Should I eat at GW Maintenance?
fiveminutes
Posts: 30 Member
I'm within 20lbs of my goal weight (ideally I would like to be between 155-160, 165 max). I'm finding these last 20ish lbs to be ridiculous to lose. I took some time off from the gym, but have started back at the gym two weeks ago. My maintenance at 155 is 1,950 and I'm currently eating 1,547 plus about 50% max if my exercise calories at 175 (though since I've gone back to the gym it jumped up to 180 
). The 1,950 is at sedentary since I'm currently a desk jockey. Does this sound like a feasible option? At this calorie intake, should I eat back exercise calories or not? I was trying to lose 1lb a week, but at this rate, I'll be happy with .5lb a week. I do weigh all of my food (solids and liquid, because I've found out that all measuring cups are not accurate) using a food scale, and log it, so I'm hist wondering if changing the calls might help a bit
). The 1,950 is at sedentary since I'm currently a desk jockey. Does this sound like a feasible option? At this calorie intake, should I eat back exercise calories or not? I was trying to lose 1lb a week, but at this rate, I'll be happy with .5lb a week. I do weigh all of my food (solids and liquid, because I've found out that all measuring cups are not accurate) using a food scale, and log it, so I'm hist wondering if changing the calls might help a bit 0
Replies
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It seems reasonable to me, though I'd assume your maintenance now isn't far off from your maintenance 20 pounds from now, so the going may be slow. Try it for 3-4 weeks and see how it goes. I personally don't think I'd eat exercise calories back if you go the maintenance route, but just try it out. It's all just a giant science experiment anyway!0
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It's a method that I've seen others use. Just beware that your weight loss will slow to a crawl when you get close to your goal since your deficit will be tiny.0
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people do this...it is very slow and you don't have a whole lot of wiggle room. personally, if it were me doing this I would do so with the intent of placing a lot more focus on my fitness rather than the scale or measurements...because like I said, it's going to be really slow.
also, if you are exercising, you aren't sedentary. even with a desk job and NO exercise I'm light active...with my exercise I'm pretty active.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »people do this...it is very slow and you don't have a whole lot of wiggle room. personally, if it were me doing this I would do so with the intent of placing a lot more focus on my fitness rather than the scale or measurements...because like I said, it's going to be really slow.
also, if you are exercising, you aren't sedentary. even with a desk job and NO exercise I'm light active...with my exercise I'm pretty active.
I put it at sedentary because I do eat back roughly half of my exercise calories. Putting it at a certain activity includes my exercise calories, and if I don't go to the gym, then I am pretty sedentary during that day, which would put me in an overage in my calories.
I'm not understanding how it's going to be slow if my maintenance at sedentary for my weight is 1,950 and my sedentary now is 1,547 and I eat back roughly half of my exercise calories, so I average anywhere from 1,700 to 1,850 calories per day anyways (I have to force myself to eat back those exercise calories anyways, because in typically not that hungry). It's hard to not focus on a scale number when literally nothing is changing (measurements, weight, strength from lifting) and it's been like this for a couple of months, which is why I took time off from the gym to give my body a rest from a year and a half of weight loss and exercise0 -
I don't like the GW maintenance version unless you are really overweight (and even then I think there are better methods) as it is going to be unnecessarily slow going.
If I did that method, though, I'd not eat back exercise, as you then would be in essence getting your deficit from however much exercise you chose to do (at least when I put in numbers with a difference of 20 lbs my BMR is less than 100 calories different, and that's going to go down as you get closer to goal).
For example, I'm currently 5 lbs from goal, and that method would have me eating 30 calories or so less than my current estimated maintenance which is unlikely to cause a loss and given the inaccuracy of the calculators and margin of error of logging, you could just as easily be eating over maintenance.0 -
fiveminutes wrote: »I'm not understanding how it's going to be slow if my maintenance at sedentary for my weight is 1,950 and my sedentary now is 1,547 and I eat back roughly half of my exercise calories, so I average anywhere from 1,700 to 1,850 calories per day anyways (I have to force myself to eat back those exercise calories anyways, because in typically not that hungry).
Ah--speaking for myself, I focused more on the title than the specific numbers in the first post, oops. But I don't see how your current maintenance could be 1950 and your goal weight maintenance 1550 if they are only 20 lbs apart, so that's where the confusion may be coming in.
1550 seems like a typical TDEE-20%, which I think is a good method.
Normally you wouldn't eat back exercise, but if you've decided your exercise isn't consistent enough to include in the TDEE numbers, so figured them without it, I think eating back 50% makes sense.
How are you figuring the maintenance?0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »fiveminutes wrote: »I'm not understanding how it's going to be slow if my maintenance at sedentary for my weight is 1,950 and my sedentary now is 1,547 and I eat back roughly half of my exercise calories, so I average anywhere from 1,700 to 1,850 calories per day anyways (I have to force myself to eat back those exercise calories anyways, because in typically not that hungry).
Ah--speaking for myself, I focused more on the title than the specific numbers in the first post, oops. But I don't see how your current maintenance could be 1950 and your goal weight maintenance 1550 if they are only 20 lbs apart, so that's where the confusion may be coming in.
