisonpics.jpg

    Top left was 254 lbs. Top right was 205 lbs. Bottom left was 185 lbs. Notice the skinny soft look at 16%. Bottom right is still 185 lbs.

    So, I am focusing now on adding LBM. I am going to cut to 180 lbs, not to see my abs but to start a bulk at 10% BF. Then I am going to bulk over the winter. Then see where I am in March. Abs will either be there or they won't.

    Tom

    For me if I keep under 15% I'll have abs but I didn't first get them until I hit 10%. After that they stayed with me on a bulk. LBM helps!

    For the OP, with dedicated calorie tracking I find it easy to maintain at any weight. But on my last bulk I topped off at 176 and I did have a hard time eating enough to push weight up further. Luckily I was at a point where I needed to start a cut.
  • lithezebra
    lithezebra Posts: 3,670 Member
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    It's definitely more difficult to maintain a low body fat percentage, like 15%, for women than it is to maintain something closer to 22%. I would imagine that men have equivalent issues with low vs. moderate BF%.
  • chani8
    chani8 Posts: 946 Member
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    I think you should continue to eat at a small deficit, losing these last few pounds slowly, but maybe make some changes in your workout. Make your workout less time, about 20 minutes at a time, more intense (supersets?), with a 1 to 1.5 minutes between sets/supersets. This seems to build muscles fast, maximizing use of testosterone. Learned it from the Mike Chang's 6 pack abs program. It's what my husband and I do, and it's worked well for us. Good luck!

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