Those are two big questions!
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1. How do you balance maintaining weight without losing/gaining? (Yes, I know, that's like asking, "What's the meaning of life" but any advice/tips would be appreciated.)
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It is like asking "What's the meaning of life?" because the answer is different for each of us. Since you are losing on 1500 calories, that's obviously not enough for you. On the other hand, did you only stay at that level for 2 days? Would you "automatically" have increased your calories on the week-end with different eating habits or more/less exercise? I know you don't want to lose more, but I think you need to look at a longer term trend than 2 days unless you absolutely know that you will stick to a plan 100% of the time. At that low a weight and calorie level, every bite, lick and taste counts. The difference between losing, maintaining and gaining at this point can be 1 teaspoon of peanut butter a day, or the difference between low-fat or full fat salad dressing. I think you need to plan HOW you want to maintain, which probably sounds silly, since most of us probably would have said at the outset that we wanted to eat "normally". Do you want to eat exactly the same number of calories every day and see the same number on the scale (give or take water retention) daily? Or do you want to have a planned splurge meal or two each week, and restrict a bit the rest of the time to account for the goodies? You'll see a few peaks and valleys on the scale, but this may allow you more freedom socially and from the "I'm always on a diet" mentality. My advice would be to find you caloric maintenance level first, then play with zig-zagging around it if that's the way you want to go. I'd add slowly- go up to 1600 calories, then add by 50 calorie increments. But take several days before you move on.
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2. I have very little knowledge about body fat percentages and have always assumed that the less fat, the better off you are. Is there really such a thing as "too thin" (or too rich???) What is considered a healthy body fat percentage? What happens if it's too low?
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There is a thing such as too thin. Fat is an insulator against lean times. We are pretty confident that the grocery store will still have food tomorrow (though with a major snowstorm predicted here, I'm not sure about milk and bread
), but if you get sick and can't eat much for 3 days, you need something other than lean mass to sustain you brain. At 112 pounds, you don't have a lot of lean mass, either. I think your Tanita is being pretty conservative, but you are small. For women, 11-14% body fat is considered "essential"; that means that most women will experience some type of systemic failure if their body fat falls below some point in that range. Usually the first thing to go is your menstrual cycle, if you still have hormones
. Competitive bodybuilders (female) usually drop their body fat to between 8-10% on the day they compete, and usually lose their cycles for several months. This isn't healthy
12-22% is considered "athletic", 16-25% is considered "fit", 26-31% is considered "at risk", 32-36% is considered "clinically obese", and over 36% is considered "chronically obese". You can see that in the healthy ranges there are quite a bit of overlap, and depending on the amount of muscle mass, the same body fat% looks quite different on different people. I'm an inch shorter than you but weigh 126.5 right now with a bf% of about 16%. Because I have so much more muscle, I look FAT at 23%, but am quite happy about how I look at 16%. I recently did a fitness check on a woman who is 5'4" and was thrilled to reach her WW goal of 138 pounds. She looked and felt good, and I had to gently tell her that her body fat percentage of 31 wasn't in the healthy range. The scale weight would have been fine if some of it was muscle!
Don't worry about the variation in bf readings from morning to evening on your Tanita scale. It's measuring the difference in hydration levels, and the food in your stomach. Use the reading first thing in the morning after you go to the bathroom, before you have water or coffee. I've measured a 4% drop in mine after 45 minutes of slow cardio. I did not burn up 4% of my body fat!
Soooo, I wrote you a book here. Did I answer your question?
Mel
New Maintainer Needs Advice
