I just had a thought (and I'm sure I'm not the first person to have this thought), but If I calculate what BMR is at what I want my maintenance weight to be and eat at that calorie level NOW, I should lose weight, correct? Then when I get to that weight I'll already be eating the right number of calories to maintain...
It depends on how many calories you were consuming before, how much you need to maintain your current weight, and how much of a deficit is being created by eating the maintenance calories for your goal weight. Given your current and goal weight, it might work for now, but as you lose more weight, you'd still need to decrease your calories to keep up a deficit.
For example, to maintain my goal weight, the site I use says I'd need a little over 1,600 calories, and to maintain my starting weight, I would have had to been consuming ~2,200 calories. That creates a 600 calorie deficit, and I could actually eat more than maintenance and still lose at a healthy rate. But now that I'm closer to my goal weight, I need to eat less than maintenance to continue to create the same deficit.
Last edited by KenzideRhae; 11-19-2010 at 11:12 PM.
Yes - although you may have to tweak a bit as you get closer to your goal. (I thought I was eating my maintenance calories for my goal weight but it turned out that I was actually eating my maintenance calories for 40 pounds above my goal weight.)
Your BMR is the number of calories you need to maintain a given weight if you are in a coma. So your maintenance calories at that weight will be higher, if you plan on walking around and talking and stuff, and even higher if you exercise.
Personally, I find adjusting and tweaking calories slowly over time to be much, much easier than jumping all the way down all at once. I used to think I was an "all or nothing" girl who liked to get it all over with at once, but it turned out that, for me, that was just macho bull****. I liked the IDEA of doing it all at once--I treasure toughness--but the practice was much more difficult and really had no benefit. All those "all at once" diets crashed and burned.
This time, I have constantly adjusted my calories. Every few weeks I ask myself: How am I losing? (goal is 1% a week). How hungry am I? (Goal is to feel like "I could eat" but not tired, cranky, unable to sleep, or lightheaded). If my answers aren't what I am looking for, I adjust what I eat, when I eat, or how much I eat. I've nudged my daily calories every couple months--and I've nudged them up as often as I've nudged them down, as my increased capacity for exercise has led to a larger calorie deficit. As best I remember, the overall arc was something like 2300--1800--1400--1200--1500--1800--1600. I'm now a little over that, but it's because I am only half-dieting as I try to conceive.
As a safety against the "comforting lie", I always wait three days between the decision to adjust my calories and the actual adjustment, to make sure it's not just a craving talking.
Basically, there's no one-size-fits all solution. I think this really does take constant monitoring. You have to think about this every day, not just decide once.
The *problem* is, is that all of those calculators are incredibly inaccurate. You can't go by them. They can not be relied on. They are all guesstimates and they guesstimate on the very high side. If I listened to them as to what they told me to consume just to lose, never mind maintain, I wouldn't have gotten very far. In fact, I would have gained.
It's also about your patience level. Eating at maintenance calories requires work and effort and with all that work and effort , you may see very, very, very little results and many people then get the feeling of why even bother.
When I made the decision to lose the weight, I viewed it as a life or death situation - because it was in my case. Each case is different. There was no time to *play around*. Even if my life wasn't on the line, I was done waiting around to be my optimal, I was done settling for second best. I was done settling for an inferior quality of life. I'd sat on the side lines for waaaay too long. I was ready to really, really LIVE my life and discover who I was meant to be. I wasn't willing to wait years and years and years to get the weight off.
Yes, that would work, though it does take longer than creating a larger calorie deficit. The tricky part, as mentioned, is that we don't really know what our maintenance calories will be.
That said, you can certainly experiment and give it a go!!
Yeah. I'd really, really hoped that my maintenance calories at goal (145-150ish) would be in the 1700-1800 range. I was wrong. Turns out that's my maintenance level for 185-190. :P
I suspect that the online calculators are off by a good bit for many of us. I use the gowearfit to monitor my burn. While I realize it's not completely accurate (IIRC, they estimate within 10%), I do believe it is fairly consistent and it was a huge eye opener for me. My metabolism really does suck. (I guess the nicer version would be that I am genetically engineered to survive a famine.)
I was never a binger (unless I was dieting), generally ate healthy, etc. I seriously couldn't figure out why I kept on failing at keeping the weight off. Why was I failing at something so basic?)
Then I did the math. To gain 20# a year (which was my trend), I only needed to consume an extra 200 calories a day on average. Even at well over 200#, there were days when I was burning only 1800 calories. Uh, there's my answer. Why yes, I can gain and have repeatedly gained 20# a year averaging only 2000 calories a day.
Anyway, this is a long way of saying that the only way you'll *know* your maintenance calorie level is when you get there and see the level at which your weight actually stabilizes. And even then, it will change over time and need tweaking.
All I can say is that this worked for me to lose the last 6 lbs *but* this is how I did it.
I set my cals for my goal of 140 lbs which on my loseit app is 1980ish. So 2xs a week (generally when I was working out less) I would set my cals lower in the 1600 range. Then 4xs a week I would eat 1800-1950 and then exercise burning about 300-500 cals. Then Sundays were a huge exercise day of burning 800-1200 cals (I was training) and I would eat as required. Now it did take a LONG time to lose those last 6 lbs (probably 3 months to lose the first 3, but only 2 weeks to lose the last 3 I have know idea why) and I think I am not the norm when it comes to losing and calorie intake so proceed with care.
And in terms of *knowing* my maintenance range now that I'm done - nope - I'm still losing...but I guess I'm not 140 yet and I'm still at a deficit 2xs a weeks with the calories and the rest of the week with the exercise. So I suppose to stop losing I'd have to start eating back my exercise cals...anyway my point is that 1) I haven't figured out maintenance yet, and 2) it's all an experiment that you have to figure out for yourself. My point behind that being that I asked this very same question and got very similar answers but I did it anyway and it worked for me.
I remember reading a about a book here, which laid out an eating plan where you ate at your goal weight maintenance level to lose. The idea was that you're getting used to what you'll need to do for life.
I thought about it, but like others have said, it would take longer than I'm happy with.
The difference between maintaining my goal and my current weight is only about a hundred or so calories. I need over 3,000 cals in deficit to lose a pound, and I have 20 lbs to lose. So you can see why I dropped them lower!
eating @ maintenance calories to lose?
