Decreasing exercise while trying to maintain weight

Since trying to lose weight, i have been working out alot (around 2-2.5hrs daily to be precise).Now that im under my goal weight,im satisfied with my weight and only want to maintain & tone now. I have alot of medical issues,including joint problems (all the working out probably hasn't helped 🤦‍♀️), so now im happy with my weight, i want to scale back my workouts from 6 to 3 days a week and 1 hr each. Its a big drop though and i fear it will result in weight gain 😕 anyone any advice on this? Thanks
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Replies

  • Kirstyw4
    Kirstyw4 Posts: 20 Member
    Ive actually still been having less than my maintanaince cals so hoping thos will help. I planned to cut down from 6 to 5 days then 2hrs to 1.5 hrs for a week then to 1 hr per day for a week then reduce days. So would be gradual
  • AshHeartsJesus
    AshHeartsJesus Posts: 460 Member
    Check out Sydney cummings her workouts are awesome and not that long! I have reeeeealy gotten more strength and toned doing her workouts! Find something you really like exercise is good for us if done properly 💪
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    It will only result in weight gain if you keep eating as if you were doing them.

    MFP was trying to teach a life lesson about weight management, sounds like you weren't following it though.
    When you do more you eat more.
    When you do less you eat less.

    In a diet a tad less in either case.

    When you say eating a tad less than maintenance - you realize you didn't actually share if you had been correctly eating more with exercise.

    Also, if eating a tad less than your maintenance, you mean you barely had a deficit?
    Or you didn't count exercise and that created your deficit, and you ate close to maintenance?

    Because maintenance means level that causes neither fat gain or loss.
    You eat what you burn. That is maintenance.

    Did you log your workouts when done, and correctly eat more when you did them?
    How much deficit do you think you were using near the end?
    How much weight were you losing weekly for last 4 weeks still in diet?

    You've thrown yourself a bad curve ball if you weren't eating more to the new goal MFP gave you to eat.
    It means you have no actual numbers to work with, and never did really.
    Which should make this very interesting.

    Are you planning on logging food still?
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    How have you been accounting for the calories burned through exercising to date?
    MFP method? TDEE? Fitness tracker?

    I've always eaten back my exercise calories so when I went from being a very high exerciser to being injured for a while I didn't have any exercise calories to add to my base calories and it worked out fine.
  • Kirstyw4
    Kirstyw4 Posts: 20 Member
    Mfp says maintainance cals is around 1800 but i only tend to have around 1,000-1,200. Non workout days i tend to burn around 1,400-1,500 cals and on workout days i can burn anything from 1,700+ by the end of the day
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 5,958 Member
    Kirstyw4 wrote: »
    Since trying to lose weight, i have been working out alot (around 2-2.5hrs daily to be precise).Now that im under my goal weight,im satisfied with my weight and only want to maintain & tone now. I have alot of medical issues,including joint problems (all the working out probably hasn't helped 🤦‍♀️), so now im happy with my weight, i want to scale back my workouts from 6 to 3 days a week and 1 hr each. Its a big drop though and i fear it will result in weight gain 😕 anyone any advice on this? Thanks

    Sadly the reality is you will have to decrease your calories to compensate for the decreased activity...
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,048 Member
    J72FIT wrote: »
    Kirstyw4 wrote: »
    Since trying to lose weight, i have been working out alot (around 2-2.5hrs daily to be precise).Now that im under my goal weight,im satisfied with my weight and only want to maintain & tone now. I have alot of medical issues,including joint problems (all the working out probably hasn't helped 🤦‍♀️), so now im happy with my weight, i want to scale back my workouts from 6 to 3 days a week and 1 hr each. Its a big drop though and i fear it will result in weight gain 😕 anyone any advice on this? Thanks

    Sadly the reality is you will have to decrease your calories to compensate for the decreased activity...

    While true, maybe you won't have to decrease too much. It boils down to the change in calories burned in exercise (and non exercise activity).
    If you are doing 2+hrs cardio daily, well, that is going to be a considerable number of calories. Condolences.
    If most of that time is strength training, the calorie cut may be less than you fear.

