Maintaining My Weight Loss

kimnaaron4ever
kimnaaron4ever Posts: 61
edited September 25 in Health and Weight Loss
Well, I have recently made my weight loss goal of 26 pounds (that puts me at a healthy 125 pounds, I'm 5'2" and haven't seen the 120s since high school), but I'm now worried about maintaining. My husband says that I should be able to go back to eating 2000 calories a day (my goal while trying to lose was 1450-1600), but I'm REALLY nervous about that! I've worked really hard to get to where I am and I'm very happy and proud of myself for what I've accomplished and I really don't want to go backwards! So, in the past few days I've tried to eat more but stay around 1600 and I've still lost almost 2 pounds. Now I'm not complaining or anything, but I just want to know how I'm supposed to maintain what I've lost. Could anyone help me with some information on how many calories I should eat in order to maintain?

Replies

  • spikess
    spikess Posts: 113 Member
    if you go into your goals there's a maintain option :)
  • kevbrinks
    kevbrinks Posts: 42 Member
    Make sure that you recalculate your current BMR using your current weight. Congrats on your loss!
  • carinalewis
    carinalewis Posts: 84
    must just say spikess im well impressed with your profile picture hope i can do that in the future :)
  • DeeDeeLHF
    DeeDeeLHF Posts: 2,301 Member
    First of all Congratulations!!! What a victory.

    Please feel free to join some of us on the maintenance thread: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/191617-maintenance-thread


    The most consistent advice I have seen is to increase your calories by 50 every week or two and how that works. If you lost two more pounds in just a few days, then you could try increasing them by 100 calories.

    It is not uncommon to lose a bit more when you increase your calories. It is the same deal when people plataue and then increase their calories and then lose more weight.

    Slowly increase until you see a gain, and then cut back.

    D
  • sunvin
    sunvin Posts: 30 Member
    I 'm no expert, but 2,000 calories is probably too much for someone your size. It would also depend on how active you are.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    I don't think you would maintain on 2000 cals/day, I weigh more than you and am taller and my maintenance is slightly below 2000. You could probably eat 2000 on days you workout to maintain but not on days you don't workout.
  • kimnaaron4ever
    kimnaaron4ever Posts: 61
    if you go into your goals there's a maintain option :)

    Thanks for the info. I was so focused on getting my goals set to lose weight in the beginning that I didn't even realize it had a maintain option!
  • kimnaaron4ever
    kimnaaron4ever Posts: 61
    Thanks to everyone who has shared their thoughts! I've reset my goal to maintain my current weight & it says I should eat about 1630 calories with a 30 minute workout 5 times a week. So, I think this is doable and I don't feel as nervous about uping my calories to 1630 as I did 2000! So, here's hoping I can do this! Gotta say I love MFP!!!
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    Thanks to everyone who has shared their thoughts! I've reset my goal to maintain my current weight & it says I should eat about 1630 calories with a 30 minute workout 5 times a week. So, I think this is doable and I don't feel as nervous about uping my calories to 1630 as I did 2000! So, here's hoping I can do this! Gotta say I love MFP!!!

    Actually your 1630 goal does not take your workouts into account. You get to eat the exercise calories when you enter your exercise into MFP. So on days you don't workout you get to eat 1630 and days you do workout you get to eat 1630 plus any calories you burned.
  • Robin1117
    Robin1117 Posts: 1,768 Member
    Congratulations!! definitely make your increase somewhat gradual though. And as DeeDee said, join into the maintenance thread conversation...I think you'll like it. Quite a few of us experienced gaining when going straight from losing weight to "maintain" (and it's kind of horrifying) when switching goals so have all been tweaking upwards gradually to find the right balance. The other big topic is thinking about keeping a "maintenance range" of a few lbs, rather than just one weight, because weight is constantly in flux from day to day.
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