having a hard time with maintenance

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squishprincess
squishprincess Posts: 371 Member
edited June 2015 in Goal: Maintaining Weight
i'm getting frustrated. i keep getting different numbers from online calculators/formulas for what my maintenance calories should look like. i'm about 5 foot & 21 years old. so my maintenance is pretty low, which sucks. a lot. but it is what it is. i'm only active/exercise a few times a week, so i feel like my maintenance wouldn't be much different than if i were solely sedentary. i figure my maintenance is somewhere in the 1400-1500 something calories range. i'm just having trouble figuring out which number works. i know no one can figure out your maintenance calories, except you, but is there a chance mfp has my maintenance too low? i'm currently around 1430-1450, according to mfp, but certain websites give me a 1500 range. what is the best way to get an accurate calorie estimate?

(also off topic of maintenance but i kinda wanna lose a few more pounds, but according to these 10-15% deficits i'd be eating around 1100 cals. that seems so low :( i know i've lost weight before, and it had to be done through a deficit of course, but now i'm pampered to eating more hahah.. so what would a good percentage deficit be to lose about 4-5 pounds? thanks!!)

oh & i'm currently 103-105 pounds, if that helps. mostly i just wanna lose some body fat after gaining back too much weight..

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  • griffinca2
    griffinca2 Posts: 672 Member
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    You probably don't need to lose to much more weight (I'm 5'3 and weight 119--which is abt right). You probably need to do what they call "recomposition," which is gain muscle mass and reduce body fat. There is a recomp thread on MFP, go to home and down on the right side is a Popular Blog Posts; you can also look it up using any search engine. I used the calculator in MFP to figure out my maintenance calories; I think they are too high so I'm experimenting so you may have to do the same.
  • barbecuesauce
    barbecuesauce Posts: 1,771 Member
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    squishprincess wrote: »
    i'm getting frustrated. i keep getting different numbers from online calculators/formulas for what my maintenance calories should look like. i'm about 5 foot & 21 years old. so my maintenance is pretty low, which sucks. a lot. but it is what it is. i'm only active/exercise a few times a week, so i feel like my maintenance wouldn't be much different than if i were solely sedentary. i figure my maintenance is somewhere in the 1400-1500 something calories range. i'm just having trouble figuring out which number works. i know no one can figure out your maintenance calories, except you, but is there a chance mfp has my maintenance too low? i'm currently around 1430-1450, according to mfp, but certain websites give me a 1500 range. what is the best way to get an accurate calorie estimate?

    (also off topic of maintenance but i kinda wanna lose a few more pounds, but according to these 10-15% deficits i'd be eating around 1100 cals. that seems so low :( i know i've lost weight before, and it had to be done through a deficit of course, but now i'm pampered to eating more hahah.. so what would a good percentage deficit be to lose about 4-5 pounds? thanks!!)

    oh & i'm currently 103-105 pounds, if that helps. mostly i just wanna lose some body fat after gaining back too much weight..

    Well, being 21, your maintenance is going to be higher than someone older. I agree with the suggestion that you should start recomping (especially since it's easier to attain muscles when you're so young).

    To find your maintenance: Go with MFP's suggestion OR the other site's number for a few weeks. Did you lose? Gain? Adjust by 100 in either direction. Repeat until you're good--but stick with the number for a good month.
  • akdobbin
    akdobbin Posts: 2 Member
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    Yes, it's entirely possible that online calculators are giving you inaccurate maintenance numbers. At 5'2" 120lbs, most calculators tell me to eat 1550-1700 cals per day. Turns out I can eat over 2200 per day at maintenance.

    Online calculators are based on averages, but the truth is that every person's calorie needs are different, and you should only use the numbers a calculator gives you as a rough baseline.

    Check out the calculator in the IIFYM website, if you haven't already. (I like it because it provides an approximate macronutrient breakdown as well as a calorie goal.) Try starting with the numbers you're given by the calculator. If you lose weight after a week, increase your calories. Weigh yourself again the next week. Keep increasing your calories until number on the scale stops dropping. Boom, you've found your maintenance. It's a meticulous process, but if you're consistent about it, you'll eventually find the right intake for your body's needs.

    Be aware that maintenance calories can change over time. Even after you've found a maintenance point, check in on the scale every now and then and, if necessary, adjust your intake accordingly.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    edited June 2015
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    what is the best way to get an accurate calorie estimate?

    Best way is from your own data and not from calculators - apart from variance from the average (which is all calculators can give) using your own data also compensates for food and exercise logging inaccuracies.

    Do you really want to lose a few pounds?
    Would suggest a spell maintaining first and seeing if you can recomp.

    I would disagree that exercise won't make much difference to your maintenance calories by the way. Depends on exercise type, duration and intensity of course but exercise makes a huge difference for me - the difference between feeling restricted and feeling I have a "natural" and enjoyable level I can eat at.
  • markiend
    markiend Posts: 461 Member
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    as above. Your own data should point you at your maintenance number far better than any calculator.

