Women, what are "maintenance calories" for you?

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  • SomeNights246
    SomeNights246 Posts: 807 Member
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    On my days where I'm actually sedentary (as in don't move a muscle at all), 1,700 seems to fill me up.

    On days where I'm actually up and moving, I need around 1,900-2,200

    ETA: Oh, and I'm 23. About 5'5"ish or so.
  • SugaryLynx
    SugaryLynx Posts: 2,640 Member
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    26 yo, 5'3.5" 118 lbs and maintain around 2250. I take care of my kids, clean buildings 3x a week for a few hours, and weightlifting 3x a week.
  • melimomTARDIS
    melimomTARDIS Posts: 1,941 Member
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    I'm 5'5, 132 lbs, and 26 yrs old. I do light non-intense excersize 3 to 5 days per week. I am eating 1800 per day, and occasionally eating up to 2000.

    I also have pcos, and don't eat back any excersize calories.
  • harlanJEN
    harlanJEN Posts: 1,089 Member
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    5'6", 50yo, 183. Fairly sedentary, but I do chase my 2 yo granddaughter around 4 days a week. I also have PCOS and Insulin resistance. I maintain around 1400 or so. I have been at maintenance for about the past year, not intentionally, just too much stuff going on right now to be able to concentrate fully on losing.
    If I ever reach my goal of 155, I am afraid my maintenance will be around 1000-1200. ugh.

    May I please say this makes me : (

    1400 should never have to be your maintenance cals - certainly nothing lower.

    I'm 50 . 5'4 . Around your weight, size 8 . Straight up size 8. I maintain with a very doable lifestyle activity level @ 2200 cals. I enjoy my food, my activity. Anyone can. PROMISE!!

    I challenge you to rethink your scale weight goal and focus on changing your body composition with some strength training in your life and some nutrition tweaks. Please please don't resign yourself to a life of 100O cals.

    What is NOT on my bucket list? aging and losing my functional strength and falling and can't get up. Oh! And I want to enjoy food all the way to the grave and looking pretty dang fantastic doing it.

    K. / passionate rant

    Peace out
  • SKME2013
    SKME2013 Posts: 704 Member
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    It depends on how much exercise I do. Without any: 1660 cal, but I do tons of exercise every day, with the exception of one rest day per week.
    Stef.
  • apriltrainer
    apriltrainer Posts: 732 Member
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    hmm..it depends..When I was training for kettlebell sport I would eat up to 2100. That's with three training sessions a week. When I am not training I tend to stay around 1600-1900 naturally. Like this week was an off /deload week for me with no activity. I tend to naturally stay around that 1600-1900.

    I'm 5'3 at 124 lbs
  • rosebette
    rosebette Posts: 1,660 Member
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    I'm short 5'1.5" and older -- 55 -- and I'm beginning to wonder if my maintenance is around 1200-1300 (eating back exercise calories). I don't seem to be losing very much, and if I eat more -- go out to eat 2-3 times a week - I gain. My weight hovers around 120 right now.
  • wertgirlfor
    wertgirlfor Posts: 161 Member
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    I'm 5'4", 20 years old, 137lbs and lightly active. I maintain around 1900/day
  • macchiatto
    macchiatto Posts: 2,890 Member
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    5'6", 50yo, 183. Fairly sedentary, but I do chase my 2 yo granddaughter around 4 days a week. I also have PCOS and Insulin resistance. I maintain around 1400 or so. I have been at maintenance for about the past year, not intentionally, just too much stuff going on right now to be able to concentrate fully on losing.
    If I ever reach my goal of 155, I am afraid my maintenance will be around 1000-1200. ugh.

    May I please say this makes me : (

    1400 should never have to be your maintenance cals - certainly nothing lower.

    I'm 50 . 5'4 . Around your weight, size 8 . Straight up size 8. I maintain with a very doable lifestyle activity level @ 2200 cals. I enjoy my food, my activity. Anyone can. PROMISE!!

    I challenge you to rethink your scale weight goal and focus on changing your body composition with some strength training in your life and some nutrition tweaks. Please please don't resign yourself to a life of 100O cals.

    What is NOT on my bucket list? aging and losing my functional strength and falling and can't get up. Oh! And I want to enjoy food all the way to the grave and looking pretty dang fantastic doing it.

    K. / passionate rant

    Peace out

    Actually, I recently came across an article someone posted in the Eat. Train. Progress. group about women with PCOS, and women with insulin-resistant PCOS had BMRs around 700 calories/day lower than the average woman! It's very discouraging for those of us who have PCOS, but important to be aware of.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18678372
    The study included 91 Greek women with PCOS and biochemical hyperandrogenemia, young and reasonable BMI (mean age 24.03 ± 0.55 years, mean BMI 26.67 ± 0.69 kg/m2) and 48 matched regularly menstruating women, with mean age 26.33 ± 0.93 years and mean BMI 23.35 ± 0.85 kg/m2, as control subjects.

    Study showed Reduced BMR in PCOS with or without IR. Adjusted BMR was 1,868 ± 41 kcal/day in the control group, 1,445.57 ± 76 in all PCOS women, 1,590 ± 130 in PCOS women without IR and 1,116 ± 106 in PCOS women with IR. Adjusted BMR showed a statistically significant difference between women with PCOS and control subjects, with lowest values in the group of PCOS women with IR, even after adjusting all groups for age and BMI.

