Having trouble levelling out weight loss
sofrances
Posts: 156 Member
Did anyone else have trouble levelling out weight loss when starting maintenance?
I'm consuming 2600 calories per day, and although I have the occasional hungry day, many days I have to force myself to eat more to reach this target.
It seems kind of perverse for a person with my history of weight issues to be forcing themselves to eat when my body is saying "I'm full!"
However, if my current trends continue, I'll bottom out of my maintenance range in a week or two.
I know this sounds like a good problem to have, especially when I have entertained the "will dieting wreck my metabolism" worry. And I may look back on this post with envy if and when things get more difficult.
I'm determined not to let free sugars back into my life (apart from a big piece of carrot cake when my birthday swings around
), so i can't just eat a bucket of ice cream, and although I'm exercising a lot in terms of absolute minutes, most of it is only moderate intensity, and much of it i enjoy, plus its good for me for reasons other than weight.
Did anyone else find themselves in the same boat at the start of maintenance?
I'm consuming 2600 calories per day, and although I have the occasional hungry day, many days I have to force myself to eat more to reach this target.
It seems kind of perverse for a person with my history of weight issues to be forcing themselves to eat when my body is saying "I'm full!"
However, if my current trends continue, I'll bottom out of my maintenance range in a week or two.
I know this sounds like a good problem to have, especially when I have entertained the "will dieting wreck my metabolism" worry. And I may look back on this post with envy if and when things get more difficult.
I'm determined not to let free sugars back into my life (apart from a big piece of carrot cake when my birthday swings around
), so i can't just eat a bucket of ice cream, and although I'm exercising a lot in terms of absolute minutes, most of it is only moderate intensity, and much of it i enjoy, plus its good for me for reasons other than weight.Did anyone else find themselves in the same boat at the start of maintenance?
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Replies
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@sofrances I'm not quite to that stage yet, but close enough that it is a concern. Since giving up added oil and sugar, and cutting out refined grains, I find that the amount of fruits and veggies I need to eat just to reach my minimum daily calorie goal is already a struggle sometimes, so as I get closer to my weight goal, I'm starting to worry that I will need to eat past the point of being comfortably full in order to hit the maintenance range, and there's a limit to the amount of veggie stew, steamed kale, salads and apples I can handle. The current thought is that I'll just need to eat more calorie dense foods that are still within the food plan, like upping my intake of chickpeas and beans. Otherwise, it's going to be hard.
Do you have any calorie dense things that are within your plan? I guess you must. A 2,600 goal sounds really difficult to achieve. But exercising is a good thing to continue, for health, so you'll probably want to keep that up in spite of it making it harder to nourish yourself sufficiently. I'm thinking that calorie density is the key. Good luck!1 -
Yep. I entered maintenance at the start of lockdown. At work, there's a seemingly never-ending supply of snacks available to pick at - but that was OK as I went to the gym almost daily and they roughly balanced out. No longer in the office, but then going for longer, brisker walks to get out of the house for an hour, I suddenly dropped another 2kg (4.5lbs). I then dropped a bit more a few weeks later. I'm now fluctuating at 4-5kg below what I planned my maintenance to be and definitely don't want to go any lower.
I had a couple of weeks where I set my goal to put on weight then went back to maintenance, but now aim to eat a little (50-100 cals) above what MFP thinks my maintenance is. I'm weighing myself most days and I'll see how I'm doing in 6 weeks. Depending on what I've eaten for the day and how many cals I want to add, a snack might be a couple of babybels, a (weighed) handful of nuts or an apple or all three. If I'm happy with all my macros, I might have a glass of wine or a can of lager.2 -
I've seen lots of people post about the same thing but can't say it happened to me, only wish it had LOL, nope I would ideally love to be eating more than I get in maintenance and that's even with being active...
If you find you keep dropping weight you can add in some high cal foods, nuts/peanut butter or add more oil when cooking etc.1 -
Same! I continue to lose and I don’t want to. I’m also unwilling to reduce the intensity of the workouts that I enjoy or add back the breads (or late night mozzarella sticks) that I’ve learned are one of the key reasons I always felt sluggish and bloated. So I’m trying to add more brown rice and nut butters to get the calories up. It’s not easy to fill that calorie budget.0
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Did anyone else have trouble levelling out weight loss when starting maintenance?
