[ap90]

Hey everyone,

Been a long time since I posted but right now I'm in this phase where I'm moving from losing weight into maintenance. I've been fluctuating between 132-135 for ~2 months now. I realized last week I wasn't eating enough in comparison to how active I am. I usually weigh 132 a day or two after I ate more then usual. I figure I'll start eating maintenance calories now since I'm so close to my goal of 130 and let these last few lbs drift off on their own over time through exercise.

Also, I'm more focused now on lowering my body fat percentage now to get rid of some of these fat deposits then I am on losing weight overall. I workout every single day. Even if it's just a 20-minute weights session I do get some form of exercise every day. Usually it's at least 30 minutes. In general I am pretty active in my life (classes are all over the place at school, never take the elevator always the stairs, parking at school is in a pretty crummy lot so it's a long walk in, etc.).

I was thinking that doing calorie cycling is probably best during this transition phase as I get used to eating more calories. Before I was probably eating an average of 9000-10000 calories per week. I'm thinking about bumping it up to 11000 calories/week. I did plug into freedieting.com and at my weight and fitness level that still puts me in the "fat loss" category. I've thought about my schedule and taken into account long/short days at school. I think this would be a realistic week for me:

Sunday: 2000
Monday: 1500
Tuesday: 1400
Wednesday: 1300
Thursday: 1500
Friday: 1500
Saturday: 1800
Total: 11000

Weekends are usually my weakness so this way I'm able to allot more calories to my weekend anyways.

I just wanted some second opinions on whether I'm doing this right? I know it's all trial and error but do you think I should spread out my high days rather then have them back to back?

Also, what kind of luck have people had zig-zagging their calories?

[ap90]

Wow, just noticed under my username it says "150s here I come", my current weight under my avatar says 163.6, and my weight in my signature is 160. It HAS been a while! I guess I should update those.

[Lee NZ]

Haha I noticed that too...you will need a new tagline! : )

Congrats on your weightloss and getting to maintenance. I hope others have advice for you on the numbers but please let us know anyway how they work out for you. Its when I get to maintenance that I need to do the most work this time I think. I have never really mastered maintenance as I would like.

I like your idea of having different calorie levels for different days. Would be curious to see how it works.

Lee

[lin43]

I zig-zagged (aka "calorie cycling") all through my weight loss and have done it all through my maintenance. It just makes more sense to me: Some days I will eat more than other days.

However, I think your maintenance estimate is a bit low. I'm 44 years old, only 5 ft 3, and my weekly calories are 15,400 to maintain 135-137. Granted, I get a lot of exercise (1-2 hours, 6 days a week). However, in that you're younger (I think? You mentioned college) and taller than I, you should be able to eat more than 11,000 calories a week. I did a quick estimate for you in freedieting, guessing your age as 20 and putting your activity level in as 5 days a week, and your maintainance calories are 1993. Even if we round that down to 1990, your weekly calories are almost 14000.

Perhaps you could increase gradually, but I bet you'll find that you will keep losing at 11000. When I first started trying to maintain, I thought my calories would be 1700-1800 per day. I kept losing, so I increased them to 1900-2000. I kept losing, so that finally brought me to where I am now---averaging 2200 per day (but, as I mentioned, I do a weekly count).

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

ETA: Don't be alarmed if you gain a little when you're initially adding more calories. You will probably see a temporary gain on the scale due to having more food & water in your system. That will go away eventually, though. I did not weigh often during the inital stages of maintenance and still don't----once or twice a month at most (under the same circumstances, though).

[ap90]

Thanks for all the information. It was very helpful I think I will start at the 11000 range and if I notice I'm still losing I'll start increasing slowly each week. I just don't want to increase the calories all at once. I'm scared that will make me gain.

I was a little too fixated on my weight bouncing up and down so I had actually banned myself from weighing-in for the month of March. On April 1st I'm going to weigh myself to see how this month went for me.

Although, I was on spring break this week so I didn't make the best choices.