Eating your goal maintenance to lose weight

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Makoce
Makoce Posts: 938 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Anyone tried this? Setting your MFP to your Maintenance calories for your goal weight and eating that to lose more slowly? Does it work?

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  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    I can't see why it wouldn't

    It depends I suppose on the difference between current weight and goal weight and your required speed of loss
  • ransaka
    ransaka Posts: 135 Member
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    It's the method that Lou Schuler and Alan Aragon use in their Lean Muscle Diet book. My opinion only but they're both reliable, honest, non-woo people.
  • Makoce
    Makoce Posts: 938 Member
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    rabbitjb wrote: »
    I can't see why it wouldn't

    It depends I suppose on the difference between current weight and goal weight and your required speed of loss

    Currently at 140 and looking to get to 115.
  • abatonfan
    abatonfan Posts: 1,120 Member
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    I'm sure it would work, but those last few pounds might become a real struggle to lose. The margin of error you'll have between losing and maintaining would be really small once you approach goal weight (the TDEE difference between 130lbs and 140lbs is about 50 calories according to IIFYM), so logging accurately and consistently would have to be a priority towards the end.

    Out of curiosity, I checked some random diary entries over my past two years on MFP, and I noticed that I ended up eating on average around my current weight's maintenance. It certainly works (I lost about 40lbs that way), the pace is slower, and it gave me a lot of time to make small changes to my diet (honestly, I have no idea how I stayed full on what I was eating two years ago and how my blood sugar wasn't out-of-control during that time).
  • erinc5
    erinc5 Posts: 329 Member
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    I would think it would work... I just did the math for me and to maintain at my weight now is around 1950 cals. To maintain at my goal weight is about 1700 - 1750 cals. If I ate 1750, the math works out that I would lose weight - it would just be slower. However, I am fine eating around 1400 calories plus any workout calories. I agree with the previous poster that as you get closer to goal, you'll need to really watch what you're eating and measure everything for that to work.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    For me, the difference between my maintenance at goal and now aren't enough for that to be anything beyond painfully slow (but since I can't get motivated to care about losing more, maybe I should try it!).
  • IdLikeToLoseItLoseIt
    IdLikeToLoseItLoseIt Posts: 695 Member
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    Check out this calculator: http://www.losertown.org/eats/cal.php

    Enter your goal weight maintenance calories and you can see how long it would take to actually reach goal. For me, it would take two years and the end would be incredibly slow with zero room for error.
  • jennifer_417
    jennifer_417 Posts: 12,344 Member
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    It's a valid method.
  • strong_curves
    strong_curves Posts: 2,229 Member
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    I don't have that big of a deficit for that to work for me :s , trust me I tried.
  • CalorieCountChocula
    CalorieCountChocula Posts: 239 Member
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    For me that would be a 100 calorie difference between my current maintenance even though I want to lose 30lbs. Maybe this is more for people who are fit and want to be fitter?
  • johnnylakis
    johnnylakis Posts: 812 Member
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    Yes, it worked for me
  • Jacwhite22
    Jacwhite22 Posts: 7,012 Member
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    strong_curves wrote: »
    I don't have that big of a deficit for that to work for me :s , trust me I tried.


    Either you were eating more than you thought or moving less than you thought.
  • CalorieCountChocula
    CalorieCountChocula Posts: 239 Member
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    Jacwhite22 wrote: »
    strong_curves wrote: »
    I don't have that big of a deficit for that to work for me :s , trust me I tried.


    Either you were eating more than you thought or moving less than you thought.

    Explain mine. TDEE now is about 2400. I eat 1800 and lose about a pound or so a week. Maybe more, maybe less. At 200 and 20% body fat my TDEE should be 2300ish. Oops. That'd be only a 100 calorie a day deficit. At that rate I'll never get to my goal, which I probably won't anyways since eventually I'll probably need to eat 1200 calories just for the scale to move.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited January 2016
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    Jacwhite22 wrote: »
    strong_curves wrote: »
    I don't have that big of a deficit for that to work for me :s , trust me I tried.

    Either you were eating more than you thought or moving less than you thought.

    Or she's right.

    According to scooby (since I don't have good numbers at the moment), my TDEE is 2194. At my goal it would be 2141. So we are talking about trying to maintain a deficit of 50. You can't reliably do that -- that's a recomp. Especially since the numbers are going to be imperfect.

    Nothing wrong with a looooong slow recomp as a way to maybe also drop the last few over time, but if you do it while thinking you are trying to lose, it can feel like banging your head against the wall. If I were really that committed to getting to goal (vs. getting more fit and getting back to a loss when I do), I'd much rather have a deficit of AT LEAST 250.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    My actual TDEE in maintenance is around 200 calories more than I would have expected during weight loss
  • srecupid
    srecupid Posts: 660 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Jacwhite22 wrote: »
    strong_curves wrote: »
    I don't have that big of a deficit for that to work for me :s , trust me I tried.

    Either you were eating more than you thought or moving less than you thought.

    Or she's right.

    According to scooby (since I don't have good numbers at the moment), my TDEE is 2194. At my goal it would be 2141. So we are talking about trying to maintain a deficit of 50. You can't reliably do that -- that's a recomp. Especially since the numbers are going to be imperfect.

    Nothing wrong with a looooong slow recomp as a way to maybe also drop the last few over time, but if you do it while thinking you are trying to lose, it can feel like banging your head against the wall. If I were really that committed to getting to goal (vs. getting more fit and getting back to a loss when I do), I'd much rather have a deficit of AT LEAST 250.

    Yeah while it will work it will be slow. But the good thing is once you hit maintenance you are already eating that much
  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,485 Member
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    I inadvertently did this.
    Losing 1lbs a week at 130 was 1200 cals.
    Losing .5lbs at around 115-120 was 1200
    Maintenance at 100-105 was 1200.

    It was incredibly slow, especially the last few lbs, close to a year.

    That's what comes of being small and old and sedentary. :) ( one of those who should eat at 1200)

    I did,and do, eat more than that because - exercise and eating it back.

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