maintaining/stuck at 135

Hi All!

I had two questions but thought that this was the best place to ask (one is a bit more related to dieting...)

BTW I'm 5'5'' and 135 pounds currently, and I started at 155 lbs in November and have been kind of maintaining at 135 for the last two months or so.  Dieting and maintaining I've tried to eat around 1500-1700 per day. I try to moderately exercise (run/walk) 2-4 miles 4-5 days a week.

1) I would really like to be able to not restrict my calories so much when I truly do start maintaining.  Will I gain weight?  How much should I increase my calories to per day to maintain between 130 and 135? (I'm mostly eating healthy carbs and veggies/fruits.  I'm also restricting meat and dairy (Eat to Live, The China Study)).

1) I want to maintain at 130, and am currently at 135, but I'm having a real bear of a time losing these last 5 pounds.  I think it's because I'm happy that I've lost what I have and I'm content at 135, but numbers-wize I want to be down to 130.  How did you lose those last 5 pounds, and then keep it off?  I'm eating a little bit more now than when I was dieting, could that be affecting it?

Thanks everyone!!

These are things you should be asking a dietician, nutritionist or doctor. would you take seriously anything anyone on this site said about your health? it's a bit risky.

I would say if you kept going though you'd slow your metabolism even futher, do you want to be eating this little for the rest of your life?

Increase and see what happens you can help anything if you do gain weight, most crash dieters do. It's about a healthy lifestyle change not about eating little and excerciseing heaps, my advice is do whats maintainable.

Maybe your not meant to be any lighter? maybe you won't get there, is it that much of a difference? to remain at anything lower you'd be eating quite little amounts, are you happy being there, is it worht it?

these are your decisions and it's your responsibility to see a doctor about it, we cant give you a definate answer and send you down the wrong road.

I definitely appreciate your advice and I"m going to try and up my caloric intake to see what happens.  And I agree, maybe I'm not meant to be lighter!

May I just point out though that this isn't a "crash diet" for me.  I've been working on doing this since November, so I would hardly call that a crash diet.  I've been working out more than I used to but I agree, it is  a change in lifestyle, totally.  I've reformed how I eat and how much I exercise and I plan to keep that change for the future.  Thanks for the advice!

My suggestion is to maintain (and eat a little more, as you say) for a while - see how it suits you. I know that you might have settled on 130 as the perfect number, but it really is just a number.

Plus, it'll be good to give your body a break from dieting. Just keep your activity level up. Have you thought about lifting weights, to add to your running?

Same suggestion as amethystgirl! I'm down to 130 pounds (from 170) and I'd still like to lose about 5 pounds, but since I've been in a deficit for almost a year, I'll eat at maintenance for a few months before cutting calories again. Summer is coming and it's going to be easier for me to take long walks, so that plus my usual weight training and cardio might help me to lose the last 5 pounds without me noticing.

I went into maintenance mode several months before I reached my goal (139 at 5'5 1/2") in December.  I ate to maintenance (or near) and kept exercising and didn't worry at all about how slowly I lost it. After I reached my goal, I decided to keep losing.  However, I kept the same concept of doing it very, very, slowly and essentially, eating to maintenance while exercising to create a deficit.

I've since lost about 7 pounds in a few months.  I don't worry about the daily fluctuations at all. 

One suggestion I have is that you should change your exercising a bit.  Try integrating some other fat-burner like bike riding, elliptical or calisthenics.