    Women with PCOS, particularly those with IR, present a significantly decreased BMR.

    Though my personal approach is to lift weights and exercise/burn more calories so I don't have to set my calorie goal *so* low, but still, I think it's important to recognize that women with PCOS may indeed (to our frustration!) have to maintain at a lower calorie level than others.
  • meshashesha2012
    meshashesha2012 Posts: 8,326 Member
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    5'5, 42, 218 pounds and at the moment maintenance calories with sedentary job and no exercise is around 2500 calories.
  • al142
    al142 Posts: 35 Member
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    I've been averaging around 1600 and maintaining. I weigh myself every day and average that as well. The real answer to how many calories you need to maintain is whether your weight is stable long term at that caloric intake. If you log everything every day and weigh yourself regularly it will become clear.

    When I first switched to maintenance I was paranoid and kept my calories closer to an average of 1500 and very very slowly lost weight. Not obvious in the short term but over a month I could definitely see it.
  • DebbieLyn63
    DebbieLyn63 Posts: 2,650 Member
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    5'6", 50yo, 183. Fairly sedentary, but I do chase my 2 yo granddaughter around 4 days a week. I also have PCOS and Insulin resistance. I maintain around 1400 or so. I have been at maintenance for about the past year, not intentionally, just too much stuff going on right now to be able to concentrate fully on losing.
    If I ever reach my goal of 155, I am afraid my maintenance will be around 1000-1200. ugh.

    May I please say this makes me : (

    1400 should never have to be your maintenance cals - certainly nothing lower.

    I'm 50 . 5'4 . Around your weight, size 8 . Straight up size 8. I maintain with a very doable lifestyle activity level @ 2200 cals. I enjoy my food, my activity. Anyone can. PROMISE!!

    I challenge you to rethink your scale weight goal and focus on changing your body composition with some strength training in your life and some nutrition tweaks. Please please don't resign yourself to a life of 100O cals.

    What is NOT on my bucket list? aging and losing my functional strength and falling and can't get up. Oh! And I want to enjoy food all the way to the grave and looking pretty dang fantastic doing it.

    K. / passionate rant

    Peace out

    I should have added that I have a spinal cord injury/disease (cauda equina syndrome) and am partially disabled. So my activity is limited. But even 20 yrs ago when I was bodybuilding and working a very active job as a baggage handler, I was still only maintaining around 2500, much less than the other lady lifters and girls I worked with. I actually never knew why I had to eat less than others til I came on here and found out that PCOS lowered your metabolism. Years of frustration finally explained.

    I'm glad I still have a lot of my muscle left, or it would be even worse! Constant muscle spasms help.
  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member
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    26, 5'3ish, decently active. I use my body media fit to track and I can be as low at 1900 or as high as 2400, depending.
  • thepetiterunner
    thepetiterunner Posts: 1,238 Member
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    For the past six weeks or so I've been eating on average around 1700-1800 calories. I'm 5'0", doing a boot camp class 5 days a week, running 4-5 days a week as well. I seem to be fluctuating around the same weight +/- 0.8 lbs or so, so I'm pretty sure I'm just maintaining. I'm dropping to 1500 cals or so to see if I can budge the scale a bit. But eating this keeps my energy levels stable so I can keep on doing double days.
  • Kitteneyes01
    Kitteneyes01 Posts: 125
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    5'1"24, lightly active, 1900-ish.
  • kelly_e_montana
    kelly_e_montana Posts: 1,999 Member
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    I maintain on 2700. However, I'm really active with a lot of lean mass: Crossfit 3-4x per week, powerlift for 60 min 3x per week, olympic lifting class 2 hours per week, usually do 2 yoga classes per week and hike/walk/run/swim 1-2x per week. I'm also a bartender/server so I have a fairly active job.
  • JazzFischer1989
    JazzFischer1989 Posts: 531 Member
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    I am 5'3", 96lbs and consume around 1200 calories/day to maintain. Doesn't sound like much, but I've always been slim and I'm not very active nowadays. I jog for two miles once a week, as well as Zumba for an hour (admittedly, I haven't even been very consistent with these things for the past couple of weeks).
  • lisab64mfp
    lisab64mfp Posts: 89 Member
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    I'm 50, 5'6" tall and making my way back down to 140 -- damn vacation. :-) My maintenance (3 years at goal) is around the 2300 mark. I exercise 5X week (run 3X week in summer) and stay fairly active during the day (I raise cattle).
  • ianthy
    ianthy Posts: 404 Member
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    Hi

    I am age 51, 5ft 8 ins tall, lightly active - Fitbit target 10,000 steps daily, 3 power walks a week, plus 3 kettle bell workouts. Otherwise I am reasonably active around the house and gardens. MFP says 2,140 net cals a week and I seem use 2,500 on Fitbit. I am building up slowly and would like to settle around 2,000 net, which should leave me some room for away days ;-)
  • litsy3
    litsy3 Posts: 783 Member
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    This is interesting as I'm more or less at my goal and have been trying to work this out.

    I'm 32, 5'4'', 116lb, have a reasonably active lifestyle (some walking around at work, cycle 10 mins there and back) and run 50 miles a week. I've been eating an average of 2300 calories/day over the past 30 days and have lost about 3lb in that time, so I'm thinking maybe 2500-600...

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