So for most of us, the goal is to lose undesired weight and get to a comfortable stage. And then maintain that weight for the rest of our lives. I am at my goal weight now, and have by counting calories maintained pretty well for 5 months. However I am worried because I constantly feel pretty hungry. I had a period where I experimented with Intuitive eating, and just in those few weeks, my weight started to shoot way up. I dont really mind counting calories, and is back on that now. But I am starting to get worried about my hunger.

Many days, I feel like im starving. And also having other symptoms of it like drowsiness, brain fog, lack of energy etc. Like I felt when i was in a pretty steep deficit. And acid reflux. And it feels like the only way I can stop those feelings temporarly is to eat until im full. But over time that results in very fast weight gain.

It doesnt make sense. How, if I'm eating enough(healthy foods, regularity, plenty of water etc) how can my body not feel good? Again, I have no problem with discipline and forming good habits and counting calories. But the thought that I will always have to deal with this low energy and feeling like crap, OR become unhealthily heavy is just scary

Is it possible to maintain and not have your thoughts be dominated by hunger? Can you feel good most of the day, and maintain weight, by just watching what you eat and not binging, eating emotionally, eating healthy etc

Hey guys I’ve been in a calorie deficit since the beginning of the year, and has lost about 50lb since. I’ve obviously went over my calories multiple times throughout the journey. I typically eat between 1550-1650 calories a day as my maintenance is around 2100 ( according to a TDEE calculator, though i think it’s a bit lower than that ). Lately, my weight loss has been progressively slow & close to nonexistent. I’m not entitle sure whether i should lower my calories to around 1300-1400 a day, or if i should go a one month maintenance break?

My RHR is 49 and when resting it sometimes dips as low as 41. I have a lot of muscle and have been told I look very “strong and healthy” and I have very large thighs so I don’t know if that increases my TDEE. But I don’t want to gain more weight so maybe it’s good to eat a bit under my TDEE? Might be lower because I skipped dinner (was at a sneaky link and he doesn’t like me eating)

I’m a lot hungrier eating at maintenance than a deficit. Does this go away ever?

What is your normal food for the day, your gender, height, weight and weekly activities?

Edit: letter

Last year I lost around 80 pounds and now I’ve been keeping it off for 7 months now. However, the fear of gaining all the weight back is always in the back of my mind nagging me. I know I most likely won’t gain it back because my hunger cues and appetite is different now, but the fear still kind of keeps me up at night. I would talk to a therapist about it but I have no money unfortunately. Anyways, I just really want to live my life and maintain my weight without the anxiety and fear of gaining it all back eating away at me. Help.

Hi guys :)

Currently trying to find my maintenance calories, but defo have more wiggle room which has been nice!!!

Atm my limit is at 1700 a day (I think it's higher, but still trialling...)

If I had, say 1300/1400 Mon to Thu, that would leave me with 1200/1600 extra to use Fri-Sun. So could prob have a meal out or extra dessert.

Point being, is that okay? Like weekly limit, instead of daily. So example: Friday 1900, Saturday 2300 or 2500, Sunday 2200, if come Monday, I can just go back to my lower days and repeat this weekly (it doesn't throw me off course).

Thank you 😇

I keep hearing the phrase, "you never see a skinny person drinking the diet coke". Is that true? I'm 72 pounds into my journey to lose 270 pounds and I want to find out, do folks who lose weight and keep it off eat foods with sugar substitutes as part of their diet?

At the end of 2017, I was my heaviest at 330 lbs (6') and in late 2018 I decided to lose weight with IF and working out at myt local PF. By August 2019 I was down to 260 and was feeling good but then a PCA stroke in 8/2019 sidelined me for 10 months and during that time I shrunk down to 154 at my lightest.