I'm consuming 2600 calories per day, and although I have the occasional hungry day, many days I have to force myself to eat more to reach this target.
It seems kind of perverse for a person with my history of weight issues to be forcing themselves to eat when my body is saying "I'm full!"
However, if my current trends continue, I'll bottom out of my maintenance range in a week or two.
I know this sounds like a good problem to have, especially when I have entertained the "will dieting wreck my metabolism" worry. And I may look back on this post with envy if and when things get more difficult.
I'm determined not to let free sugars back into my life (apart from a big piece of carrot cake when my birthday swings around ), so i can't just eat a bucket of ice cream, and although I'm exercising a lot in terms of absolute minutes, most of it is only moderate intensity, and much of it i enjoy, plus its good for me for reasons other than weight.
Did anyone else find themselves in the same boat at the start of maintenance?
There is some evidence that as you start increasing calories, NEAT increases accidentally, if so CONGRATS! you are a hyper responder.You get to eat more. There is also a second option and a third. You could be slightly hyper-metabolic post weight loss and tdee will normalize or you might not be tracking accurately. Not intentionally, but errors in picking data entries. You might also might be more active than you realize. I'm just shooting in the dark here, best wishes!6 -
it is very common. You may very well in a year look back on this post and laugh at yourself.
Maintenance is never a steady state unfortunately but adjustments are made usually over months vs weeks or days. Think of your body like a HUGE freight ship. Your weight loss momentum is carrying you down a little even though you have taken your foot off the gas or even put the throttle in reverse. As momentum decreases the ship will slowly come to a stop and it may even start going backwards (up again) so my advice is don't panic yet about the scale, but keep eating the calories you are allotted and don't be afraid of using things like nuts/peanut butter as mentioned above. 5 -
I have been in maintenance for almost a year, and during that time I've gained 5 pounds twice and gone back to a calorie deficit each time (currently in my second one). When I'm not in a deficit, I seem to slide back to old snacking habits and not logging. COVID didn't help, at the beginning I was drinking more and stress baking. That's stopped, but I'm so bored (I work from home and all my work has dried up) I have to stop myself from snacking all the time. So my maintenance has been one big yo-yo machine.2
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It took me a while to finally settle into maintenance. I originally set my goal to lose 60 pounds. Once I hit that I started adding calories, but I also became more active so I kept losing weight and had to keep increasing my calories. I kept lowering my goal and finally after losing about 20 more pounds I think I am in maintenance. It is best to have a range and not a single number goal. I seem to go up and down the same 2-3 pounds all the time. I called maintenance 4 years ago, but my average weight has really only been the same since about October. It actually took me a few years to truly reach maintenance, so I guess the answer to your question is yes, some people do have a hard time leveling out weight loss when moving into maintenance. For me continuing to log is very helpful. I sometimes have to eat when I am not hungry because I know that I need a certain amount of calories each day. And it can be difficult to change your mindset from losing mode. The advise when losing (which isn't bad advise) is not to eat if you are not truly hungry. But my hunger signals have never been reliable. I have never needed to be hungry to eat. I could always eat more when I was heavy. But now I know that I don't need to base my eating on whether I am hungry or not, but on how many calories I am burning per day. I need to eat roughly that same amount to keep my weight steady. It has been easier for me, since I don't really worry about what I eat and I just eat whatever I want to. I eat plenty of nutritious foods, but I also eat some stuff that most people consider junk. And as long as I am eating about 80/20 then if I need extra calories I don't feel bad about having some candy or ice cream every day. But if you don't want to eat sugars then nuts, nut butters and avocados are all some good options that are calorie dense for not a lot of volume.5
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I am celebrating my second anniversary in maintenance.
You know, I kind of forgot that when I got to my goal, I did keep going down after. I started actually being concerned I was going to lose too much.
Ha.
There's this magic five or eight pound blob. We play hide and seek. I try to hide, but it seeks me out. Then I manage to lose it again and hope it doesn't find me.
Take a long view. Watch your trend over time. Balance out the day to day swings. Don't stress about it too much, because it probably WILL go back up again over time. This is what mine's looked like the last couple years. Kind of a roller coaster!