    Most strength training involves relatively small movements of focused muscle groups for a brief spurts of time. It burns considerably fewer calories than cardio which involves large muscle groups continuously for longer periods. Another factor that can work in your favor is non-exercise activity. Some people unconsciously respond to increased cardio by moving less the rest of the day and, likewise, to decreased cardio by moving more. Either way, this unconscious response lessens the caloric impact of the exercise change.

    I hope your really enjoy the change in your routine and it is worth the caloric adjustment you have to make to maintain. FWIW, a career change had a huge impact on my daily activity many years ago, and once I figured that out I had to decrease caloric intake. It was really worth it!
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    Kirstyw4 wrote: »
    Mfp says maintainance cals is around 1800 but i only tend to have around 1,000-1,200. Non workout days i tend to burn around 1,400-1,500 cals and on workout days i can burn anything from 1,700+ by the end of the day

    MFP would actually be saying your maintenance is 1800 + exercise calories, so 1800 would be only for a day without exercise.
    Your numbers seem badly off.

    Are you saying that when you go to your goal set up and with a correct activity setting for your lifestyle (which excludes purposeful exercise) and select "maintain current weight" the number you get is 1800cals?

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,907 Member
    Kirstyw4 wrote: »
    Mfp says maintainance cals is around 1800 but i only tend to have around 1,000-1,200. Non workout days i tend to burn around 1,400-1,500 cals and on workout days i can burn anything from 1,700+ by the end of the day

    Yeah, what sijomial said.

    DO NOT cut calories!!! You're already grossly under-eating.

    I would suggest going immediately to 1800-2000 and one hour of moderate exercise five or six days a week, and eat a bit more on those exercise days. Probably 1800-2000 on the rest day and 2000-2200 on exercise days.

    Yes, there may be a slight couple of pound increase on the scale but you say yourself that you are under your goal. Any slight increase will drop back off in a week.

    It all sounds very disordered. Have you talked to any professionals about this?
  • Kirstyw4
    Kirstyw4 Posts: 20 Member
    Im not actually cutting cals tbh its just what i eat. I put in that i am mostly active as at the moment i workout 1.5/2 hrs a day mon-fri (occasional sat) and i also have 13 month old so doing alot of running after him (minus the running though lol more like hobbling ) for the info i put in it comes up 1820 for maintaining 🤷‍♀️ At the moment im just cutting a Sat (or trying anyway lol) so will be 1.5/2hrs Mon-Fri)
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 5,958 Member
    ahoy_m8 wrote: »
    J72FIT wrote: »
    Kirstyw4 wrote: »
    Since trying to lose weight, i have been working out alot (around 2-2.5hrs daily to be precise).Now that im under my goal weight,im satisfied with my weight and only want to maintain & tone now. I have alot of medical issues,including joint problems (all the working out probably hasn't helped 🤦‍♀️), so now im happy with my weight, i want to scale back my workouts from 6 to 3 days a week and 1 hr each. Its a big drop though and i fear it will result in weight gain 😕 anyone any advice on this? Thanks

    Sadly the reality is you will have to decrease your calories to compensate for the decreased activity...

    While true, maybe you won't have to decrease too much. It boils down to the change in calories burned in exercise (and non exercise activity).
    If you are doing 2+hrs cardio daily, well, that is going to be a considerable number of calories. Condolences.
    If most of that time is strength training, the calorie cut may be less than you fear.

    Most strength training involves relatively small movements of focused muscle groups for a brief spurts of time. It burns considerably fewer calories than cardio which involves large muscle groups continuously for longer periods. Another factor that can work in your favor is non-exercise activity. Some people unconsciously respond to increased cardio by moving less the rest of the day and, likewise, to decreased cardio by moving more. Either way, this unconscious response lessens the caloric impact of the exercise change.

    I hope your really enjoy the change in your routine and it is worth the caloric adjustment you have to make to maintain. FWIW, a career change had a huge impact on my daily activity many years ago, and once I figured that out I had to decrease caloric intake. It was really worth it!