1550 seems like a typical TDEE-20%, which I think is a good method.
Normally you wouldn't eat back exercise, but if you've decided your exercise isn't consistent enough to include in the TDEE numbers, so figured them without it, I think eating back 50% makes sense.
How are you figuring the maintenance?
My GW maintenance sedentary is 1,950. If I followed this, I would not be eating back any exercise calories at this time. My current calorie allotment at sedentary with I believe a 1lb week loss is 1547. I'm 6'2" and my current BMR is estimated to be 1638. I'm getting all of these numbers from MFP on hoe much to eat, but plugging it into a TDEE calculator on IIFYM gives me the same BMR and about 2400 calories if I wanted to maintain my current weight0 -
fiveminutes wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »fiveminutes wrote: »I'm not understanding how it's going to be slow if my maintenance at sedentary for my weight is 1,950 and my sedentary now is 1,547 and I eat back roughly half of my exercise calories, so I average anywhere from 1,700 to 1,850 calories per day anyways (I have to force myself to eat back those exercise calories anyways, because in typically not that hungry).
Ah--speaking for myself, I focused more on the title than the specific numbers in the first post, oops. But I don't see how your current maintenance could be 1950 and your goal weight maintenance 1550 if they are only 20 lbs apart, so that's where the confusion may be coming in.
1550 seems like a typical TDEE-20%, which I think is a good method.
Normally you wouldn't eat back exercise, but if you've decided your exercise isn't consistent enough to include in the TDEE numbers, so figured them without it, I think eating back 50% makes sense.
How are you figuring the maintenance?
My GW maintenance sedentary is 1,950. If I followed this, I would not be eating back any exercise calories at this time. My current calorie allotment at sedentary with I believe a 1lb week loss is 1547. I'm 6'2" and my current BMR is estimated to be 1638. I'm getting all of these numbers from MFP on hoe much to eat, but plugging it into a TDEE calculator on IIFYM gives me the same BMR and about 2400 calories if I wanted to maintain my current weight
Ah, if current maintenance with 500 calorie deficit is 1547, then current (sedentary) maintenance is 2047. That makes sense with GW maintenance of 1950.
So that's why people are saying eating GW maintenance would be slow, if you are, in fact, sedentary--it's only a 100 calorie difference.
If you are getting 2400 calories for actual maintenance, however, you aren't sedentary.
I think it's confused because you are talking about TDEE and then eating exercise back but usually TDEE includes exercise (that's what it means--TOTAL daily energy expenditure).
Are you unhappy with TDEE-20% (or -500)? If so, what would the new number be--it seems like it would be higher.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »fiveminutes wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »fiveminutes wrote: »I'm not understanding how it's going to be slow if my maintenance at sedentary for my weight is 1,950 and my sedentary now is 1,547 and I eat back roughly half of my exercise calories, so I average anywhere from 1,700 to 1,850 calories per day anyways (I have to force myself to eat back those exercise calories anyways, because in typically not that hungry).
Ah--speaking for myself, I focused more on the title than the specific numbers in the first post, oops. But I don't see how your current maintenance could be 1950 and your goal weight maintenance 1550 if they are only 20 lbs apart, so that's where the confusion may be coming in.
1550 seems like a typical TDEE-20%, which I think is a good method.
Normally you wouldn't eat back exercise, but if you've decided your exercise isn't consistent enough to include in the TDEE numbers, so figured them without it, I think eating back 50% makes sense.
How are you figuring the maintenance?
My GW maintenance sedentary is 1,950. If I followed this, I would not be eating back any exercise calories at this time. My current calorie allotment at sedentary with I believe a 1lb week loss is 1547. I'm 6'2" and my current BMR is estimated to be 1638. I'm getting all of these numbers from MFP on hoe much to eat, but plugging it into a TDEE calculator on IIFYM gives me the same BMR and about 2400 calories if I wanted to maintain my current weight
Ah, if current maintenance with 500 calorie deficit is 1547, then current (sedentary) maintenance is 2047. That makes sense with GW maintenance of 1950.
So that's why people are saying eating GW maintenance would be slow, if you are, in fact, sedentary--it's only a 100 calorie difference.
If you are getting 2400 calories for actual maintenance, however, you aren't sedentary.
I think it's confused because you are talking about TDEE and then eating exercise back but usually TDEE includes exercise (that's what it means--TOTAL daily energy expenditure).
Are you unhappy with TDEE-20% (or -500)? If so, what would the new number be--it seems like it would be higher.
No, I'm at Sedentary because I do eat my exercise calories back, even though I'm not totally sedentary most days. I only included my TDEE because according to that, I should be losing, because even eating back 50% of my exercise calories, I'm still around a 600 cal deficit, so I should technically be losing weight or something, but I only currently feel that I'm losing my mind0 -
The calculators aren't always accurate--they are just estimates that work for the average person. What's more accurate often is to calculate your own real TDEE based on past results (take the past 30 days of calorie consumption plus 3500*lbs lost and divide by 30) and then use that. But in that case you wouldn't eat back exercise.0
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