What do all of you do ...?

koalathebear
koalathebear Posts: 236 Member
edited December 23 in Goal: Maintaining Weight
When I was in the weight loss phase, on the very rare occasions I exceeded my daily calorie budget, I would draw a line in the sand for that day and "make up for it" in the next day or next two days that followed i.e. increasing my deficit on that day whether by way of exercise or eating a bit less.

Now that I'm in maintenance, I'm wondering whether I should follow the same approach or whether I just move on and pretend the day didn't exist and start the new day as a new day and eat my full daily budget of calories.

What does everyone else do? In the scheme of things I know it doesn't matter - my weight fluctuates like everyone else's and ultimately, a day or two here and there really don't seem to affect my weight overall, it's more just trying to figure out what my approach should be.
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Replies

  • elisa123gal
    elisa123gal Posts: 4,333 Member
    Your approach of balancing things out sounds like a winner to me.
  • walktalkdog
    walktalkdog Posts: 102 Member
    koalathebear wrote: »
    When I was in the weight loss phase, on the very rare occasions I exceeded my daily calorie budget, I would draw a line in the sand for that day and "make up for it" in the next day or next two days that followed i.e. increasing my deficit on that day whether by way of exercise or eating a bit less.

    Now that I'm in maintenance, I'm wondering whether I should follow the same approach or whether I just move on and pretend the day didn't exist and start the new day as a new day and eat my full daily budget of calories.

    What does everyone else do? In the scheme of things I know it doesn't matter - my weight fluctuates like everyone else's and ultimately, a day or two here and there really don't seem to affect my weight overall, it's more just trying to figure out what my approach should be.

    I do exactly as you did while losing. "Maintenance" is something my body hasn't grasped. I do need to balance out a night with a cocktail or two with a day of lower calorie intake. And I still weigh myself every day.
  • Skrib69
    Skrib69 Posts: 687 Member
    I have become more relaxed about logging and rarely complete my diary.

    My breakfast and lunches are pretty consistent, so it is only my evening meal which I need to watch. However this has recently become easier now they I have to keep an eye on my cholesterol.

    I have largely given up snacking between meals and I weigh probably every 3-4 weeks and the the weight fluctuates by up to around 5lbs if I am unlucky.

  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,099 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    koalathebear wrote: »
    When I was in the weight loss phase, on the very rare occasions I exceeded my daily calorie budget, I would draw a line in the sand for that day and "make up for it" in the next day or next two days that followed i.e. increasing my deficit on that day whether by way of exercise or eating a bit less.

    Now that I'm in maintenance, I'm wondering whether I should follow the same approach or whether I just move on and pretend the day didn't exist and start the new day as a new day and eat my full daily budget of calories.

    What does everyone else do? In the scheme of things I know it doesn't matter - my weight fluctuates like everyone else's and ultimately, a day or two here and there really don't seem to affect my weight overall, it's more just trying to figure out what my approach should be.

    I don't log and haven't logged in 6.5 years of maintenance. I would wager that I have days where I'm over and days when I'm under. I monitor my weight regularly weighing in a few times per week. My usual maintenance weight averages about 182 with fluctuations either way. I'm currently about 188 which is pretty near the top of my maintenance range and intervention point. I usually hit that later in the winter, but pool parties and such this summer got the best of me so I'll be intervening sooner rather than my usual Feb/March time frame.

    5-6 pounds is pretty easy for me to drop and I can do it in about a month if put my mind to it.

    You have been a study for me @cwolfman13. I think you are a great example of a body weight settling range. You eat more calorically dense and then just switch up diet and add in a little more activity... bammmm weight just drops back. You are what I am striving for long term. How tall are you btw?
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    psychod787 wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    koalathebear wrote: »
    When I was in the weight loss phase, on the very rare occasions I exceeded my daily calorie budget, I would draw a line in the sand for that day and "make up for it" in the next day or next two days that followed i.e. increasing my deficit on that day whether by way of exercise or eating a bit less.

    Now that I'm in maintenance, I'm wondering whether I should follow the same approach or whether I just move on and pretend the day didn't exist and start the new day as a new day and eat my full daily budget of calories.

    What does everyone else do? In the scheme of things I know it doesn't matter - my weight fluctuates like everyone else's and ultimately, a day or two here and there really don't seem to affect my weight overall, it's more just trying to figure out what my approach should be.

    I don't log and haven't logged in 6.5 years of maintenance. I would wager that I have days where I'm over and days when I'm under. I monitor my weight regularly weighing in a few times per week. My usual maintenance weight averages about 182 with fluctuations either way. I'm currently about 188 which is pretty near the top of my maintenance range and intervention point. I usually hit that later in the winter, but pool parties and such this summer got the best of me so I'll be intervening sooner rather than my usual Feb/March time frame.