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psychod787 wrote: »Did anyone else have trouble levelling out weight loss when starting maintenance?
I'm consuming 2600 calories per day, and although I have the occasional hungry day, many days I have to force myself to eat more to reach this target.
It seems kind of perverse for a person with my history of weight issues to be forcing themselves to eat when my body is saying "I'm full!"
However, if my current trends continue, I'll bottom out of my maintenance range in a week or two.
I know this sounds like a good problem to have, especially when I have entertained the "will dieting wreck my metabolism" worry. And I may look back on this post with envy if and when things get more difficult.
I'm determined not to let free sugars back into my life (apart from a big piece of carrot cake when my birthday swings around ), so i can't just eat a bucket of ice cream, and although I'm exercising a lot in terms of absolute minutes, most of it is only moderate intensity, and much of it i enjoy, plus its good for me for reasons other than weight.
Did anyone else find themselves in the same boat at the start of maintenance?
There is some evidence that as you start increasing calories, NEAT increases accidentally, if so CONGRATS! you are a hyper responder.You get to eat more. There is also a second option and a third. You could be slightly hyper-metabolic post weight loss and tdee will normalize or you might not be tracking accurately. Not intentionally, but errors in picking data entries. You might also might be more active than you realize. I'm just shooting in the dark here, best wishes!
Hope its the NEAT thing. Its definitely easier to get off the couch when I'm lighter. Plus sitting down is less comfortable with less padding!
I'll prepare myself for the possibility of my TDEE stabilising and me having to cut calories down again a bit though. Thanks for the heads up.2 -
snaileatsplants wrote: »Do you have any calorie dense things that are within your plan? I guess you must. A 2,600 goal sounds really difficult to achieve. But exercising is a good thing to continue, for health, so you'll probably want to keep that up in spite of it making it harder to nourish yourself sufficiently. I'm thinking that calorie density is the key. Good luck!
Walnuts, avocado, oats, pumpernickle bread or huel are my options usually, depending on where my macros are. Drizzling with olive oil would also be acceptable.1 -
I continued to lose weight when I reached my goal because I burn a little more than average for someone my age and size. I increased my calorie allowance and figured out a balance between CI-CO. I've been stable for several years. I don't weigh or measure though I do log everything I eat. I eat back all my exercise calories. I am fairly loose in what I eat - both healthy foods and not healthy foods. I have no problem reaching my calorie goal each day but I haven't ended up with a lot of variation in my weight either.1
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Ok, so I hit the bottom of my range today, not in a week or two as I predicted. I have lost about 1kg in the last week. A bit worrying. Something wrong with my scales maybe?!0
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Ok, so I hit the bottom of my range today, not in a week or two as I predicted. I have lost about 1kg in the last week. A bit worrying. Something wrong with my scales maybe?!
You need to up your cals, losing 1kg in a week means you've been in calorie deficit by over 1000 cals a day...2 -
There's no way I can eat more than 3600 cals of healthy food every day. I guess I will have to try reducing the exercise a bit.
I am doing between 1 and 2.5 hours every day, most days close to 1.5, although most of that is walking, so not particularly strenuous. Its a shame, walking with a podcast or audiobook has rapidly become my favourite part of the day.0 -
whats wrong with adding some calorie dense items like peanut butter, nuts, use more oil for cooking etc - its either that or cut back on your time exercising...2
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You are going to have to either eat more or exercise less. Maybe you should broaden your definition of "healthy" foods.8
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So what are your stats? height weight etc. Weight range. It might be way too soon to be panicking as it's been what 3 days since we started this discussion. I have to assume you are a guy and rather tall if 2600 is what MFP is giving you prior to exercise to maintain. Do you use trend weight apps to watch the trend vs the daily fluctuations? How long since you started adding calories? Is your maintenance range at the bottom of the BMI for your height? I think its hard for us to help you without a little more data at this point.
