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!

I posted this in maintenance too, but there isn't much activity over there.

Just bumping it up to see if anyone has any ideas.....thanks!

Depending upon how close you are to your goal weight, you might try the 100 calories a month or every two weeks now.  That way, you ease into maintenance at the same time you hit your goal.  And once the scale keeps telling you the same thing, you know you've accomplished what all of us have been looking forward to for so long!

Of course, I understand that you probably want to get to your goal ASAP, and this suggestion would put that off a bit.  At least that's how I'd feel.

How many calories do you have per day now?

I kept losing weight for a month after I started "maintaining" and am still fine tuning how many calories I want to eat. For me my calorie intake depends on how much exercise I do each day. If I do alot I eat more, but if I'm sick and don't feel like expending energy on biking or walking, I cut back.

I didn't eat much fat when I was dieting so I started by allowing myself some avocado on my sandwiches or in salads once in a while. Also by having some sorbet for dessert, or some lowfat yogurt instead of nonfat. So besides increasing my daily intake, I also kicked up the fat percentage a bit.

It helps me to look at my daily burn rate (found on Account Home) versus my intake for the day. If I've expended more than I've taken in, I know I have to eat a bit more...

figurethefat, how did you start "maintaining?"  I mean how many calories where you eating while "dieting" and how many did you start eating once you got to your goal?  I mean I understand what you mean by eating more or less depending on your activity level.  My ultimate goal, is to quit obsessively counting calories and eat more intuitively.  But I know that I need to slowly increase my calories so as not to give too much of a shock to my body.  Then when I find a calorie range that works for me, I can pretty much know how much food that is and how it feels etc etc hopefully!  I mean I don't plan to start eating donuts and cake, I plan on eating the same as I do now, just allow myself more things - like you said - avacado, more carbs etc....