Maintenance help

[Iceman1800]

I need help going from a cut to maintenance please. Overall weight loss is 101 pounds, recent cut brought me from 209 to 184. I still have a bit more fat to lose but I want to maintain for a few months. The long cut ended up draining too much energy so I'd like to stay at 185ish and just lift hard. I was at 1800 calories from January to now. Should I jump to 2000 calories and see how that works?

[AdamWW]

Bit confused... you're a BB.com mod and you need advice on this? No hate just kind of seems odd....

You'll need to know your current rate of weight loss per week while at the current calorie level.

If you needed a simply plug-n-play equation, it would be:

Daily Maintenance = Cutting Calories + ((Lbs Lost Per Week)*500)



So for example, if you've been eating 1800, and you've been steadily losing 1lb per week:

1800 + (1 * 500) = 2300 Maintenance.

[alexincabo]

I'd recommend using an online calculator to get a rough estimate of your maintenance, then eat at it for a week. Weigh yourself before and after to see how accurate it is and obviously if you gain weight cut the cals a bit and vice versa

I need help going from a cut to maintenance please. Overall weight loss is 101 pounds, recent cut brought me from 209 to 184. I still have a bit more fat to lose but I want to maintain for a few months. The long cut ended up draining too much energy so I'd like to stay at 185ish and just lift hard. I was at 1800 calories from January to now. Should I jump to 2000 calories and see how that works?

[gbullock32]

I always reverse diet by adding 200 calories per week until maintaining, mostly due to habit at this point (having done it all the time) but also to keep the water weight gain from making tracking weight harder. I have tried just going to maintenance, usually is a 500-700 calorie jump, and the bloat is annoying for about a week or 2, and depending on the food choices (more fiber) my gut can get a bit rough.

[Grelko]

Over 100 pounds down that's a lot of hard work, congrats man. I'm about 18 lbs down so far.

I personally wouldn't jump clear back to maintenance right away, unless you know your approximate TDEE, because if you go over, you'll start gaining weight back slowly, instead of maintaining. I find it's best to work your way up by 50-100 every few weeks, so that you can pinpoint your actual TDEE. After losing weight, your TDEE will go down a bit, so if you knew what it "was" when you started, that number has changed.

Don't forget, that once you raise your calories again, you'll hold water weight for a couple days, maybe a week or 2, as your body re-adjusts to the new intake level.

By the off chance, if you don't know your TDEE, this is best calculator I've found over the years. It seems VERY accurate.
If you try this one, don't forget to add in the amount of sleep you had.

On the left side of the page, it has (popular calculators). They have a weight loss one with scales, that you can put in your total expenditure and calories. It also works for bulking or maintenance.

http://www.health-calc.com/diet/ener...iture-advanced

Regarding the accuracy on that calculator,
I was at 1934/day and losing right around 1.5 lbs/week, so my TDEE should be real close to 2,684. I sat around doing nothing but playing online games for a while there and when I checked the calculator, it came up with 2,709.

[NinaB55]

I need help going from a cut to maintenance please. Overall weight loss is 101 pounds, recent cut brought me from 209 to 184. I still have a bit more fat to lose but I want to maintain for a few months. The long cut ended up draining too much energy so I'd like to stay at 185ish and just lift hard. I was at 1800 calories from January to now. Should I jump to 2000 calories and see how that works?

Congratulations on the weight loss.

Yes, you can start at 2000 calories.

200 calories isn’t so much, so there shouldn’t much difference from 1800.

It’s a good way to gradually progress to maintenance calories.


https://tdeecalculator.net

You can use the link above to further calculate your maintenance calories estimate.

Eat at the given estimate for 2-3 weeks, increase or reduce according to results, until you get to the ideal point.

One thing I would add is that you shouldn’t freak out if you put on weight, especially the first few days. It’s mostly water weight.
It tends to happen and would stabilise within the week or so.


All the best.

[Heisman2]

I would do what Adam suggested as a minimum if you believe you have maintained lean body massage well recently. That would be a conservative estimate as it dies not take into account the reversal of metabolic adaptations that will occur as you get out of the deficit. I generally like the idea of getting out of a deficit as quickly as possible. That equation would not apply if you have been losing lean body massage towards the end of the cut.

However, if you think the quick water weight gain will mess with your mind then going up 200 kcal weekly is also completely fine.

[SuffolkPunch]

By the way, this article I linked recently has some advice about coming out of lengthy diets which could be worth reading.

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/me...4ndo8y1t5aibsh