Hello maintainers,

I'm getting very close to my goal now, and really loving how I look & feel. So far, I've lost at a fairly steady pace (when I've been on-plan!), with two stalls that were easily resolved by tweaking my macronutrient ratios to reduce carbs & increase protein.

I've been wondering whether I ought to start now to gradually increase my calories, thus purposely slowing down my rate of loss for these last 8 pounds, but maybe making maintenance easier, or whether I should just continue on to goal & only then begin the caloric increase.

What are your opinions regarding the pros & cons of each approach?

Hi Su-Bee,

When I got within about 5 pounds of goal, I started to increase my calories a bit...but very slowly. I think I added 100 a day for the first week, and then about another 100 the next week and 100 the week after that, and then I was there. I think it did sort of ease me into maintenance...but, actually, I found out that I kept losing for a few weeks even on the increased calories, and slid passed my original goal so I reset it a little lower. I have found that maintenance is a funny thing. It really is a balancing act. It was harder to stop losing...but not start gaining...than I thought it would be. It took me a good two months to figure it out. Finally, now, four months after I reached "goal", I feel pretty confident that I've achieved the right balance of diet and exercise to stay where I am. Just don't be surprised if it takes a while to find your equilibrium...

I don't have any 100% accurate advice on that (who has!), but the body is something weird at times. When I stopped counting and worrying about planned meals, calories and all that (I had to stop a budding eating disorder, that's why), I actually restarted losing weight, while all I wanted was to stop worrying and hopefully maintain where I was. So you might very well up your calories and still go on losing. Who knows?

Nevertheless, I think it can be a good thing in any case to start preparing for maintenance, if only because it's the hardest part of it all (I mean, the whole part of learning how *not* to regain is the hard bit, I think ^^). So it'll be useful no matter what.

Hi Sue,

I don't have any advice to give you, since you are much closer to maintenance than I am. But I have also considered upping my calories now for the rest of the journey. Part of me thinks that this will ease the transition to maintenance... The other part thinks that this will make me lose my mind. I will be interested in hearing what you decide, and how it works out for you.

I also wanted to say hi from Kitchener!!! Looks like we are neighbours! I spend my weeks in London now (I go to school at Western), but I come to KW every weekend to be with my husband and kids. Until this year, I was a student at UW, though.

Peace, Heather

Hi MrsWolf! I am currently doing my PhD at Laurier!

It's a hard decision - there are so many weird feelings playing into this. One part of me almost feels like by upping my calories now I would be somehow self-sabotaging - like maybe I fear actually getting to goal. And then there is the fear that if I increase my calories, I will somehow WHAM! gain all the weight back.

On the other hand, I really like how I look & feel now, & don't particularly care if these last pounds take a while coming off. And I also like the idea of having a bit more flexibility, so that I can splurge with a few extra calories for special occasions or going out.

I just don't know...!

Su-Bee - I did exactly the same thing Schumeany described. I raised my calories in the last several weeks approaching goal and lost at a slower pace. I continued to raise my calories for the several weeks after reaching goal and ended up 10 pounds below. Adding 100 calories per day is easy - I made my changes in two week intervals, added a little here and there. At the beginning I added in 100 calories of peanut butter every day but left everything else the same!

Good luck!