    5-6 pounds is pretty easy for me to drop and I can do it in about a month if put my mind to it.

    You have been a study for me @cwolfman13. I think you are a great example of a body weight settling range. You eat more calorically dense and then just switch up diet and add in a little more activity... bammmm weight just drops back. You are what I am striving for long term. How tall are you btw?

    @psychod787

    I round up to 5'10", but I'm like 5'9.5"
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,966 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    koalathebear wrote: »
    When I was in the weight loss phase, on the very rare occasions I exceeded my daily calorie budget, I would draw a line in the sand for that day and "make up for it" in the next day or next two days that followed i.e. increasing my deficit on that day whether by way of exercise or eating a bit less.

    Now that I'm in maintenance, I'm wondering whether I should follow the same approach or whether I just move on and pretend the day didn't exist and start the new day as a new day and eat my full daily budget of calories.

    What does everyone else do? In the scheme of things I know it doesn't matter - my weight fluctuates like everyone else's and ultimately, a day or two here and there really don't seem to affect my weight overall, it's more just trying to figure out what my approach should be.

    I don't log and haven't logged in 6.5 years of maintenance. I would wager that I have days where I'm over and days when I'm under. I monitor my weight regularly weighing in a few times per week. My usual maintenance weight averages about 182 with fluctuations either way. I'm currently about 188 which is pretty near the top of my maintenance range and intervention point. I usually hit that later in the winter, but pool parties and such this summer got the best of me so I'll be intervening sooner rather than my usual Feb/March time frame.

    5-6 pounds is pretty easy for me to drop and I can do it in about a month if put my mind to it.

    What does "intervening" entail? Cut out a snack or two? I'd like to say I can manage my weight without counting calories and a lot of times I can but eventually I get lazy and start grabbing snacks more than I should etc and I end up coming back to the ol' myfitnesspal.
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    I try to hit daily goals but always hit weekly goals. I know that I'll be high on Friday and go over. But I'll be less hungry the next day. Typically I go over maybe two weeks a year (Christmas to New Years and a random week I'm traveling). But most weeks I'm way under.

    You can't just 'get over it' because it's easy to get into that habit. But if you listen to your body I find it naturally evens out over the week.
  • koalathebear
    koalathebear Posts: 236 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    It's also possible that (#3) you simply burn slightly fewer calories than the number that "calculators" spit out, too, unfortunately, though I wouldn't leap to that assumption too quickly. Keep in mind that they give you an estimate of the population average for your demographics, more or less, but that in reality not everyone is exactly average. Same thing can happen with "fitness tracker" calorie estimates (mine is way wrong, as is MFP).

    Anecdotally (which is a big word for "I can't prove it" ;) ), some people seem more inclined to subtle activity down-regulation at reduced calories, so that maintenance calories can gradually be increased to find the beneficial level, i.e., increase will trigger up-regulation. Also, keep in mind that daily life activity matters (and is where some of the controllable side of activity up/down-regulation happens), so that there can be maintenance-calorie benefits by consciously trying to be more active in routine daily life.

    None of the above should be taken to be disputing the part I bolded in your post. I think that's 100% the right strategy.

    BTW, I'm a very uneven eater, consistent most days but quite indulge-y occasionally. I do calorie bank, but experience suggests that going way over my maintenance calories occasionally has less scale-weight impact (after the water/digestive-contents scale jump drops off) than I would've expected from the calorie intake. Perhaps there are absorption limits in a body that's not used to it? Dunno. This is not an approach I'd recommend, but you did ask what others do!

    If I start getting a little heavier than I'd like, regardless of how, I need to stick to my slight-deficit routine daily goal more often, and rein in the indulge-y days a bit, and weight will start creeping slowly down again. (I'm just about to start into year 5 of maintenance, BTW, BMI 22-point-something this morning).

    Thanks so much. I found your post very thought-provoking and helpful - I've been thinking about it a lot and wanting to respond properly.

    I've essentially been in maintenance around three months now - the last few months of weight loss, I had deliberately slowed things down a lot to try to make transition easier and in the last month I was essentially eating at maintenance...

    If there's one thing I'm 'struggling' with, it's the fact that during weight loss, I was really strict with myself and pretty much never went over my daily calorie budget on more than a handful of occasions... Now that I'm in maintenance, I have to really force myself not to sweat the occasional overs and actually even force myself to deliberately go over now and then so that it doesn't become a 'thing'. During weight loss, I'd plan things out - put exercise calories in the bank early in the day if I knew I was eating a lot that day... If I accidentally went over, I'd just go on a walk or do a small amount of zumba to put myself back within budget.

