Does anyone else struggle to eat anough calories to maintain

Up your calories slowly...as you do this, your hormones will adjust and your appetite will increase. Your appetite is controlled by hormones.

Also, go lift heavy things and put them down...you will be hungry.

Not me. I started out losing at 2 pounds a week, then adjusted my calorie deficit every so often, so that for the last 15 pounds I was set to lose .5 pounds per week. When I first went to maintenance, I did continue losing weight, so it took awhile to find my maintenance calories, and here I am! Been maintaining for a year now.

Yes it is absurd to think you will accidentally look this way from a little lifting. Like me thinking I'm going to run around the block a few hours a week and accidentally become ready to win a marathon. They want to look this way and work very hard for it.

The women who look like this have done a serious bulk and then a VERY serious cut to get very low body fat and they only hold onto this look for the show or magazine cover. They are dehydrated. and many are taking 'supplements' and have worked to get there for years. You will never look like this while lifting heavy weights unless you truly want to look that way and work specifically to get there. Most of us look like normal people with just a bit more definition.

Weight training will help you maintain your butt and curves too. I lost weight doing all cardio and was a skinny marshmallow. My curves are coming back now that I've added weights. I have trouble eating the maintenance calories too. I allow two cheat meals per week and have been able to maintain.

Yes. I eat what I want and love to eat and log everything but often don't hit the calories I'm supposed to. One of the things I like about logging is it can nudge me into eating more and give me permission to eat something I want but might leave on the plate.

My weight's been pretty stable, but I lost 5 pounds I hadn't expected to, so upped my calories and have stabilized again.

You change over time. Just as I didn't adjust my eating to my body slowing down as I got older so slowly gained weight, now that I've been maintaining a few years, my body seems to be speeding up and I don't always adjust my eating UPWARDS enough either. That's one reason logging helps.

When I first started maintaining, I had the exact same problem-- I was so used to eating the deficit quantity that I had trouble eating enough to maintain and lost extra weight. I made an effort to regain what I hadn't wanted to lose, at the time, and maintained within the range I like for several months without logging-- I think it is good to log for the first couple months of maintenance so you get an idea of what quantity you need to eat, and then trust yourself to be able to maintain without logging after that time. I think it is actually easier to eat a little more when not logging, as you aren't constantly worrying about the exact quantities of things-- you're a little less conscious of how much you're eating, which can be helpful for this sort of problem.

Also, don't be afraid to eat treats from time to time that you (probably) limited during weight loss. That will help with being under all the time.

One thing to be careful with when maintaining is that you don't try to stuff yourself to reach your calorie goal, because that may stretch your stomach/reset your appetite too quickly and encourage slight overeating. That's what happened to me (after several months of maintaining fine, I did some traveling which changed how I ate for several weeks).

I've been doing some heavy (for me) lifting-- just 2 days a week-- and at that rate it just enhances strength (it's fun to gain strength each week and be able to lift heavier things around the house more easily!) and so far I haven't seen changes in my body related to that-- the changes I'm seeing are from losing weight I needed to lose again. I definitely recommend doing some strength training-- New Rules of Lifting for Women is what I am using, though I do sessions less often than they want you to do.

I am so glad there is someone else dealing with figuring out how to eat the maintenance calories. I just started today and am at a 700 calorie deficit after dinner because I did a longer workout today. I ate a few treats and am still coming up short. This is going to take a mental shift after so much time of trying to eat less!

I'm no where close to maintenance yet. But my appetite has changed enough that I worry about maintenance mode too. I plan on changing to TDEE calories for maintenance so I don't have to worry about eating back exercise calories. I also plan on switching to maintenance about 5 pounds over my actual goal, so that it if it does take me some time to eat at the higher calories… additional weight loss won't be a problem. I may also start choosing full fat mayo instead of the low-fat version. Or adding some peanut butter to my toast to get calories without too much bulk. I'll have to see when I actually get to that point… but it's been something I've kind of been trying to plan for. And this is what I've come up with. It is very important to me that maintenance is successful. Because I've worked too hard to screw this up!

Those ladies have very low body fat as well as a good amount of lean mass that they likely got from many cutting and bulking cycles. It takes a TON of work to get there. What you're saying is like saying "I want to go jog around the block but I'm afraid I might end up running a marathon."

As for the food-- I had that problem at first but it passed quickly. It was partly a mental block, and partly just an adjustment. Now my maintenance calories seem low to me.

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