    I'd go with a recomp unless you're in a hurry. I have been at maintenance for a year, lifting slightly heavy since January, weight is stable and have dropped an inch on waist in the last 12 months

    Your logging should point you at what you need , if you haven't been logging that accurately, that's cool but I'd conquer that if possible
  • squishprincess
    squishprincess Posts: 371 Member
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    i'm in no real rush. lately i have kinda gotten a little lenient towards logging, as i'm still kinda stuck in this mode from when i was gaining weight back when i lost too much on accident, due to health reasons (was a little too thin, but now i have a slight tummy pudge i never had before. :neutral: what can ya do, can't pick where the weight goes..). yeah, i guess recomp is the best path to pursue, i just always see these things that say you have to lose weight, in order to lose fat & it makes me so indecisive as to whether i should lose or stay in place.

    it's been mostly frustrating because of my health, it's been up & down for the past few years but in the past few months i was dropping weight without even trying so i was in the middle of trying to find my maintenance cals during that happening, but didn't realise that my health was the issue for not being able to get an accurate number! but now that that is being taken care of, it's back to the frustration of determining a proper estimate of what i should be eating daily. it's just soooo discouraging that my maintenance range is so low, because of my height. i mean unless of course i workout more, but like i said my health gets in the way of that sometimes which sucks.

    i just hate the tedious process of finding a number that works & was mostly wanting to know if mfp is pretty accurate at determining maintenance cals, or i should manually adjust it. thanks for all your feedback & suggestions, i'm definitely about to take on that recomp thread & start trying to get back on track with logging as accurately as i can until i can reach a point of leisure once more. :)
  • dopeysmelly
    dopeysmelly Posts: 1,390 Member
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    squishprincess wrote: »
    i'm in no real rush. lately i have kinda gotten a little lenient towards logging, as i'm still kinda stuck in this mode from when i was gaining weight back when i lost too much on accident, due to health reasons (was a little too thin, but now i have a slight tummy pudge i never had before. :neutral: what can ya do, can't pick where the weight goes..). yeah, i guess recomp is the best path to pursue, i just always see these things that say you have to lose weight, in order to lose fat & it makes me so indecisive as to whether i should lose or stay in place.

    it's been mostly frustrating because of my health, it's been up & down for the past few years but in the past few months i was dropping weight without even trying so i was in the middle of trying to find my maintenance cals during that happening, but didn't realise that my health was the issue for not being able to get an accurate number! but now that that is being taken care of, it's back to the frustration of determining a proper estimate of what i should be eating daily. it's just soooo discouraging that my maintenance range is so low, because of my height. i mean unless of course i workout more, but like i said my health gets in the way of that sometimes which sucks.

    i just hate the tedious process of finding a number that works & was mostly wanting to know if mfp is pretty accurate at determining maintenance cals, or i should manually adjust it. thanks for all your feedback & suggestions, i'm definitely about to take on that recomp thread & start trying to get back on track with logging as accurately as i can until i can reach a point of leisure once more. :)

    Don't worry about feeling that your maintenance calories look so low. For a start, they may well be higher anyway, you can workout to eat more, and, finally, you get used to it. After a while, it just becomes a non-issue.

    The patience thing is tricky, but maybe focusing on working out will help to give you something else to work on.

    Good luck!

  • JayRuby84
    JayRuby84 Posts: 557 Member
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    Time is your answer to this. Log all your food and if you continue to drop weight at 1450, up your calories a little at a time. If you start to gain over time then knock it down a little. Finding the "right" calorie goal is not going to be the same for everyone, so you need to go off of your own results (like some others have said). Good luck lady!
  • melimomTARDIS
    melimomTARDIS Posts: 1,941 Member
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    experiment!
  • peaceout_aly
    peaceout_aly Posts: 2,018 Member
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    Following
    I'm 4' 11" and my current cal intake for the day is 1,200 - trying to drop from 108 lbs. to a GW of 104 lbs. This will be attained quickly I think, so I'd like to look into maintenance. I'm 21 years old also.
  • terar21
    terar21 Posts: 523 Member
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    You just need to try out a number for a while and see how it works. I know that seems frustrating but you're not going to do a number that would be wildly off your maintenance if you're using calculators as the base starting point. So it's not like being off would make you gain/loss a significant amount of weight. If a month in, the scale is lower than you started maintaining at, add some calories accordingly and vice versa.
  • BeFitBri2
    BeFitBri2 Posts: 35 Member
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    I'm 21 years old and 5'0" as well! Go us! I've been maintaining for 3 months at 1500 and just recently increased my cals to 1600 because I workout 6 days a week. I think 1500 would be perfect for you. If you find that you're starting to gain you can either 1) Increase your workouts or 2) Decrease cals by 100 or so. I've found that it's all pretty much trial-and-error. Good luck.(:
  • BeFitBri2
    BeFitBri2 Posts: 35 Member
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    I'm 21 years old and 5'0" as well! Go us! I've been maintaining for 3 months at 1500 and just recently increased my cals to 1600 because I workout 6 days a week. I think 1500 would be perfect for you. If you find that you're starting to gain you can either 1) Increase your workouts or 2) Decrease cals by 100 or so. I've found that it's all pretty much trial-and-error. Good luck.(:
  • BeFitBri2
    BeFitBri2 Posts: 35 Member
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    Oh, I should also add that by eating 1500-1600 cals/day and working out (weight lifting) 5-6 days/week I have maintained weight but lost 6% body fat without losing a single pound so don't get too set on weight.(:

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