What are your real maintenance calories?

ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »

MFP's estimated maintenance is too low for me by about 150 calories.

I ended up getting a Fitbit and it seems really close for me, although others have told me that it's not accurate for them. I maintain on 1900-2300 calories, depending on activity level for the day. MFP gives me 1730 for lightly active.

For a long time though I maintained on 1900 with no activity tracker, I just adjusted my intake manually if it seemed too high or too low. I like having Fitbit because, as you can tell, it helped me to increase my maintenance calories. Basically 1900 is maintenance if I lift but don't do much else.

I got a Flex on Dark Thursday, & have a question about the activity part of Fitbit. Should I still use my HRM during exercise like riding the stationary bike & even walking/jogging on the treadmill & manually put it into Fitbit's activity log or just let Fitbit determine the calories?

RunRutheeRun wrote: »

forgot I'd posted a reply before! doh!!

That's okay, lol. I did, too, but it's been a whole month of attempted maintenance for me, and I'm still losing. I think I originally said 2000-2100 (according to calculator and my spreadsheet), but I'm down 3 pounds from November 1. I ate ~1900 for November (slowing upping my cals), 3 pounds is much more than projected loss, meaning my TDEE is higher.

And, the weird thing is I was "stalled" during all of September, and ate an average of 1750 that month (similar activity throughout). If I didn't trust the process of slowly increasing calories, I may of thought that 1750 WAS maintenance. That's clearly not the case.

Hmmm, this is a good example that TDEE is more of a range and our personal numbers can vary up or down, even if we use HRM's, activity trackers, etc. to get personal exercise numbers. For some of us, finding "true" maintenance can be a slow, patient process. I guess I'll up my calories another 100-150/day for December and see what happens.

Hmmm.... I've been maintaining for about 3 months, and have definitely NOT followed MFPs suggested intake. MFP suggests 1600 calories for me (set at sedentary but use a synced fitness tracker, 35 y/o 130 lb 5'4" female), when my fitness tracker syncs it usually ups that by anywhere from 100 to 500 calories. Looking back at my data, I've been eating more than 2000 calories a day, and just dropped a few pounds. Yay for beer - but maybe I need to actually look at my TDEE and really figure it out. LOL! It's good to hear that I'm not the only one for whom the MFP numbers are too low, though.

hi all.

i'll add mine to this thread because i've been in maintenance now since christmas/2014. it's been a difficult journey over the last couple of months with this as i also needed to find my true maintenance. i notice that most short women like me (those barely over 5') have to eat closer to 1500 calories per day and not much more unless we are highly active. i went from working out like crazy with cardio for an hour, 6 days per week to just 30 - 45 mins cardio, 3 - 4 days a week now with plenty of leisure walking in between.

i have slowly upped my cals over the last month from 1400 to 1580 currently and i don't think i'll be upping them further. according to Scooby's accurate calorie calculator my TDEE is around 1631 calories per day going by my usual activity level (1- 3 hours weekly exercise) and i've found that since i upped the calories slowly i actually lost enough weight to reach 1 kg BELOW my goal weight! really satisfied with the results and the way i did it? slowly does it - add 50 calories every week to your daily calorie allowance until you see the scale move up or down again. amusedmonkey is correct - it's ok to expect a few pounds/kg leeway above or below your goal weight. the highest i've gained while working on maintenance was around 4 kg (8 lbs) but i'm maintaining now at a healthy BMI and feeling fantastic.

it's taken about 3 or 4 weeks for me to do this and i'm so pleased with the result. exercising LESS and eating just a tiny bit more has put me where i wanted to be when i started this journey. at this stage i'm no longer dealing with bad cravings or mixed hunger signals anymore and it's a relief to have put some of my terrible eating issues behind me. my advice to anyone struggling with exercise/cals is to embrace your fears and give your body a slight rest from the exercise while finding maintenance cals... sustainability is reached when you are most comfortable with your routine and not stressing about it all the time. some people need more exercise but i've found that getting by on the least amount that i'm comfortable with has put me exactly where i wanted to be.

I never count calories. To me, calorie counting is boring and takes the enjoyment out of eating. I just eat whenever I'm hungry, and eat whatever I feel like and weigh myself everyday to make sure that my weight is still in check. And I only log in my weight once a week as weight can fluctuate on a daily basis

26yo distance runner 6'0 144lb. Around 4000. Run 80mi+/ week.

how do u calculate the maintenaince calories? thanks

actually ignore me, just seen the post above lol

1750 was recommended, but I gained 5 lbs. So I'm back at my deficit (3 lbs to go!) and am going to try 1500 for maintenance. Honestly, though, sometimes I'm not the best logger, so I wouldn't be surprised if I was going over 1750 more often than eating exactly that

I'm doing 3 days split + 1 day cardio. I climbed from 1400 - 1600 (still losing weight),today I just started at 1800.

Around 1400 calories @5'1, 110-105lbs

For the past while I've maintained on about 2400-2700 calories a day- MFPs recommendations are FAR too low for me, off by about 700! Though to be fair I run about 35 miles a week, and go to the gym a couple of times as well. Otherwise I'd be a complete potato

I've learned that I may be hungry at times, but not ALL the time.

I have no idea. I maintained 124 lbs +/- 2 lbs (F, late 30s, 5'7, moderately active) on 2200-2400 for four years. I gained 18 pounds due to inactivity, maintained that weight on same. I am working out again (4-5 days/week, bodyweight and minimal strength + interval cardio with resistance) and somehow losing with intake varying from 1900 to as high as 2700 (I think today was close to 3000!), averaging 2200- 2400. I am confused. I don't know if the 3-lb loss I registered today was water, however. Probably it was.