I had never fit in small shirts and I wanted to but I looked sick and frail so I decided I wanted to be a power lifter. In June 2020, I started going back to PF with the goal of bulking up. I have now been at 250lbs for 2 years by still doing IF but eating whatever I want along with strength training (and elliptical) 3-4 times a week

I can curl 170lbs with ease doing 3 sets of 20 and focusing more on upper body than lower (high resistance elliptical takes care of the lower) and I never felt better. Hopefully will be back in the gym in a few weeks after a freak accident sent me to the hospital for a total of 10 days over the past 3 weeks

A few years ago I lost 70lbs in 16 months (CICO, zero exercise), got all comfortable and stopped paying attention, and then noticed over the next couple of years that the numbers on the scale were creeping up again. Four months ago I decided to actually take action (CICO, gym and kinda paying more attention to nutrition and macros this time), and am now within 10lbs of my ultimate-ultimate goal weight (I'm a healthy enough weight now. But I know I can do better - I want to see how the middle of my BMI feels.)

I've been a little unsure how I will deal with missing the dopamine my scale and graphs give me when they aren't tracking loss anymore, cos I think I lost motivation when I should have been maintaining. But now I see all you guys still working to maintain and I'm going to take maintaining muuuch more seriously than I did before.

I'm happy this sub exists, and now I feel like I've graduated from r/loseit!

Hi I am a 4’11 female who is 25 and weighs 125 and over the year I have lost over 125 pounds and I am ready to start gaining muscle but I don’t exactly know how to bulk I don’t know if I should do a dirty bulk of a clean bulk. I would really like all the help and advice from everyone that can help thank you!

Hi I’m a 4’11 female who weighs 125, and I’m a little scared right now, as my cycle has been coming late the past few 2 months. ( also no I am not pregnant) And I can’t tell if it’s because of my BF% my renpho scale is telling me that my BF% is at %27 and I don’t know how accurate that is nor if I know if that’s to low? Also I did do a body scan in November of last year my bf% was at 34 and then did another one in January and my bf% dropped to %31 and the scan I used was inbody scan for those two. Can someone help me understand this or am I overthinking it?

I also do want to put that I do sometimes fast as well but only usually a 48 hour fast.

So I’ve just finished a pretty agressive cut where I lost about 8kg in just over 5 weeks. However, I’ve heard some people say that you’ll quickly gain back about 1-2kg of weight when you transition from a cut to maintence simply because your glycogen stores will be filled up again and your water weight will increase.

Is this true and would it then be best to cut down to about 2kg less than my goal weight and then start eating at maintenance so that I still end up back at my weight goal once my glycogen stores are refilled.

Also, how would I then go about finding my maintenance?

I know that there is a lot of variation and I have calculated my BMR and TDEE with several different calculators. I was following the recommendations of my fitness pal for calories (settings double checked) and I went from 110 to 103. I am just looking to maintain weight and I wasn’t particularly hungry on their recommendation (1500cal). I am wondering what other people are eating at this weight? I work a desk job but walk a few blocks to get groceries a couple days a week. I do a small amount of strength training and run 30 min about 4-6 days a week?

Any real world experience?

Thanks

Hi, just a curious question as I have started wanting to get into gaining muscle after losing 120 pounds. Will 5 pounds of muscle look noticeable on me ? I’m 4’11 and 24 years old, I weigh around 125 but want to go up to 130 in muscle in my legs and glutes mainly and just want to know if I would actually see any difference? Thanks!

Hi I am a 125 female who is 24 years old. My goal weight is 135 but in muscle. I want to get down to 120 so that way I can gain 10 pounds of muscle which would be 135. But I’m having a hard time understanding this and maybe I’m overthinking it, but say I’m at 120 do I need to eat at maintenance for a few weeks so that way the water weight comes off from eating back at high calories from my maintenance until back around 120 or should I just jump into weights right once I get to 120? I just don’t want to jump into weights while eating at maintenance and still have that water weight and also putting muscle on unless that water weight will still come off while I start building muscle. I hope this makes sense! Any help will do thank you!

I’ve lost about 30 pounds (M30) and now train hyrox, usually gym 4x week and run 2-3 times a week, so activity is good, it’s diet that’s the problem

I tracked everything in my fitness pal app last week, really good week, hit my protein target each day (160g, I weigh 98kg and I’m 6ft) .

