Advice on transition to maintenance, please!

Happy New Year all! Hope 2012 is a wonderful year for everyone.

Can I get some advice? I'm not quite to goal weight yet, but still losing well and I'm pretty sure I'll be there in the next month or so. I'm trying to figure out what comes next (I'm the plan-ahead type).

On the one hand, I'm pretty thrilled with how I look and feel at 180 so I'm sure I'll be happy with my 175 goal weight. On the other hand, I want 175 to be my "no higher than" weight, the one where if I see anything above it on the scale I take serious action. So I'm thinking I should go a little below that before I start to transition to maintenance.

So that's question 1: how much lower would you suggest I go below my goal before making the transition? Or am I likely to keep losing a little during transition?

Question 2: How do I make the transition? I suffer still at 8.5 months from "very tiny tummy" and work hard to get slightly above 700 calories on my workout days (I stay around 600-650 non-workout days). I don't want to introduce junk, but I do protein shakes so I was thinking I could introduce some fruit and increase the tiny servings I allow myself of nuts and nut butters. Any other suggestions?

I also have no idea how many calories I will need daily to maintain my weight. I have a suspicion it's a LOT lower than the 1900 calories the online calculators think, but how low I have no idea.

Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions you might have!

Hi, Mom4Jazz,

Welcome!

May I ask why you chose a goal weight that is above a normal BMI? I'm 5'8"  as well, and my doctor encouraged me to go much lower, especially to allow for any bounce back. I got as low as 140 and then bounced back to about 148, which is a BMI of 22.5. I have to say that I look great at this weight! Since you're still losing easily, you might consider losing for a while longer and see where your body wants to settle. You might be surprised. I just kept doing what I was doing for about a year and a half, slowly losing. And then maintenance kind of just happened...

As to the calories you will need to maintain, it's definitely trial and error! My guess is that I use about 1500-1800/day working out 5x/week. I'm 57. When you get to the point that you want to stop losing, you pretty much add back in healthy snacks as you are suggesting, some veggies, fruits,  nuts, etc. And, at 8.5 months out, you can still expect your tummy to relax a bit more so that over time, you will probably naturally increase your portion sizes of protein...

Hope that helps!

Happy New Year!

Lizanne

I'm very large framed. I know "big boned" is a cliche, but you haven't seen my bones!

According to my doctor (and a lot of other sources) the range goes up 10% for large frames and down 10% for small frames. That makes 180 lbs the top of normal for a large frame at 5'8".

I also had my lean mass measured by DEXA scan just a few weeks ago and it's 137 lbs (which confirms the whole frame size thing). At 150 I would have a body fat percentage of 8%, which is not where I'm interested in going. At 175 it would be 21% which I'm quite comfortable with.

I'm not a big fan of body fat scales, but I was measured on one at the gym this morning and it gave me a body fat reading of 21.5% at 180 lbs. Kind of astonished the guy doing the reading. Take it with a grain of salt, but again it fits well with my DEXA results a few weeks ago.

As I said, I want 175 to be the top of my range. I'd like to maintain somewhere in the high 160's or low 170's. But the fact that it doesn't fit in the BMI chart doesn't concern me at all!

Excellent! I really would like to have one of those DEXA scan measures of body fat. I guess not all the machines do it because I asked when I had a bone scan and they looked at me like I was nuts, lol. But you're absolutely right, with that lean body mass, you wouldn't want to go too much lower in weight, so once you get to 165 or wherever, then just add in more healthy snacks, etc. You probably WILL drift a little lower until you figure out the calories you need--and with that kind of lean body mass, you might well come in at the 1900 range!--but you will be able to correct it, I'm sure...

Lizanne

How long ago was your DEXA scan and at what weight?  Carrying around extra weight helps build bones, and as we carry less weight bone density will tend to decrease.  I'm just curious because I'm in a similar boat.    The lean mass in bones is not metabolically active like muscle, and you can have very dense bones and a  relatively low body fat percentage but still be carrying excess fat.  That's kind of where I am at right now, as well.  My body fat percentage is fine, 'healthy',  but I have a fair amount of fat still on my legs, etc. 

My DEXA scan was right after Thanksgiving at 193 lbs. We waited until I was closer to goal for the very reason you cite.

I'm working on the assumption that my lean mass remains 137, but I think it's likely that I am if anything ever so slightly gaining muscle mass now - I am working out very intensely several days a week and am seeing more physical appearance of muscle (subjective, I know).

Can't afford to do a scan again for quite a while so I'll have to go with less precise methods like the body fat scale for now. I got a reading this morning at the gym because they're starting a New Year's Challenge and it reflected a lean mass of 141.5. I'd consider that within the margin of error of the old 137 reading so I'm sticking with the original more precisely measured number.

I have some body fat left on my legs as well. I have almost none on my upper body. It may even out with time, it may not. But I'm comfortable with a body fat percentage in the range of 19 - 21%, which is where I'll be if I maintain in the high 160's to low 170's (even if I don't add more lean mass by working out).

Here's the deal: I have an adrenal condition that caused me to have extremely high testosterone levels when I was a child and teen, into my twenties. It's why I have a square chin and a very heavy, almost masculine bone structure. It is what it is.

I'm very comfortable that my goal weight is based on sound and informed medical advice.

congrats and great advice shared.

 My suggestion is to go 5-10 pounds lower to give room for bounce back

And my suggestion for maintanence is just to do what you are doing now only with more calories and a few more indulgences. I made the mistake of thinking maintenance was this whole different animal and trying all these different things many of which didn't work out and I ended up back where I started.

Thanks. I may shoot for 10 lbs to be sure and keep on program until 165 lbs. If I drift down a little as I'm transitioning I'll decide then whether I want to stay that low or what to do about it.

I'm a little nervous about being able to eat more calories. I've been trying to up my calories on work-out days to 750 and haven't been able to hit that high yet. Today I'm having a "tiny tummy day" (it seems like my capacity waxes and wanes). I burned 602 calories according to the readings on the elliptical (I never know how reliable those readings are) and more doing some resistance, but I'm not up to 600 calories consumed yet.

But I don't want to fall in the trap of empty calories either...I guess it'll be an ongoing experiment.

It's actualy pretty easy to up your calories. Unfortunately!

Some ideas:

A handful of nuts a day
Full fat dairy  if you've been using reduced fat, reduced fat if you've been using no fat
Protein bars (way more calories per g of protein that most protein shakes)
Add in a protein shake as a snack -- I tend to use them for breakfast during the week because my tummy can't take something like bacon and eggs.
Adding in some complex carbs you've been minimizing such as whole grain breads, potatoes, pasta