Calories, maintenance and goal

I seriously laughed out loud.  Meeow is either completely off her rocker or the greatest troll ever.

She's entirely real.

Multiply your goal by 10 to get an estimate of your maintenance calories.  You would need 800 calories to maintain at 80 pounds if you are exercising about 30 minutes most days.

If It Fits Your Macros is a good place to calculate your calorie, fat, carb, fiber, protein, water, and exercise numbers.

I wish I had an answer for you...but all I have are hugs, because I am the LAST person to be able to give advise about maintenance calories etc.  I hit goal, once upon a time, and have been fighting to stay there (or see the # again) ever since

it depends... on your body, weight, height, and what you eat...  

if i eat grains - not only my gut get inflamed - but I also gain weight..even with relatively low calories.

Avoiding grains, dairy (allergies) plus some starches  -  I can't eat enough to keep my weight up. I just lost 2 lbs this weekend - not even trying... I ate guacamole, pork rinds,  berries, eggs and bacon, nuts, nut butter...  etc..  

when you follow low carbs - adding even small amount of carbs makes the body hold onto it- and when we keep carbs - we store water.... water is good... I don't' eat enough carbs - and i can get dehydrated very easily...  (dehydration = muscles twitching, irregular heartbeat, muscles spasms, nausea, etc etc...) 

That's why a scale that measures body fat% can be very helpful in finding out what is going on.  My body weight dropped by 3 lbs from yesterday... but my body fat % increased - indicating I am dehydrated... 

When I eat salty foods or more carbs - my weight may go up -= but my body fat % will go down... indicating my body is retaining fluids... fluids + summer =very good thing... 

If you find a good solution, let me know. :)

I'm 5'3", within 25 lbs of goal and two years out. I would love to lose that last 20+ lbs and get into a 'normal' weight range. Due to arthritis, I'm not very active other than walking and gentle gardening. My calories fluctuate between 850 and 1300 a day, averaging out at about 1100/day over the week, which lets me maintain within a 5 lb range.

I think the combination of a lower activity level, my height, and especially 60+ years of weight gain/loss cycles determines the number of calories needed to maintain or lose weight now. Even before WLS (at 280 lbs.), I would gain weight on 1600 cal/day and would only start losing 1 lb/wk at around 1200 cal/day. 

I would like to think that if I could stay around 700 cal/day for 3-4 months, I could lose the rest of the weight and then just maintain on 1050/day. So far that plan isn't working out very well. 850 cal/day seems to be the minimum needed to keep me from getting too hungry, even when it is mostly dense protein. But I'm still working on strategies and solutions, and have not lost hope. And I'm so healthy and strong compared to pre-WLS that I've achieved most of my health goals, even if I haven't reached the number goal.

Good luck to you!

I am three years out almost. I have been at the same weight for over a year now. I have come to the conclusion that I had to eat less calories. 

I have lost 20 pounds since March. I feel restriction still. Thank goodness. So if you have that  restriction feeling you can keep losing. I am working on another 20 that I want to lose. I know when we started out it came off so fast. It can be scary when it stops. 

It is totally doable. I think we all have to count how much we eat and keep a journal. It keeps me grounded when I do. I have had a problem with carbs lately and I am trying to wean myself off of them. 

It gets harder to lose the closer you get to goal. I could  eat more carbs when I was losing, and not see it on the scale, than I can now. Sometimes when I eat things out of my normal routine, I will see a quick jump up....if I go back the next day to boring basics... it turns around in a day or two. Damn water weight.

I highly recommend getting professional body fat testing done if you can. It is very eye opening and showed me I was closer to goal than I thought. I found out the goal I originally picked from the BMI charts- which I thought was the high end of normal for me, was really at the low end of normal... This is my original Body fat testing post. 

I redid it a few weeks ago and eyeopening again.... well worth it.