This week - I usually have one binge per day - either after lunch, early evening or late at night just before bed

It’s anything I can get my hands on really as I’ve a very sweet tooth - biscuits (I live in UK) , under 100 calorie snacks, peanut butter, honey, protein bars / protein puddings. We don’t keep junk food in the house just these low cal type bars and packets of biscuits.

I would rather not keep them in the house at all but my fiancee likes having some around as she has good self control.

When I’m going well I still allow myself something sweet once a day that fits in my macros /cal count, so I’m not “all or nothing” extreme.

I’m eating a balanced diet high in protein and carb is decent too so not like I’m depriving myself of anything.

I don’t know what to do as it’s railing throwing me off my weekly weigh ins.

We’re getting married in 3 months and I’d like to lose another few pounds. My training is great and energy levels are high but I’m the type of person I can’t get away with over eating - if I looked at a piece of chocolate cake i would put on a pound!

Sorry for the rant, I’m just a bit lost. I’m mentally strong with a lot of things and with training but not with junk food.

I literally tell myself before I eat it “you’ll regret this, you don’t need it, it’s just a habit, think of your hard work in the gym today” but I’ll still eat it anyway and feel crap after.

My gym is really supportive and the coaches help with nutrition, they said to get rid of all these type snacks in the house that I could potentially binge and if I want something I have to physically go to the shop and get it.

Hello Everyone! 👋

I've come a long way in my weight loss journey, shedding 45kg over the past year. Now, I'm looking for guidance on estimating my body fat percentage and deciding what to do next. I'm an 18-year-old female, 167cm tall, and currently weigh 52kg.

My main concerns are whether I should continue losing weight or focus on body recomposition. I engage in at-home dumbbell strength training workouts Monday to Friday and ensure I hit 10k steps each day. However, as a student, my daily activities are pretty sedentary.

I've noticed a loss of muscle mass, and I'm at a crossroads on how to proceed. Any advice on estimating body fat percentage, whether I should adjust my weight goals, and how to tailor my activity level for TDEE would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your insights! 🙏

Images: https://imgur.com/a/gEjSO9z

Hi all,

I have been on weight loss journey for around 6 months, losing around 17 KGs (37 pounds), from 30% body fat to 8-9% (I wanted to be in the healthy range then I overdid it just as a challenge to check six packs) now I am currently on a reverse diet I have always counted calories in this journey, and I still do. I currently do a lot of cardio around 4-5 hours of moderate to intensive exercise per week and resistance training 3 times per week. I don't mind going up in weight as it is meaningless to maintain right now as I finally had photos with six packs. My hunger cues are up the roof understandably as because the low body fat percentage or will it always be this way? But I am still trying to follow and limit my calories and macros.
I wonder what will happen if I give up calorie counting all together and just follow my hunger and fullness cues with clean eating (eating whole foods, nuts, lean meats, full fat dairy) with one-two cheat meals per week. before starting my journey, I was all in on junk food and had the ego that whatever I eat I will not gain weight this was apparently not true, and I gained a lot of weight probably because of the junk food. Is this the same mistake that I am doing now? should I wait on giving up calorie counting? if I depended on hunger and fullness where will my weight be?
Thanks in advance!

I started at 128kg and am now at 86kg. Holy poo I am in my ideal weight range. How did I even. I don- I wasn't. I-

​

Anyway at 90kg I started getting a headache and fever that came and went. At 88kg I got it daily for an entire month. It could of course be unrelated. Then I went to a doctor who shoved 8 meters of tampons into my skull and my body suddenly had real issues to deal with. I think in the next week I ate 44 painkillers.

​

I really started slacking with the headache and fever. I went from my 90 min walk to none. I boxed at home whenever I felt well enough, but we're talking 2-3 sessions, no longer than 15 minutes each, a week. I've really slacked for the last 6 weeks and somehow I have still lost 2kg. Not only did I slack off on exercise but my caloric intake has on average gone up by over 100 per day.

​

It honestly feels as if my body has just realized it's okay to turn the metabolism up or something. I know that for 9 years I had huge problems with building muscle and continuously got weaker and weaker the more consecutive weeks I worked out, but the daily walks somehow worked. I expected to get super weak from walking, but no, any weakness was only temporary and my leg muscles were eventually able to catch up.

