Hi Lin, yes, that was probably me. It's a good book. To be honest, I don't agree with everything said in the book, but it was written with great humor and really opened my eyes that I can be eating my maintenance calories now. It only makes sense. It was truly my "duh" moment. I am losing weight without any deprivation. I just need to do careful planning. Had I known about this years ago, it could have saved me many years of going hungry.

I'm so glad it is working for you.

lin43 and gladsome- just wanted to step out and say that i'm doing eucalorics too! i also read about it here and it has made sense. I started seriously calorie counting about 2 months ago and have lost weight, but the old method was bringing me closer and closer to 1200 calories which is something i've tried in the past and havent been able to maintain.

then i found eucalories and calculated that for my ideal weight it will have to eat 1420 the rest of my life to maintain it. I decided to try it and it's been working for me!

i think its a bit of a motivator knowing that this will be my normal amount of food forever so i should get used to it!

JAY-- that 1400 calories... thats not factoring activity though, is it?!? Thats got to be your RMR or BMR....... Which you should NOT be eating at during maintenence, theoretically. However, if you just eat at that amount now and lose some weight and stick with that amount, your body will eventually adapt metabolically adapt to 1400 per day. thats no good....

the weird thing is that I've used different calculators and have gotten different results. However, when i used the chart in "calorie queens"-- the book about eucalorics, it told me that about 1420 would be sufficient to maintain my goal weight. as of now, i am not eating back exercise calories as i am trying to lose, but when i get to goal, i will be eating back to exercise burned calories so i can maintain

Yes, I also didn't agree with everything in the book---e.g., her recommendations to eat only lean meat and low-fat dairy, for example. I don't do either. It's too much like a "diet" for me.

I agree, though: I really wish I had done this years ago. However, I chalk my present success up to not just increased knowledge but greater maturity. Years ago, my weight loss attempts had a definite beginning and ending. I now realize there is no "ending" to it.

Ok, I'm slowly getting my calories up. I'm finding it easier to add more to my meals than add in snacks, although since I have room for more snacks I'm eating more fruit (I love fruit). It's quite easy to grab an apple after I get home in the afternoon or a banana, depending on what's around.

We have so many golden delicious apples though. They're my favorite and I don't intended on letting them go to waste

The calculators all give me different calorie counts too. I sort of picked my maintenance calories after putting my goal weight and stats (I'm a pretty active person in a pretty active job) in various calculators and adjusted the calorie counts down about 15-20% since my metabolism will be slower than a person at my goal weight who has never been obese.

I suppose just like weight loss that maintenance will require trial and error. If I start losing at my maintenance calories I'll know that I need to up them (I believe I'm kind of low-balling it, due to my activity level, but we'll see) or vice versa if I start gaining.

All I know is that I know how to lose weight and I got here through trial and error, so why should I expect maintenance to be any different?

I inadvertantly upped my cals slowly after doing 100 days at 1200-1400 cals this past summer. In September, I ended up averaging 1500 cals and lost 5 pounds. In October, I averaged 1700 cals and lost 3 pounds. I'm now at 1950 as my max, but I am really trying to listen to my body more and worry about the numbers less.

That is so hard for a calorie counter! But if I just feel crazy-hungry, it usually ends up being a 1900 day. Today, however, I'm just not that hungry and didn't work out, so I feel fine at 1500 cals. I haven't lost anything for 2 weeks, but I, too, am just taking these last 5 pounds very slowly.

It has been an emotional rollercoaster to "allow" myself to eat more! But eventually I was getting worn down and faint at the gym. At my current level of 1500-1900 I can still do hardcore workouts 3-4 times a week and feel just fine.

CONGRATS on your awesome loss so far!

I think your process is smart. I go to another forum called Calorie Count, and it seems as if the general thinking there is that too many people go too low for their maintenance calories but that many can eat more than they might think. The recommendation is to up calories slowly and not freak out about immediate, but temporary, weight gains (which could be the result of literally having more food in one's system). After 3-4 weeks of increased calories, your weight should stabilize if you're eating maintenance calories.

I have mainly just made an educated guess at my maintenance calories. I put my stats into 5-6 calorie calculators online and took the average of those as my calorie count. (I also included the basic formula in the book Calorie Queens, which is goal weight x 12). The reason I am guessing is that I don't want to weigh myself. I don't have a good "relationship" with the scale, and from the beginning of this process, I decided I would only go by how I look and my clothing size. Avoiding the scale has really helped me to not become obsessive. The down side, though, is that I haven't been able to experiment with calorie levels to learn what my real maintenance calories are. I definitely haven't gained weight eating an average of 1600-1750 calories per day; in fact, I think I may have lost some based on the fit of my clothes. However, I won't be sure unless I step on the scale and track my progress for a while. I think I'm eventually going to have to bite the bullet and weigh myself.