Sorry for all the questions but we are all working to help you out! 3 -
I'm 6 foot 1 (187cm), male and I'm not even technically a healthy weight, but I'm a long way from where I started and want to maintain for a while to prove I can and to let my body get used to the changes. I'm currently 91.3kg or 205 pounds. I have been adding calories for a while, since I started with a budget of 2000. 2600 isn't prior to exercise its just the point I have reached so far, experimentally raising my budget every week or two. The app gives me 2440 before exercise at my current weight. I have been using libra to track trends since I was on 2000.1
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AHA! Well then perhaps the guys might have better experience and advice than us short petite gals. LOL. It sounds like you are really doing quite well and have a plan. Best of luck.1
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psychod787 wrote: »Did anyone else have trouble levelling out weight loss when starting maintenance?
I'm consuming 2600 calories per day, and although I have the occasional hungry day, many days I have to force myself to eat more to reach this target.
It seems kind of perverse for a person with my history of weight issues to be forcing themselves to eat when my body is saying "I'm full!"
However, if my current trends continue, I'll bottom out of my maintenance range in a week or two.
I know this sounds like a good problem to have, especially when I have entertained the "will dieting wreck my metabolism" worry. And I may look back on this post with envy if and when things get more difficult.
I'm determined not to let free sugars back into my life (apart from a big piece of carrot cake when my birthday swings around ), so i can't just eat a bucket of ice cream, and although I'm exercising a lot in terms of absolute minutes, most of it is only moderate intensity, and much of it i enjoy, plus its good for me for reasons other than weight.
Did anyone else find themselves in the same boat at the start of maintenance?
There is some evidence that as you start increasing calories, NEAT increases accidentally, if so CONGRATS! you are a hyper responder.You get to eat more. There is also a second option and a third. You could be slightly hyper-metabolic post weight loss and tdee will normalize or you might not be tracking accurately. Not intentionally, but errors in picking data entries. You might also might be more active than you realize. I'm just shooting in the dark here, best wishes!
Hope its the NEAT thing. Its definitely easier to get off the couch when I'm lighter. Plus sitting down is less comfortable with less padding!
I'll prepare myself for the possibility of my TDEE stabilising and me having to cut calories down again a bit though. Thanks for the heads up.
@sofrances Sitting down is totally comfortable again now after strengthening butt muscles which surprisingly are key to balance 0 -
There's no way I can eat more than 3600 cals of healthy food every day. I guess I will have to try reducing the exercise a bit.
I am doing between 1 and 2.5 hours every day, most days close to 1.5, although most of that is walking, so not particularly strenuous. Its a shame, walking with a podcast or audiobook has rapidly become my favourite part of the day.
My dr specified 10K steps a day every day - rest of my life. The health results have been amazing.
I average a little under 2 hours now.
Is there a reason you don’t want to add healthy olive oil, walnuts (I eat unsalted), or avocado. These foods have nutrients that are recommended for health.
I know you will find a solution that works for you... it’s all very individual & can be a fun, creative process of discovery...
For ex I don’t like oils or avocados
So I eat unsalted nuts (I’ll overeat salted but not unsalted, I learned) And peanut butter, some cheese and some 82% dark choc
You will find your ideal solution!!
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I'm 6 foot 1 (187cm), male and I'm not even technically a healthy weight, but I'm a long way from where I started and want to maintain for a while to prove I can and to let my body get used to the changes. I'm currently 91.3kg or 205 pounds. I have been adding calories for a while, since I started with a budget of 2000. 2600 isn't prior to exercise its just the point I have reached so far, experimentally raising my budget every week or two. The app gives me 2440 before exercise at my current weight. I have been using libra to track trends since I was on 2000.
@sofrances A Great Plan!!
I maintained for 1-2 weeks every 10 lbs because I didn’t want to go lower than I could maintain.2 -
Ok so there is less of a panic.
Glad to see you're looking into sustainability.
There are two aspects to that: sustaining your eating habits and sustaining your exercise regiment.
I love audiobooks/podcasts. Sometimes they have to be put aside due to life. You could experiment with a forced rest day
Healthy eating is great. But there will exist restaurant meals post COVID. There will also exist family outings and friends. Getting a handle on things like that while still losing may be helpful for the long term.
The equation is simple.... you will have to continue to adjust till you stop losing.
On the plus side, being at overweight and having room to move down means that you can do a humongously long intro to maintenance (losing at -250 or less a week). This gives you option to TRY things while you remain focused on slow slow loss and may help you weather some likely appetite related storms you may encounter4 -
Healthy eating is great. But there will exist restaurant meals post COVID.
