I am 53 years old and have gone through menopause (that does make a difference to some people's metabolisms, myself included).

I maintain on 1800-2000 cals per day and lose on 1500-1600.

I work a very physical job, walking large dogs. I do 5 walks with an average duration of 45-50 minutes each every day Mon. - Fri. I also do yoga, alternating with strength training, every morning for 30 minutes (except Saturday which is "rest" day).

I have one "cheat" day every week (usually Saturday) where I eat without counting cals. This usually winds up being from 2000-2500 cals.

Dagmar

I'm really glad to hear folks' maintenance strategies. I'm 44 and thinking about how much I exercise and what I'll need to do once I reach my ultimate goal. I'm a bit worried since I really wasn't expecting when I reached goald in '09 to be injured and have "Life Happen". My scale broke and I always looked skinny enough so I didn't see how far off I got.

Now I workout 4xweek, walk 5 miles a day, and bike about six months of the year (no car in our lives). I work hard to muscle up in hopes that more muscle will consume more calories. It helps me with the jiggles too so I keep up a routine of muscle building/strenghthening routines in my aerobic workouts. I eat about 1400 cals but can eat up to about 1600 and continue to lose. I don't know what I'll eat at maintenance this summer but think I'll aim at 1800 during the week and maybe 2200 during the weekend.

Over the past few years, it seems that I'm a different animal in the Fall/Winter versus Spring/Summer. Around December/January, I start to get my groove on then kick it in to gear around February and am very successful from February through August. I sometimes get too enthusiastic with workouts (read "maniac") and ruin everything with an injury in Sept then have to rest for months. Sometimes I think my whole Feb to Aug routine is because of my annual trip back home in August to visit sisters and nieces that keeps me focused on getting skinny.

Anyway, I'm not at maintenance yet but it really is on my mind a lot. I want to stay at goal weight so much. All this work to lose is just too much to waste.

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences and thoughts. It really does help a bunch!

I'm still @evilwomaniamshe "...eating carrots to 'get my crunch on!' ahahahahaha

For the past 8 days...I have COMPLETELY push the envelope (and had lots of fun doing it...I must say)...I ate a total over 20,500 calories (8 days), for an average of approx. 2,560 cals/day. With my last day (yesterday) calories totals over 3,700! So far this week I've only ran twice (10.8 miles). I expect to run today...and I'll see how the knee is doing tomorrow.

Monday is weigh-in day..so I guess I'll know then if my body can hang with 2600 cals/day for maintenance. What would really FREAK ME OUT is if I actually loss? Then I'd have a carrot party fiesco up in hurrrr!

Thanks again all!

I'm maintaining for 20 months, am 42yrs. old & exercise daily 30-60 min. You eat pretty clean, I have found if i eat clean everyday, I can eat much more and it doesn't effect me. If I sneak in a little candy, I gain instantly. If I stay at 1700-1900 for 1-2 days it does nothing to my weight, if I do that for three days I gain. So I think 1500-1600 a day to maintain. My body seems to be trying to stabilize right now. I just can't figure it out even after 20 months!

I haven't perfected it yet. I'm eating around 2000-2500/day (estimated), exercise 1-2 hrs 5-6 days a week and lost 1 pound in the past few months. Previously was losing 3-4 lb/ month on same exercise and 1800/day.

I'm 33. 170 is my "red line" and current weight is 164.

Ok...so yesterday was TOM...soooo glad that the "eating tyrade" can now be over! I weighed myself even though I knew I gain 2-3 lbs of water weight just to see...

Well...to my surprise, I weighed in at 155.6! That is .8 lbs more than last week! That means after over 20,000 calories...I gained NOTHING! I probably actually lost weight? What the....hey now? Which leads me to my next question...

Does your body require more calories (due to expedited metabolism) during PMS? What do you ladies think? Discuss.

Joyfulloser - I can't remember where I read it but I once read that you burn about 300 more calories on a pms/TOM day than you would normally need. I bet that varies for everyone though and if you already need extra calories you may burn more too?

Either way, am very jealous. I am not quite to mnx yet, still working on last few, but I lose on 1200 and maintain at about 1500 with 1hr of running 2-3 days a week and lots of biking (I don't own a car)

Today's weight 154.8 and it's only day 2 of TOM! I ate 5 slices of Digiorno 3 meat pizza...5 SLICES (that's 3 slices short of the ENTIRE PIE!!!) in addition to my normal dinner...almost 4K calories in one day...and averaged over 2500 calories for 8 days eating 12 times/day. I only ran 3 days last week (16 miles). WHAT THE...??? This is crazy!

I'm wondering if it is because I "naturally" seem to gravitate towards calorie shifting or (ooops...forgot the other term!). When I first started eating right and exercising in Sept '10, I ate on a frozen delivery meal plan called Bistro MD. I took in about 1300-1400 cals/day. I gradually increased my daily calories as my exercise intensity and time increased. I'm now up to 1700-1800 cals/daily and run 5.4 miles 4 days/week. However, I never stalled or "plateaued" with my weightloss?

I hear all too much about how you have to "drop your calories" the closer you get to goal...but for me, it's been the exact opposite. Perhaps I'm on to something here. Perhaps the key to LINEAR weight loss is to INCREASE your calories while simultaneously INCREASING your exercise intensity/length of time, etc.? Donno...but seems the 'fallback' for most here is to DECREASE calories whenever the scale stops moving and that really seems to make the problem worse IMHO!

...or maybe I'm just a FREAK OF NATURE and should just shutup and be thankful? In any event...

Just something to consider.

/steps off soapbox

Intense exercise doesn't wash out the equivalent calories for me - I exercise a lot, and have since before I entered maintenance. As my calories for maintenance increased my exercise did as well, though not by plan. I increased my exercise steadily over the last two years of maintenance, too. I wish I could increase calories and still lose!

This is SO individual... I can't imagine eating 2800 calories a day just to maintain! That'd make me sick!

I maintain at about 2100 calories a day. I don't exercise (not proud of it, just stating a fact). About once a week I get up to 2700-3000 and always regret it... actually, nowadays I'm trying NOT to do that because I've had stomach issues. I've been maintaining at the same calorie level for 15 years (I'm 41). I was a little heavier for a while (about 8-10 pounds), then I lost slooooowly at 1800 cals/day.

Joyfulloser, how is it going? Forgive my skepticism, and I wish you well, but I can't imagine being able to maintain a weight loss on anything remotely approaching 2500 cal/day. My guess is that your weight "coasted" for awhile (meaning, you didn't regain weight as quickly as you started overeating again), but if you continue to eat at that level you'll be heading back up shortly.

At 5'9" I can see a calorie maintenance range that reaches 2000/day (especially if you're active), but I think it takes at least 2 weeks of steady intake at a certain calorie level to determine if you're going to gain/maintain/lose on that regimen. I noticed that you drew conclusions about what calorie level you could stabilize at from just a few days of excess.

Best wishes for continued weight loss/maintenance.