Quote:
Originally Posted by ncuneo
I'm personally new to maintenance, but I'm finding as long as I stay on my "maintenance plan" I, surprise surprise, maintain my weight. If I think about it, which is difficult because it was a long time ago, but the last time I weighed in the 140s my eating habits were similar to what they are now.
In general people return to their higher weights because the return to their old eating habits. .
I concur, but I want to clarify ncuneo's point: a lot of people think "I was eating X and stayed at a stable 200 lbs. Therefore, if I lose 50 lbs, I can go back to eating X and stay at a stable 150 lbs". There IS a real set point, but it's not "your body will weigh 200 lbs no matter what", it's "If you eat like this, your body will weigh 200 lbs". It works like this:
The reason you reach a stable point at a certain level is that your body needs less energy as it gets smaller, and turns extra energy into fat. So if your body needs 2200 calories to maintain 200 lbs and you lose 50 lbs, now your body only needs 1800 to maintain (numbers all made up). If you then go back to eating 2200 calories, now your body has extra energy to turn into fat. Once that fat accumulates back up to 200, your body now needs all 2200 of those daily calories to keep going, so it quits adding more. This looks like a set point.
As you lose weight, your maintenance calories go down, so it might be something like this (numbers made up):
Maintain at 2200 calories.
Lose 50 lbs by eating 1400 calories a day.
New maintenance: 1800 calories.
The good news is that your appetite tends to adjust, if you pay attention (if you don't pay attention, eating HABITS take over, not appetite.)