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Correct calorie count for maintaining

supertracylynn
supertracylynn Posts: 1,338 Member
edited September 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
I set the goal for myself to consume no more than 1600/day to drop a few pounds. However, I don't want to go through that phase of learning to maintain again.

Playing with the goal numbers and such, Mfp says to maintain 145 for me (5' 6" female), I would have to consume about 1900/day. Changing the weight to read 130, it says to consume 1800/day.

Hypothetically, would I then be "maintaining" 110-115 eating 1600/day? Wouldn't that be a bit too thin? I already am a pretty solid size 6, which I think is just fine.

[side note: I was doing a good job holding steady at about 139 consuming 1800-2000/day for several months on a different program]

Any one have any ideas on this?

Replies

  • PaulaJKelly
    PaulaJKelly Posts: 96
    I fiind this interesting as I have almost hit my goal weight. I remember at my height of 5' 3/12" that I was supposed to eat 1600 calories to maintain - that was from a long, long time ago. Hope to see others input on this.
  • wilmaln
    wilmaln Posts: 36 Member
    Bump
  • luvamig
    luvamig Posts: 90 Member
    when I checked out my calorie intake for maintenance at the current weight it said about 1600 or so, but that would make me slowly gain weight. So I don't know.

    I'm 5 ft, 111 lbs. I am still trying to figure out what I want to do with my self at this point.
  • ChChCharlie
    ChChCharlie Posts: 67
    This scares the hell outta me! Keep thinking about this as I'm nearing my goalweight.

    BumP
  • SoCalSwimmerDude
    SoCalSwimmerDude Posts: 509 Member
    Ya, I think its a HUGE gray area for alot of us. I'm not at my "goal weight" but I never really knew what that was anyways. I'm a guy, lost about 18 pounds and now I'm looking to add muscle. So I'm still on a plan of 1 1/2 pounds lost a week, but I'm staying the same weight... I'm bringing myself to 'maintenance' every 2 weeks (so next week I'll do 1 pound a week, and 1/2 a pound 2 wks after that, etc). Its the only way I can make sense of it as I transition in muscle building and a little less cardio.
  • ShannonBas
    ShannonBas Posts: 101 Member
    That's a good question! I'm no where near my "goal weight", but it would be good to kind of think about that.
  • supertracylynn
    supertracylynn Posts: 1,338 Member
    I should have been more specific... My goal weight is a comfortable135 - 7.4# away from that now. I don't want to be too skinny since I have young, impressionable children and would therefore prefer to be strong and lean.

    Should I just continue to listen to my body? This last week I've been trying to eat what and when it says, and the closest I've come to my calories is 7 under.
  • JDMPWR
    JDMPWR Posts: 1,863 Member
    If you plan on being active in the gym daily then you can raise your caloric intake but just make sure you burn off an extra amount every day.

    before I had my MFP set at my maintainence which was 2300 and I would eat 2300-2500. I had no deficit set in the MFP program so I would just apply my own burn every day that would create it's own deficit. I would burn 800 cals a day and I would end up with a deficit of 600-800 cals burned a day X 7 days would give me 4200-5600 cals burned a day which is roughly 1.2-1.6lbs lost a week.
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