If you are in maintenance, how many calories do you eat?

Can you tell me your height, weight, exercise and frequency and how many calories keep you at maintenance? I'm still working on increasing my calories and just curious really.

I've worked out my numbers and every mathmatical formula I do it comes to about 2,100 - 2,200 (which I think is a little high). But, according to the calculations, I should cut down to 1,680 to lose weight (this is with heavy lifting, mind you) and that's pretty much what my trainer told me (he said 1600 is the bare minimum that he would recommend for me right now). This would be for a slow rate of fat loss while helping me maintain my muscle mass. That's the reasoning anyway. I'm highly skeptical.

I have stopped tripping about the number on the scale and am focused on fat loss now. This week anyway.

***let me know if you want the formulas I used and I can C&P them here, one of them requires a lot of calculating.

Hi M
Still tying to figure this out. Am doing about 1000 cal per day. I don't do much in the way of formal exercise - just do chores and am much more active than i used to be. Had that RMR test which was 936 calories. So i am a pretty slow machinge. Dr. Jossart used to say many of his patients had to stay at 1200 or so to maintain. That will probably be me. I am 5'4.25 inches tall and weigh 128. Thats a few pounds below goal but I wanted to have a little "room". I am 30 % body fat by dunk tank test which sounds like a lot but doc said its pretty ok for age 59 and gender. I am glad you asked this question and will be interested in seeing other responses. I had those tests in part to try to determine mainenance levels. and i know i gotta get some muscles from somewhere. is there a "muscles are us" store?  D

See, I believe the sleeve can be a double edged sword. I think we diet at such extremely low cals for so long that our metabolism drastically slows down, thus requiring such low cals for maintenance. I'm doing everything I can to boost my metabolism so that I don't have to eat 1,000 cals the rest of my life to maintain. I'm hoping my efforts work but I'm still tweaking and building my way up so only time will tell.

I wish there was a muscles r us store! I'd order the Freaky Big Muscle for Females pack. hahaha

this could very well be, but many of us already did this by yo yo dieting and losing and regaining weight. but you can't lose weight without lowering caloric intake, sleeve or no sleeve so what else can we do.  I had dieted over and over since childhood and always regained weight plus a little. i decided about 10 years ago that traditional dieting was making me fatter and i was not going to do it any more. my surgeon told me this was probably a good decision as i might have ended up fatter. i think i have just always had a slow metabolism and i have never been an very animated or figity person so thats certainly part of it. took thyroid as a child and young adult but stopped and it has tested normal repeatedly even with a very thorough bunch of tests from an endocrinologist at a medical school. so i just am one of the slow pokes and thats the way it is and will probably have to live within the 1200 calories. but for the first time in my life i feel ok with that. enjoy being NOT FAT so  much that i can live with it. but i would still go to muscles R us if I could. but first stop would be total lower body lift and i don't think thats gonna happen.  D

Yeah Mandy, my calculations are about the same as yours, but I just can't eat that much.  I usually end up about 1400 or 1500 a day unless we go to a party or something.  The only way I seem to be able to get more in is if I eat things I shouldn't.  I'm skeptical about eating that much on a regular basis too.  Every once in a while maybe, but every day??  I also don't do tons of cardio anymore...mostly concentrate on the lifting.  Everything I've been told is that too much cardio burns off your muscle unless you can support it with extra calories.  I maintain very easily on this amount of food/exercise and am afraid to go screwing with it ya know.  I'm sure once my swelling from plastics is gone I'll see a 6 pack.  I can see the top 2 right now.  But it'll be months before it's gone completely.

Now, if I continue to slowly lose, then I'll have to adjust...time will tell.  My husband's about ready to force feed me, lol. 

Laura

Also Mandy, if you do decide to up your cals...do it over a few weeks..not all at once or you may see a small gain and freak yourself out.

Laura

Yep my trainer just about keeled over when I told him I was eating around 600 calories a day. lol I've been increasing my calories by about 100-150 per week and it's working ok so far. I'm up to 900-1,000 and still losing, albeit slower than before. I think it's vital to increase my cals so that my metabolism doesn't remain shot to hell, kwim?

I've noticed there are some disagreements amongst professionals in the bodybuilding field, but there are a lot of constants and one is what you said, that cardio burns muscle. Lots of people stop cardio when they want to gain muscle. I believe Brandilynn said she dropped cardio for the most part. I want to gain muscle but also burn fat so I never know quite what to do. My trainer says cardio is ok a few times a week since I want to burn fat, but I know he's not big into cardio when it comes to building mass.

I eat about 7 times a day now but two of those times are protein shakes. I'm doing that not only to increase cals, but also to increase my protein. My protein has really been pitiful as far as lifting is concerned. I've gotten it up to around 100ish a day now which is good, but I don't think I can get to my goal (120-150) without a third shake.

Do you eat carbs, btw? I'm considering adding a bit more carbs into my diet (beans, long grain rice, veggies, whole oats) but I just don't know how much room I have for that. I do think it will help with my energy, which is generally pretty low, especially when I combine cardio with lifting.

I really really really want to bulk up my muscles, but as far as what I've been reading, people generally need a surplus to do that. Then once they bulk, they cut to burn the little bit of fat they gained. It's so hard to trust in the method when I feel I'm a bit of an exception due to the VSG, etc.

Have you seen this site? I've been reading it tonight and it has tons of great info on calories, lifting, etc. There is a calculator where you enter your stats and it does the math for you to find your caloric need. It's cute - it has a little greeting in it. = )

Go about 2/3 of the way down to "CLICK HERE TO CALCULATE YOUR BMR" and click the link

http://www.hussmanfitness.org/html/TFCalories.html

Yes, I do eat carbs...always have...even in the losing stage.  That's why I don't have big gains when I cheat...because I'm no****er depleted like a low carber.  But, since I follow the protein first rule I can't eat too many cause I'm too full...but I do have treats everyday in the form of sugar : )  I ate bad over Thanksgiving weekend and no scale changes.  I even had 1/2 a small movie popcorn and no change.   

Bulking for some of us is hard.  I have a female trainer friend who's married to a trainer as well and she works out like a dog and she's got a back like Brandi's but no butt or arms.  Me, I'm all arms...huge biceps and triceps...small back, very developed chest, so so quads but more density in the hamstrings.  It all boils down to genetics.

Thanks for the website...I'll check it out.

Laura

Ugh my back seems so hard to build. I think eventually I will need to focus on it more. My hams aren't great either, but my trainer has me focusing on those more than I did when I was working on my own.

 height 5'11

weight 166

exercise and frequency once a week machine pilates, once a week spinning and once a week family sport****skating, skiing, roller-blading ,biking but with the kids so slow)



and how many calories keep you at maintenance that is hard but between 1000 to 1500, the reason it is such a huge gap is because i have days I can hardly eat and some days my sleeve is in a hungry mood..