​

The boxing is great since I can adjust it to whatever strength or energy I have. I've boxed for over a month and somehow I've only had 2 sessions that lasted 30 minutes. My body even hurled some spit on its own during my 3rd session. I have not had the energy to go past 15 minutes since the first week, but I guess that is fine. We all have our limits and comfort zones.

​

My plan for now is to resume my daily 90 minute walks and gradually increase my kcal intake from my 1600 goal and back to 2100. I'm seriously tired of the 1600/day goal. Some foods help. Like potatoes, bananas and dark chocolate but I get so bored of having the same foods too frequently. This week I decided to make 5000kcal of waffle batter with tons of eggs, a healthier flour and artificial sweetener instead of sugar. It's a huge batch and I'm gonna enjoy it 500kcal at a time. I also decided I deserved some hot coco so I'm having a cup a day.

Hi all, was hoping to run my plan past the community to get some feedback.

I’m a 45 year old male who has lost about 38lbs over 9 months (211-174lbs). The largest part of my weight loss has been achieved by tracking my food intake.

Overall, I’m happy with my weight loss. I had originally planned to lose a further 12lbs which would have put me closer to my ideal body fat level but last week reached the point where I didn’t think I could sustainably continue (diet fatigue caught up to me!).

I aim to maintain my weight for about 3-4 months to give myself a rest. For this I’m planning to try and keep as much of my existing routine the same as possible since it was working quite well. That means tracking my calories daily, weighing myself, eating similar foods, using Reddit frequently (for motivation!).

I am going to focus more on lifting weights though (5 days a week) with a more structured plan than what I have been doing so far. Adding muscle mass is a priority for me because I feel like I’m below average in that regard and I’m definitely not getting any younger. I read a little about going straight into a calorie surplus but thought it might lead me to over eat and also wouldn’t build the skills I need to stay at a healthy weight for the long term.

For the next two weeks I’m planning to eat at 250 calories more per day than my weight loss intake was (which was 1,900 calories/day). I assume my weight might fluctuate a bit due to water weight changes.

I’ll then continue to increase my daily caloric intake by 250 calories per day every couple of weeks until my weight stabilizes. Once it does I’ll be eating at maintenance.

Then in 3-4 months time I can re-evaluate what I want to do. This might be another weight loss phase to get me to my ideal body fat level but it could just be keeping things at maintenance.

Thanks

I recently went to the doctor's and clocked in at 100 lbs, I'm 4'11 so my BMI is about 20. Although this is in the "normal" weight range, I have a genetic condition and a history of distorted eating habits so my doctor really stressed that I absolutely cannot lose any more weight, and may want to consider gaining 10 lbs. Because of my history with eating disorders, I have a hard time understanding what a "healthy" diet/daily caloric intake should be, and I feel anxious at the thought of having to eat more. But the doctor's appointment was a wake up call and I'm going to do my best to follow her advice.

With that said, she told me that my BMR is about 1,110 with the Mifflin - St. Jeor equation. Before, I was eating about 1,200 (or less sometimes when I was not at my best) a day, or around 9,500 ish a week, and burning roughly 680 calories through exercise daily during the week (1 hour jogging and two 30 minute HIIT workouts 5 days a week) and 160 daily on the weekends (two 30 minute HIITs on Saturday and Sunday), though maybe more.

Going forward, I want to ease up on the exercise and try to eat a bit more, but I'm not sure how to balance those two. I do enjoy jogging in the mornings, and I think doing just one HIIT workout a day would be good. And on the weekends, I can keep doing the two HIITS on Saturday and Sunday. So right now, I'm calculating that as about 450 calories burned 5 days a week and 160 burned on Saturdays and Sundays.

Does this mean I should eat 1,400-1,500 calories during the week? And then 1,200 on the weekends? Would I still maintain my weight if I keep to the above exercise plan and just try to eat 1,300-1,400 every day? Should I change the exercise routine? How best should I go about maintaining my current weight?

I know I probably should've asked my doctor these questions, but the appointment goes by so quickly and I was a little overwhelmed by our conversation. Also, I apologize if this post seems stupid or ridiculous. I really do want to maintain my current weight, but I'm just not exactly sure how best to do it.