    When I first went into maintenance, I had the same very strong urge to always stay within budget so now I really have to force myself to let myself go over a little bit and say it will come out in the weekly total - which it always does. I don't want to feel like I have to remain within budget every single day.

    There is something deceptively precise (and comforting) about the calorie counting but when I think about it, it's still incredibly fuzzy no matter how diligent I try to be.

    For instance, this comment of yours made me think quite hard:

    Also, keep in mind that daily life activity matters (and is where some of the controllable side of activity up/down-regulation happens), so that there can be maintenance-calorie benefits by consciously trying to be more active in routine daily life.

    I log my food quite diligently and I log time activities fairly diligently, but there are a bunch of additional activities where the calories aren't logged:
    - I work on the third floor and always take the stairs these days - and might walk up an extra flight if I have time
    - I make sure when my garmin buzzes, I get up and make a cup of tea or coffee - but walk to the kitchen above or below my floor, just to move a bit more
    - sometimes if I get back to my desk after a timed activity and I forget to "turn off" my garmin, I'll look down and it's recorded for too long and so I write off a bunch of those calories burned because eg out of 60 minutes, only half was walking, the other half was me sitting at my desk having forgotten to turn off the timed activity.

    Anyway, sorry for rambling. The whole weight loss / fitness journey has been very ... eye-opening.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,312 Member
    edited December 2019
    koalathebear wrote: »
    but have to say that the endless work Christmas parties are proving a bit of a strain simply because I find it a little harder to log accurately at such events.

    I have to admit that the only time I weighed less on January 4-8 as compared to December 17-21 was the 12 months during which I created an average deficit of 695Cal a day.

    Every year, like clockwork, I tend to trend up, and then trend slowly down between January and April, usually fully catching up to where I was by the early March to late April time frame. And it is not surprising given the amount of social get togethers and events that tend to crowd into the time period serving as a delivery mechanism for novel and hyper-palatable food (and drinks if so inclined)!

    While the weight-trend increase is much smaller, the scale increase from minimum to maximum in the time frame seems to be just shy of 5lbs for me! And by the looks of it most of it real and reflected in my logging overages :wink:

    To a point you raised above, I definitely do find that if I have been consuming relatively more NET calories what Fitbit defines as my 'resting' heart rate elevates as compared to when my net calories are lower. Same applies to nails growing faster vs slower, and noticeably so for me, depending on relative net calories. Which to me clearly points out to change in the involuntary component of NEAT.
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    I hit my weekly goal except for Thanksgiving and Christmas week (typically). I've been logging 6 years. I find I'm not hungry the next day if I'm more than a hundred calories over. So I listen to my body.
  • gallicinvasion
    gallicinvasion Posts: 1,015 Member
    pyrusangeles wrote: »
    I have my calorie goal set slightly below my true maintenance. This gives me a general guideline to follow on most days, and it allows me to have a day or two each week where I indulge a bit without actively counterbalancing the overage. If I haven't had a reason to indulge and I get extra hungry, I know it's ok to have more. At this point I can feel intuitively when I need more or less calories. My weight fluctuates within about 3 lbs and has been for about six months now.

    This is exactly what I've been doing. I like the system a lot!

  • koalathebear
    koalathebear Posts: 236 Member
    The calorie banking thing has become a pretty motivating reason for me to do exercise in the morning before work.

    I do a fairly energetic hour or so of Zumba every morning - using youtube haha. Combined with my default calorie budget, it gives me a pretty decent budget and I enter my breakfast and lunch (if I already know what I'm having) and so I have pretty good idea of what I have left to play with for snacks and dinner. Plus if I can get in a short morning walk or lunch walk during the work day, that boosts the budget. I have sometimes (but do not enjoy), being in debt in the morning because I don't get to my exercise until the evening... My preference is definitely to have a good bank balance in the morning and then work from that.

    I have to say that I'm finding this month with all the Christmas treats/baking and extra meals with family and friends challenging. My weight has fluctuated in the last month between 54.6kg to 56kg. It doesn't go above 56 thankfully. I'm not being too hard on myself this month because I know that with all the family dinners and food etc, even though I'm tracking - I'm eating more than I usually do even though I'm offsetting with exercise. I'm just keeping an eye on things to make sure I don't go above 56 and then I guess post-Christmas I'll go back to eating less.
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