I never ate out much anyway, to be honest. Weekly Sunday lunches with the extended family, on the other hand, may prove more of a challenge. Since there's no hope of accurately calorie counting it, my plan was to either fast the rest of the day or have a bowl of porridge to tide me over in the afternoon.
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I was out for a Sunday lunch today. I also couldn't accurately count, but I came up with a reasonable estimate using entries I already have in my diary for similar things that I've cooked in the past (ie I already had a roast potatoes entry, a roast lamb entry and a cauliflower cheese one). The amount of oil, cheese etc will not be identical, but the serving sizes are probably similar so it's going to be a good approximation. I then had to guesstimate the amount of other veg that I put on my plate and used the largest Yorkshire Pudding entry I could in the database! We had birthday cake too - but the cake was so big that we each got given an additional slice to bring home - which meant I could weigh it at home and have a reasonable idea as to how much I ate earlier.
I ate something for breakfast, but haven't eaten since lunch (and am now about to go to bed). I was also slightly under my cals for the last few days in anticipation of a big lunch today.4 -
On 2800 calories now, but still losing. The good news in I am almost a healthy BMI. The bad news is I only meant to get to under 27! I may have to try increasing calories by a large amount just to see if I can put a stop to the loss. Hope its not all a scale malfunction, anyway!1
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Do you know what rate you are losing weight at? Look at your figures for the last few weeks and work out what your rate of loss is. Add the corresponding number of calories on to the number of calories that you've been eating and you should find that you start maintaining that weight.
2lb / 1kg a week is a 1000 calorie deficit. 1lb / 0.5kg is a 500 calorie deficit and 0.5lb / 0.25kg is a 250 deficit.
I got to maintenance just as lock down started - and suddenly lost another couple of kg without trying. For a couple of weeks, I even changed the set-up in MFP to 'Gain weight' in order to stop me losing any more. After that, I went back to 'maintain current weight' and have stayed where I was for last few months. However, I now aim to eat slightly over the number of calories that MFP gives me, rather than ever being under.0 -
According to Libra I'm losing 1kg per week. But even with exercise MFP puts me at a defecit of less than 500 most days. My assumption has always been that these apps overestimate exercise calories. Also, i have been scaling back exercise a bit recently...0
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According to Libra I'm losing 1kg per week. But even with exercise MFP puts me at a defecit of less than 500 most days. My assumption has always been that these apps overestimate exercise calories. Also, i have been scaling back exercise a bit recently...
I don't think the bolded is necessarily true, and (gasp) it doesn't matter anyway, because they're only *estimating* your calorie needs in the first place.
It's all estimates. Even carefully-weighed food calories using the best possible data sources are esimates, because one apple is sweeter than the next, and that sort of thing. *Any* of the estimates can be wrong, high or low. There's some research suggesting that, left to our own intuitions, most of us will underestimate our intake, and overestimate our output . . . but that can be improved upon by being less intuitive and more "science fair project".
If you have sound logging data that's consistent, and your eating doesn't vary truly wildly on average, and you have a somewhat consistent lifestyle (daily life stuff + exercise), then your actual scale results are what should be controlling your intake to lose/gain/maintain. (Even if not all of those preconditions are not strictly true, the conclusion probably still is: Trust your scale (and Libra), not some calculator that's just spitting out a population average. You're not a population, you're an individual. There's a bell curve, and not everyone is spot-on in the middle of it. Can't be. Results are your best, most accurate estimate.
If I'd been eating my MFP calorie estimate plus its estimates of my exercise for the past 5 years - which I couldn't and wouldn't do! - I'd be dead by now, starved into my grave. MFP's calorie needs estimate for me is substantially too low. It's off by hundreds of calories daily. So is my (good brand, model) fitness tracker's estimate, even though the exact same device is spot-on for others. That big a gap is rare, but it can happen.
Eat what your food log and your scale tell you to eat, to maintain. Adjust over time, if conditions change. If your food log (and exercise log, etc.) have some errors, but you're reasonably consistent in how you estimate, this will work just fine. If what you find you need to do doesn't line up with MFP or some TDEE calculator's estimates, that just means you're a little different from the absolute population average.8
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