HIIT when maintaining?

I was talking with one of my fellow workout buddies about HIIT adn how much I love it. But he told me that that's only for if you're trying to lose weight - not maintain. I've reached my goal but still love working out, and I get sick of doing an hour of cardio and never feeling tired or fatigued, so for these reasons I like HIIT a couple times a week to switch it up and actually wear me out. My question, however, is this: Is doing 12 - 15 minutes of HIIT (including warm up and cooldown) too much when maintaining? Will I make my body lose more weight? Thanks for any insight!

It's fine, just don't do it more than say 4 days a week.

I say more power to ya for wanting to stick with exercising. As long as you eat back the calories you are burning (no matter WHAT you are doing), you'll continue to maintain. Just make sure your "net" calories are appropriate for maintenance. 

Keep an eye on the scale every few weeks to make sure you are doing okay. :) 

i wouldnt do it if oyu jsut want to maintin, it just burns a retarded amount of calories... so i guess just eat more maybe if you want to do it.

Don't look at HIIT solely as a weight loss or maintenance technique.  It's also about fitness, which on its own is a very important component of a healthy lifestyle (honestly, I'd argue that healthy eating and excercise are much bigger components of health than weight... but usually lead to a healthy weight over time).

Go ahead and do HIIT if you want to.  And if you get hungrier those days, eat more.

Though you could also find a compromise and do regular intervals for a half hour or forty minutes (including warmup and cooldown) or shorten your steady-state workout but do it at a higher intensity.

I think HIIT definitely has a place in maintaining.  It's great for increasing your cardiovascular fitness, and it's a good way to burn extra calories in a short period of time, if you happen to over-indulge once in a while.  Just don't over do it, and you should be fine.

This might be a dumb question, but what is HIIT?  I'm new here and I've never heard of it.

Thanks, guys. I feel much better now. The reason I started doing HIIT was because I was sick of not ever feeling my workouts, even after an hour of cardio. I mix it up everyday and never do one type of cardio for one hour, and I do classes such as kickboxing, step, yoga, pilates, etc. So HIIT was a great way for me to change up my workout and I actually FEEL IT! Which is awesome. So, the posts about it being about fitness and health definitely line up with what I was thinking. Thanks for the encouragement!

Yeah, I do wantt o try to eat back the calories, I'm just not sure how many extra it burns, ya know? But yeah, I've started listening to my body more, so I guess if I just feel extra hungry I won't worry about it on those days or the day after (I've found I usually feel hungrier the day AFTER a workout, which is interesting to me.)

nitanne: HIIT is high intensity interval training, where you warm up for 5 minutes at your regular intensity/speed, then 30 seconds of all out - your heart rate zooms to 90% or higher, then back down to your regular speed/intesnity for a minute. Continue for 4 to 7 sets, I think? Then cool down. (I can usually only cool down for a minute or two cuz I am so worn out.)

 I think that's right, guys, anyone correct me on this?

Thanks for the clarification.  I've just never seen HIIT before.  It sounds like a great workout.  I've just start back with my cardio, so I'm working my way up to 1 hour.  Actually yesterday was my first full hour, I feel great today.  But I know changing it up is a good idea so I'll keep this in the list of things to try:)