Eating at your maintenance cals to lose weight??
 

Anyone remember a story of a mother-daughter team that lost weight by calculating the maintenance calories they would have at their goal weight, and then eating that amount of cals during weight loss??? Apparently they were very successful...

I am trying to remember the formula they used to calculate their maintenance calories but have forgotten........Can anybody help????

this is a cool one... http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_loss.php

another really good article that addresses finding how your caloric requirement at your goal weight is found here:
http://weightloss.about.com/od/eatsm...lcalintake.htm

Hope this helps!!!!

I believe it was your ideal weight multiplied by 12.In my case 128 pound times 12 would be 1536 calories a day, sounds reasonable, but I haven't tried it.

Somewhere here (i.e. 3FC) there's a thread based on the book they wrote. I looked at it, but gosh, it was at least 6 months ago and my old brain doesn't remember. It was very successful for them, I remember that. :)

calorie queens is what you are looking for.

Awesome - you all are the best!! It was the Calorie Queens..Thank you for jogging my memory.

txangel: Thank you for the new links :-)

anytime Angela!!!

There is actually another thread about this going on here somewhere...let me see if I can find it...

Here we go: http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=129385

I think what we need to keep in mind is that no 2 people in the world have the same calorie maintenance level. Things like "12 x goal weight" are only rough estimates. I've heard people suggest multipliers other than 12, too--anything from 7 up to 15. It's all very highly individual and can only be determined by good old trial and error.

Ok, the one I read in a book called "Maximum Fat Loss" is 10 times your ideal weight.
Donna

I'm sure you are both right on the "one-size-fits-all" calculation for maintenance weight calories - we are all different. But I can say I was MUCH happier when it was goal weightX12 as opposed to goal weightX10!....I guess I am still in my trial and error phase, but I'll let post how this goes, if it works, etc....

Stepping down your calories until you hit the calorie level that you are able to maintain on, or starting at your approximate maintenance level and expecting to pretty much stay there for life (even if it takes a little tweaking)
are both revolutionary ideas in dieting.

For the past 36 years, most of my "dieting life" losing weight meant eating much less or at least much differently than you were going to when (or more accurately, if) you reached your goal weight. Suddenly, when the scale hit that magic number, the rules would change, and you had to learn a whole new way of eating. There were a few pioneers that said you would have to eat differently forever, but most popular diet "plans" (I would even argue still today) implied that one day the diet will be over, and you will get to eat differently (more food or more choices, if not whatever you want).

I think that learning sustainable habits rather than temporary ones, improves the chance of success. If the rules change when we hit goal, it's like starting all over in a way.

Touche Kaplods!

This is the plan my dr. (recently certified as a bariatric specialist) prescribed for me. I have never before sustained a weight loss and am so happy to be learning NOW what I will need to do to maintain in the future. I am discovering that this is a lifestyle I can handle, but the learning curve has been such that it has taken me a good few months to really feel great about living this way. If I were trying to maintain and figure this out at the same time, I think I might end up gaining again.

Knits:

I'm so happy to know that this works for you! Your progress has been great! I agree that it's so important to learn maintenance, and what better way than to learn as you lose?!? How often do we hear of someone or read about someone who had a great weight loss only to gain it right back? Even you and I have done this in our lifetime.

Well, I am ecstatic to know that this plan has worked for someone, as I really havn't heard many 'result stories'.....I have actually been trying to eat less than my maintenance calories, but I use it as a guideline. Basically, if my day is at or below my maintenance cals then it's a good day. I also have a baseline of 1200, which I don't go below. IYO, is this a good plan?