[larson18]

I have lost around 110 to 115 pounds since January of 2010 and have to say that I feel much better than I once did! Anyways, I wanted to use this forum to ask an important question I had regarding weight maintenance, calories per day, and exercise.

To begin I have successfully been maintaining my weight for about 2 1/2 months now between the weight range of 145 pounds and 149 pounds. I wake up each day and make sure to weigh myself after going to the bathroom and then track my weight on a notepad document on my computer so that I can compare the data for each day. However, this past week I have been dropping .5 pounds each day as I began at 149 pounds last Wednesday and weighed in at 146.5 pounds today. I have continued to follow my diet and make sure that I am eating enough calories and grams of fat, but I don't know why this might be going on. Since I moved to Arizona about 2 months ago I have began swimming in the pool that is in my backyard and do about 15 minutes of light to moderate swimming usually every day, but if not then 5 to 6 times a week.

I asked one of my family members about why I am losing weight while still following my diet and exercising and they told me that all of my fat was turning into muscle. However, I thought that the muscle that I was gaining inside of my body would have added weight onto my total weight instead of made me lose weight. Hopefully someone can help me on here about this latest weight loss panic to help reassure my mind that I won't continue to lose weight and face further consequences from that action. This hasn't been the first panic that I have had during my weight loss journey, but it is something that I want to stop right away and keep an eye on to make sure that I continue to maintain my current weight range.

If someone or a couple of you could please help me out that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all so much for your help in advance!

[Esofia]

My guesses would be:

1) You're overestimating your calorie intake. (I accidentally shifted a decimal point on the fat grams when entering a custom food into FitDay at the start, and it took a good few days to work out what was wrong.)

2) You're underestimating your calorie expenditure (e.g. an activity consumes more calories than you thought it does).

3) Bodies are just weird and stabilise in strange ways, hormone fluctuations and what have you. It's only 2.5lb so far.

I've heard it recommended that you set an upper and a lower limit around your target weight range, and if you cross either of those adjust your calories accordingly until you're back on target. Would that work, say if you got below 144?

[ncuneo]

I really wouldn't be too concerned just yet. 2 1/2 months is a very short time to have been maintaining, you're body is likely still stabilizing and figuring out what is going on. If it persists you only have two options, increase cals or decrease exercise. And yes a range is very important. Mine is 5 lbs, 138-143, right now I'm outside of my range because I've been overeating and I know that and I know what to do. I'm not sure how tall you are, but I assume you're not under weight? If you are then maybe this is more critical, if you aren't then just be patient and wait for your weight to stabilize.