Has any one lost weight at maintenance calorie setting?

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Brandonalex15
Brandonalex15 Posts: 107 Member
edited June 16 in Food and Nutrition

Has any one lost weight at maintenance calorie setting? 5 votes

Yes
60%
nossmfAnnPT77jademae81975 3 votes
No
40%
LimaEcho80greentamia71 2 votes

Replies

  • COGypsy
    COGypsy Posts: 1,451 Member

    If you are at maintenance, you by that very definition are not losing. You can't do both. Did I miss something?

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 36,882 Member
    Yes

    I assume you mean "lose weight at MFP's estimate of maintenance calories".

    It's an estimate, right? It's basically the statistical average calorie needs of demographically similar people.

    Individuals vary from averages. In this case, most are close, but a few aren't.

    By the time I reached maintenance, I already knew MFP estimated too low for me, so I based my maintenance plan on my own recent logging and weight loss history.

    I've been maintaining for 9+ years, eating roughly 500 calories above MFP's estimate, and a similar amount above the numbers from my good brand/model fitness tracker - one that estimates well for other people who've reported here. It's rare to be that far off average, but obviously it can happen. (I don't deliberately over- estimate food or underestimate activity/exercise, BTW. I try to be accurate. )

    A few people even find that they maintain on higher calories than estimated from their personal loss history. Loosely, some people's energy perks up when they go to maintenance calories, so they move more, perhaps in subtle ways . . . but enough to see very gradual loss after a while. This seems to be a category where some people are responders and others non-responders, but only experience will tell us which we are.

  • sollyn23l2
    sollyn23l2 Posts: 2,006 Member

    Yes, I did. It means you burn more calories on average than MFP thinks you do based off their calculations.

  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,876 Member

    Wow, my first thought was physically setting mfp to maintenance instead of physically picking lose a lb etc.

    Which I did because I didn't like those angry red numbers when I went over so I put eat as maintenance and "underate" for my deficit.

    But everybody else makes more sense.

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 14,418 Member
    Yes

    After a prolonged weight-loss phase, I switched to maintenance the last two weeks. I knew what my maintenance calories should be based upon six months' data comparing calories eaten, calories burned in exercise, and weight changes. So when it came time to do maintenance, I knew how much to eat.

    Week 1 of "maintenance" I gained 1.2 lbs.
    Week 2 of "maintenance" I lost those same 1.2 lbs again.

    Remember that your weight on the scale includes everything…skeleton, muscles, organs, fat, water, food making its way through the digestive system, everything. So when I increased my food intake, not only did I have more food in my digestive system, but the body held onto extra water to help with digesting it. By the second week, the extra food was flushed and/or the body had figured out how to do its thing without the extra water.

    Either way, I did not gain fat on maintenance, I did not lose fat on maintenance. But my WEIGHT changed.

  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 15,301 Member

    Can you lose weight by eating at your future estimate of calories needed to maintain your weight when become lighter? Yes

    Can you lose weight at your current estimate of maintenance calories? Yes

    Can you lose weight at your current actual maintenance calories? No.

    Not unless you're discussing water weight variations in which case .. sure.

    But no, at your current actual maintenance calories by definition your weight cannot change meaningfully other than because of innocuous water weight variations or concerning medical issues.

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