Advice on increasing calories after reaching goal weight

I am hoping someone has some experience with this and can help me out. I am getting close to my goal weight and would like to slowly increase calories when I do get there. To be honest, I am currently eating on the lower side of the calorie intake recommendation. But its working for me. I would like to increase my caloric intake very gradually once I do get to my goal weight. However, I am not sure as to how to do this. One other post here, the girls were increasing 100 calories a month. That seems a bit slow for me, because based on my calculations, I would still be losing close to a pound or more a week for the first 4 months. The other suggestions are to increase 100 calories every week - but is this too sudden?? I'm hoping someone has gone through this and could help me out with some advice! Thanks!

Increasing 100 every week is what I been doing. To tell your the truth, it feels slow, since I was under the minimum calorie intake for loosing weight. I just hit the minimum of 1200 calories. My body slowed on the weight loss gladly. I'm trying to maintain, so the slow down is a good thing now that I uped my calories.

Every body works different. It's all about experimenting to know what works for you. I decided, I'll increase by 100 per week, but if I start to gain weight, I'll stay on the increase I did, but not increase anymore then that till my body begins loosing again. Hit my goal and then increase by 100 again. I didn't gain, so I'm sticking to my increasing 100 per week and so far it's working. I probably will loose a few more pounds before I hit a stop and be able to maintain as I get up to my maintainence amount.

The few pounds loss shouldn't hurt, since I'm not underweight. It shouldn't show on me either at this point. But as I said, it's all about experimenting. My body adjusts quickly to change, so I have less risk than most people on getting the negative effects of things. I hope you'll be able to find out what works for you. Good luck and congratulations on almost being at your weight goal.

thanks kitsuneyami,

I'm debating between 100 calories per week, per two weeks, per month.  I'm afraid that seeing the scale go up would kill me!  I am eating under the minimum calorie intake as well, but I don't want to make sudden jumps.  How did your weight loss slow once you started eating 1200?  Could I ask you stats?  I'm female, 5'3, 128.5 as of this morning and my goal is to get to 120-122.

I'm female, 5'6, 129/128. I'm on the second week of increasing. My first increase was to 1150, and now I'm at 1250. I was 130 when I started to increase the calories. My age will be a factor to, I'm 22.

Actually, I started increasing when I was 2 pounds away from 130, I got to 1050 so I won't loose too much during the slow increase.

I was loosing pretty fast before, 23lbs in 2 months. Almost 3 pounds per week. My weight loss is now about 1lbs a week and hopefully it'll stop soon.

Though my increase is not just in calories. I was changing my eating style slowly as well through out the day.  I started by adding a fruit to snack on between lunch and dinner, than I added a snack between breakfast and lunch, and now I have an extra thing to eat for breakfast. My breakfast use to be just a fruit or a 40calorie yogurt. I added quakers regular oatmeal to go with the yogurt now. 

My metabolism is always busy to since I drink tea 3 times a day and have been doing that for a few months. It's decaf though.

The only reason I added in 100 or 200 calories a day per month was because so I could compare if I was gaining or losing or maintaining.  I can't compare one week to another of my cycle.  I can only compare the exact time each month.

I ended up being able to eat 2300 calories per day.  When I was losing I was on 1300 to 1600 per day.  So I ended up losing a lot more weight in trying to find out my ultimate calorie requirement.

I recently started upping my calorie intake. It wasn't really planned, and it was sort of gradual. I just starting getting hungry and tired on what I was eating before, and I started losing energy during my workouts. So I started eating bigger breakfasts and wasn't as restrictive. I went from eating around 1200 to 1500 calories to eating around 2000 calories over a few weeks. I feel a lot more energized now, and I haven't gained at all. I think I may have been eating too little before, but now I feel great. :) Just "listen" to your body, as weird as that sounds.

I didn't have the option of gradually raising, and even jumping straight to what I thought was maintenance didn't work. I wound up losing 10 lbs more than I anticipated.

My advice would be to jump your calories immediately. If you see weight gain after a week or two, cut it down slightly. Once it's under control, you should focus on giving up counting.

Thanks for the replies.  Its so confusing.  I guess not so much confusing, as unknown territory!  I'm afraid that if I just bump up the cals, I'll gain some inordinate amount of weight, even if its temporary, and that will discourage me and might lead to bingeing.

i totally agree with dm84

dm84, could you tell me exactly what you did??  You lost another 10lbs by eating what you thought was maintenance?

Basically, when I hit 170, I started to panic. So I went to a nutritionist and told her how much I'd been eating (between 1200-1500 a day). She said I needed to start eating at least 2300 a day immediately in order to maintain that weight, and that if that if I kept losing, I would need to eat even more.

So I started eating 2300 a day. A month later I was down another 10 lbs. I bumped it up to 2500, and for a while I held steady, then I lost some more, so now, although I don't formally count, I figure I take in somewhere between 2500-2700 on a normal day. 

Is it possible that your metabolism is super fast?  I have a history of crash diets and am afraid that a huge sudden increase will cause a lot of weight gain for me.  Of course I realize that no one can tell me what I should be doing, its all about trial and error.  I was looking for things that people  have tried and have either worked or not worked, so thanks dm84.  I want to go to a nutritionist but my insurance won't cover it and I can't really afford $150 an hour.

I'm a 6'1" male, so my metabolism is obviously different than yours. All i can do is share my experience, which is that i actually lost weight instead of gaining when I began maintaining.

Trial and error is key here.