What to expect the first few weeks of maintenance

Craft_queen · June 2017

Hi everyone,

So I'm on my first week of maintenance and I'm wondering what to expect. I know everyone is different but I was wondering what other people experienced the first few weeks they started maintaining. Did you lose weight, gain weight or stay the same?

If you did gain or lose weight, what did you consider normal fluctuations and at what point did you consider it a real loss or gain and possibly take action?

Thanks

kgirlhart · June 2017

Set a maintenance range for yourself and don't expect your weight to be just one number. I have a 5 pound range and as long as I am in that range then I know I'm good. I started slowly adding calories back instead of jumping straight to maintenance calories. I have actually had a hard time settling on my maintenance calorie goal and ending up losing about 10 or so pounds more than my original goal. It may take you a while to figure it out. Just remember that your weight will always fluctuate so you should expect it to be up and down some, but a graph of your weight should stay fairly steady instead of trending downward (or upward).

cwolfman13 · June 2017

Body weight isn't static...nobody weighs exactly XXX Lbs all of the time, so you need a range and you need to expect fluctuations...I can fluctuate anywhere from 0-5 Lbs day to day in either direction...usually it's more like 2 though but can be more depending on if I've had more sodium, dehydrated, etc.

You can't look at a singular weigh in as more than a singular data point...I don't look at a singular weigh in and wonder if it is a fluctuation or "real"...you have to look at the trend over the weeks and months...the trend line should be more or less even. You can also just take averages.

Most people can expect to see a bit of weight gain going to maintenance for a couple of reasons...you replenish glycogen stores, you retain a bit more water to aid in metabolizing more food, and you have more inherent waste in your system...all of the above will show up on the scale.

I actually started losing more weight when I upped my calories because I had more energy...fidgeted more...workouts were better, etc. It took me about a month of slowly increasing my calories to actually hit maintenance.

nichell88 · June 2017

I just transitioned to maintenance 3 weeks ago, and my transition involved a fairly significant increase in my carb intake. So due to that, I gained 1 pound in the next week that I attributed to water weight. So I would say that if you are going to increase your carbs, expect to gain some water weight. For me, I've lost about 1.5 pounds since then and am in my maintenance range, so it went away when my body adjusted. But I'm still super new, too, so we'll see

Need2Exerc1se · June 2017

I lost by eating at what I thought/hoped would be my maintenance calories so I didn't really have a transition, though I did make some tweaks after I'd been maintaining for a couple of months.

I allow for about 7 lbs of variance in weight before I usually do anything about it.

waffle944 · June 2017

I've been maintaining for the past few months, and definitely encourage you to 1/ keep logging calories and 2/ weigh yourself daily. Ignore the daily weight values, but you can look at the trend, like some others have mentioned -- ideally it should be flat over a timeframe, like 14 days, but if it isn't, then compare that with the average calorie intake and adjust your goal accordingly. Within a few weeks, you should have a pretty precise idea what your calorie goal should be during maintenance (it's likely a TDEE calculator won't be too far off from this).

I've personally gotten to the point where I've stopped logging as much, but still check on a weekly basis my weight trend from the past 14 days. If it starts to shift too much, then I'll start logging again, using my previously-determined maintenance calorie intake as a goal.

STEVE142142 · June 2017

My starting weight was 288 when I decided to go into maintenance my weight was 220 I was perfectly happy to be there. I totally screwed maintenance up I dropped down to his lowest 204 but I didn't like the way I looked I was fat skinny. Started lifting a lot and increase my calorie limit and my weight went up to about the 208-210 range and I've been like that for the past 9 months.

All I can tell you is maintenance is a learning process and it's going to be different for everybody and I'm still trying to figure it out cuz sometimes when I look at how much I eat and I'm going to myself am I over estimating my calories that I'm eating or is my body burning more calories because of my exercise load. I look at maintenance as a weekly thing I see where I am at the end of the week and I go okay I've had a good day I've had bad days. it's probably tougher than actually losing the weight.

Also what you enter maintenance use your weight as a rough indicator but it's more how your clothes feel and what you see in the mirror period even though I gained some weight I see more muscle definition and my pants fit the same as when I weighed 204 and maybe they're a little

cwolfman13 · June 2017

Getting to maintenance was a few week process... from there, the last 4.5 years have been easy. The human body strives for homeostasis... maintenance is easy.

What to expect the first few weeks of maintenance

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