    I don't necessarily disagree with you. OP said she exercised 2 - 2.5 hours per day so it sounds pretty significant.
    If it has already been stared I apologize but OP, what does your 2 - 2.5 hours of daily exercise look like? What do you do?
  • Kirstyw4
    Kirstyw4 Posts: 20 Member
    Firstly although i dont think you mean to be, your coming across a bit abruptly. I am not reall 1000% sure, i assumed i was'nt eating back the cals i burnt as for example yesterday i think i had eaten roughly 1,200 cals but burnt 2,233 cals and today so far ive had about 700 (aftet dinnet expected 1070 cals) and so far burnt 1400 cals
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,907 Member
    On Myfitnesspal, you're meant to set your Activity Level without purposeful exercise. So, choose "Lightly Active."


    Then set it to "Maintain."

    When you do purposeful exercise, go to the Exercise tab and add it. You will be given 200-500 more calories. Eat those IN ADDITION TO your base calories.

    Are you using some sort of fitness tracker? Like Fitbit? You're meant to EAT the calories, not UNDER them.

    You're gonna crash and let me tell you - it's not pretty. I under ate for several months and then my hair started falling out, I was always tired, sleepy, irritable, depressed. My nails cracked and my skin was dry. I started catching colds and viruses (I'm sure you don't want that with a baby.)

    Eat.


    You are currently eating at a huge deficit and it will catch up to you in the way of poor health. Sooner rather than later.
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,088 Member
    Simple... adjust calories, trend weight, watch progress, adjust as needed. Weight goes up over a few weeks, decrease calories. Goes down, increase. I would tell you that if you have not been paying attention to dietary quality during this cut, I would now. Try and get the most satiety and satisfaction our of what you are eating. Jmho....
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    edited October 2020
    Kirstyw4 wrote: »
    Firstly although i dont think you mean to be, your coming across a bit abruptly. I am not reall 1000% sure, i assumed i was'nt eating back the cals i burnt as for example yesterday i think i had eaten roughly 1,200 cals but burnt 2,233 cals and today so far ive had about 700 (aftet dinnet expected 1070 cals) and so far burnt 1400 cals
    (Tip - using reply button makes it clearer which part of the thread you are responding to....)


    I'm trying to help you but your answers are very, very vague. Without clear information all people can get is that you think you are eating 1,000 cals under your maintenance calories when you are trying to maintain weight. You must see that doesn't make sense as presented? Someone aiming to lose 2lbs a week would do that.

    If you actually burned 2,233 cals yesterday that would be your maintenance calorie goal for that day.

    It appears you either don't understand how MyFitnessPal calorie goal is intended to work (that's very common!) or are doing something else but you aren't explaining what that something else is.

    When people say "eat back exercise calories" they mean they log their exercise and the estimate of that calorie burn gets added to that day's base calorie allowance. Is that what you are doing / have been doing or not?

    I'll ask the question about the activity setting in a different way to hopefully clarify things.....
    When you went to your goal set up and selected your activity setting did you pick whatever category you picked partly because you exercise a lot?
    (If you did that isn't how it works - it is everything EXCEPT exercise.)


  • Kirstyw4
    Kirstyw4 Posts: 20 Member
    edited October 2020
    Thanks, im new to using this function 🤦‍♀️ anyway, just made changes and now says 1590 for maintaining cals 🤷‍♀️ no i picked it ad assumed that because im active most of the day whether its working out or tidying or running after my little one etc that it would come under the active one under lightly active. But have just changed to lightly active and its wentnto 1590 cals from the 1800
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,907 Member
    edited October 2020
    How tall are you and what is your current weight?

    I mean, both heybales and I are suggesting "Lightly Active" PLUS eating additional Exercise calories, which will likely be 300-ish more.

    @psychod787 suggests using one setting and tracking for a period of time and adjusting. If you do that, give it a month.

    We cannot possibly predict what is going to happen with you because we can't see your FOOD diary and we know so little about you.

    It is, in fact, up to you to run the experiment.


    IF you are using a Fitbit, then you use the synched calories and you do not add in your exercise manually. It sounds like you have a Fitbit, since you pulled out a number like "2233."

    So if that's the case then we all will say, set your activity level and eat all the Fitbit calories. Here is the thread telling you how to set up your account and sync correctly if you are using a Fitbit:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-amp-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy/p1

    heybales is the guy if you have questions about setting up your account and using Fitbit. He posted above.

    SO bottom line: Set up correctly, run your experiment for 4-6 weeks, adjust at the end of that time when you have a good trending data set of numbers over time.