After increasing to maintenance calories...

The idea is to increase your calories slowly, so you don't see a big jump. Try bumping up your daily goal by 100-150 cal, keeping it steady for one or even two weeks to see how your body reacts.

MFP doesn't know your maintenance calories, especially after being in a calorie deficit when your metabolism slows over time. It can just estimate them. You should have been more consistent with slowly adding in your calories so you would not have to deal with the 5 pound jump.

When I moved to maitenance it took me about 6 weeks so no I didn't see an increase at all. I added in between 50-100 calories a day for each week to get there. Continued to workout and drink my water and even eat a bit more on some days...only time I gained was over the holidays when I was lax on my logging.

For me, I increased my calorie intake slowly (100 cals per week from 1,200 to 1,800). No change in the scale or measurements. For me, don't trust the scale and start measuring instead. Try using a TDEE calculator instead to get your maintenance, instead of using MFP's.

Whether you see a big jump will depend on the form of the additional calories I suspect. If it's mostly carbs getting added back, your glycogen stores are going to get topped off nicely, and you will carry a little more water as a result. There's nothing particularly wrong with this, and remember it's just water weight, and will probably make more of a difference on the scale than what you see in the mirror.

If you can take some time to step up your calories gradually, there's a few benefits. Namely, you will see any increase in scale and water weight more clearly, giving you the option to delay/ stagger any further calorie increases until you are happy. Secondly, by stair-stepping your calories back up, you're giving your metabolism the maximum chance to recover and increase. Some people increase their calorie levels very gradually just to increase their metabolism, it's called reverse dieting.

I haven't hit maintenance myself yet, but have found in the past when I've raised my calorie level to decrease my deficit, I've actually lost weight initially, counter-intuitively. I attribute it to your body often being slow to release those lost lbs, especially when in a decent deficit situation, so bumping the calories can send signals to the body to release those lbs. This might sound all wish-washy, but you'll find reference to it around the web as 'whooshing' or 'the whoosh syndrome', and I've experienced it firsthand.

Anyway, by increasing the calories slowly as suggested, you'll have a little more control over things, and avoid having to change your calories in a yoyo-style manner if you feel the changes are too sudden. Hope this helps

Joanjett88 wrote: »

Thank you all for the advice! I might try to lower my intake again by 150-200 and stay there for a week or two then increase again to suggested maintenance calories to see if that helps my body ease into it a little better.

That's what I did and I didn't see any increase in scale weight. I found it also helped me mentally adjust from losing to maintaining as well.

It doesn't go away if it's glycogen.

I increased my calories slowly and continued to lose weight for a bit. I'd recommend setting yourself a maintenance range. Lose until you get to the bottom of it and then accept that there are going to be fluctuations. I'm happy if mine is anywhere between 122 and 128.