Why am I still losing weight when I am trying to maintain!?

Wasn't sure whether I should post this on maintenance or weight loss, but since weight loss gets more activity I posted it here.  Mods go ahead and move it if you like.

So starting in April I was following CC's suggestion based on my weight and height and eating about 1450 calories a day with a light activity level to lose 1 lb a week.  It was working until August when I hit a plateau.  I didn't lose weight for the whole month, so I thought screw it, I'm pounds away from my goal but I am already happy and looking good, so I will just maintain.  So in September I focused on maintenance.  The average for the month was about 1900 calories consumed per day, and CC says my maintenance is about that much for my activity level.  But, I lost a total of about 3 lbs in September.  I don't think I am overestimating my calories consumed because I weigh and portion everything I can.  I also use a heart rate monitor that tells me how many calories I burn working out so I don't think I'm underestimating my calories burned either.  What's going on?  Now that I think of it, I am young, I ate like a pig before and never seemed to gain weight, I was never overweight to begin with, and there are no overweight people in my family even though they all eat like pigs too. So am I just blessed with a faster than average metabolism?  I'd be pretty happy if I could eat even more than I am now and still maintain, but I don't want to end up eating too much and then gain the weight back, you know?  Should I keep eating maintenance and see if it evens out and I stop losing weight, or boost my calories and see if I can maintain that way?  Thanks for any advice.

What are your stats and what do you do for activity?

174 cm, 58 kg, activity is about 30 minutes jogging 6 days a week, plus some light muscle training at home (squats, lunges, push-ups, sit-ups, stretching etc.) about 40 minutes every other day.  If I feel like I need to work out extra due to eating a little more than I should, I throw in some Jillian Michaels workout videos or Dance Dance Revolution.

I would increase your calories to 2000-2100 a day since you lost 3 pounds while eating 1900. You are pretty active and 1900 is a bit low especially since you're young.

Wow same thing for me.


Difference is though when i first started maintenance thats afte rlosing hundred pounds my weight went fkuctuated between 163 and 165bfor 2 months, this site says i should eat about 1900 so i ate 2000 calories and now im at 160 pounds im not complainging though.


I think its bcause i ride the bike a half hour a day i guess plus do some weight lifting for my arms.

Ifi keep losing like to 155 ill up my calories by 100 or 2 i guess.

Original Post by chrissy1988:

I would increase your calories to 2000-2100 a day since you lost 3 pounds while eating 1900. You are pretty active and 1900 is a bit low especially since you're young.

Yeah, I wasn't sure if the exercise I did counted as light activity or moderate.  CC says 1910 calories for light, and 2160 for moderate at my height, weight and age (I'm 23). There were a couple weeks in September when I ate closer to 2100 than 1900 and I didn't lose anything those weeks, so maybe I'd be better setting myself at a moderate activity level.

But what I have been doing up until now is I set myself to sedentary, and I log all my calories consumed and calories burned in my own excel spreadsheet separate from this site.  I aim to have my calories consumed minus my calories burned equal my sedentary burn rate, which is 1670 (when I was losing weight I aimed to have calories consumed minus calories burned equal at least 1200).  So it usually works out that I eat about 1900 calories (or around 1400 when I was dieting) and burn about 200-250 or so extra calories through daily exercise, which is about the same as setting myself to CC's light activity level anyway.

Online calculators can only go so far and then 'commonsense' has to fill in the gaps.  If the calculator says X and you're still losing weight then you simply have to eat X+ until you find the level at which you stop losing weight.   You need to burn up an extra 3500-3600 cals to lose 1lb of fat.  If you've been getting 2100 and you're still losing at the rate of 3lbs in 4 weeks  you're about 350-400 cals short on a daily basis.  

I may not have all the information, but if, during the time period you gained weight, were not active/exercising and then you started maintaining calories and exercising, you're metabolism probably increased due to starting up the exercise again. Then, since you are still active, you upped your calories to maintain, you probably need more calories to maintain due to increased metabolism. This is probably all stuff you know already. As the others said, I would just start increasing calorie intake 100 cals at a time to see what your maintenance really is. I think the amount of exercise you described, btw, is closer to moderate. :)

Sometimes when your calories are too low your body goes into conservation mode.  1200 calories is quite a high deficit.  Maybe when you increased your calories you gave your body "permission"to lose weight.  If you still want to lose weight great, keep it there.  If not play around with your calorie intake until you find your maintainance level.  I know CC calculators underestimate my maintainance by 300-400 calories a day!

Ok cool, thanks for the advice everyone.  Since I only started eating my maintenance early because I hit a plateau a few pounds short of my goal, I think I will keep eating what CC says is maintenance for me for a few more weeks to see if I can lose those last few stubborn pounds.

A lot of people find that they continue to lose weight once they switch to maintenance calories.  Then, once their body finds a "happy place", it stops losing and maintains instead.  Note that this is mostly for people whose goals were well within the healthy range.  People who want to lose right down to the lowest possible BMI don't see this as much.