As the title states. I have about 2000 calories for maintenance, or 1700 when the summer ends (job changes) and for some reason I cannot stay under my calories. I was so proud of myself today for doing it, but then I just now woke up at midnight and ate some stew and a hot dog bun! Wtf! why was I so controlled and disciplined before and now cannot stay at a objectively easier limit? I see my weight creeping up and I am just.... so mad at myself.

I just won my toughest battle yet with gaining in maintenance, so I thought I would celebrate by making a post. I have my own methods for maintenance, maybe they will be interesting to you! I have nothing against weighing yourself and tracking calories, that's how I lost all the weight in the first place, and I commend anyone for doing anything healthy that works for them to maintain! I am lazy so I fell into a different method for myself.

Since 2019, I've been maintaining without logging calories or weighing myself, using a method I call "no new pants." I do not allow myself to buy new pants because the old ones have become too big or too small. (However I can still buy pants in my normal size whenever I want). This keeps me comfortably in about an 8lb +/- maintenance range. If I start finding that I'm avoiding wearing certain pants because they are getting too tight and uncomfortable, that's a sign to reassess what's going on.

To reassess, instead of logging calories, I look at clusters of behaviors first. The four problem behaviors for me are:

• eating big rich meals at restaurants too often (instead of mostly the repertoire of lower calorie meals I know work for my TDEE)
• not going for walks regularly
• eating processed snacks regularly
• consistently having more dessert than just my regular few squares of dark chocolate

If I can get those 4 dialed in for a couple weeks to a month, I slowly get back into my pants fitting correctly. This method has worked for me through a lot of life changes including lockdown and a kitchen renovation where I had to live on takeout for a year! But this spring I really got into a bad place, where I could only wear my stretchiest pants because the more rigid ones were so uncomfortable and muffin-toppy. I didn't like how I looked either. And I really thought I was going to have to buy pants in a new size because I just couldn't make myself stop doing the 4 no-no behaviors listed above. But finally something shifted, I got myself back on track and stayed there for weeks, and I just realized I can wear even my stiffest all-cotton high-waist jeans again. And I love how I look!

I'm proud of myself! If you need a sign to stop gaining and go back to whatever method works for you, I hope this post will help you!

Hiya! i’ve been maintaining a small weight loss for some time and i’m pretty good at it i think, until a few weeks ago when i realized i kept losing weight do to stress fasting/picking up more shifts/finals. just a lot. The problem is it was a little more weight than i like and now i think i look a little to gaunt. I track my weight using loseit and every time i update my weight it gives me less cals to maintain so i think i was just baring it and letting it take more food from me without actually realizing i’m supposed to be maintaining. I was thinking the best way to fix this little issue is to put in my higher gw into the app and eat at that tdee, would that work? I know the best way to stop would really be to decrease activity but that’s not looking viable at the moment so?

I would like to ask what does "feeling hungry" mean to you guys. I have been dieting for so long so my definition of hunger is actual hunger pangs. If I do not feel hunger pangs I tell myself I am not hungry and I find this extremely mentally hard because after a meal I sometimes still want to eat. However, I justify by telling myself that I must wait until my stomach growls again. I guess my question is, is the impulse to eat also hunger?

I am sorry if this is annoying, but I need advice on what activity level I should select for calculating my TDEE. I am bordering on being underweight and I want to ensure I eat enough

- I get minimum of 12k steps a day, however most days I get 15-16k. I try to hike once a week and those days I get 26k steps.

- I strength train a few days a week, and I am going to add in light exercise like crunches and situps on days I dont lift

- I occasionally go for bike rides or play sports with my younger neighbour

what do you think? Thank you in advance

Has this happened to anyone? After eating at maintanence, I lost weight. Makes me wonder if CICO is real lol and why did I have to torture myself by eating less

Hi everyone - apologies in advance if this sub is not the right place for this post.

My mom has lost and maintained a 200 lb weight loss for the past 15 years and is having long awaited skin removal surgery in May.

She will be having surgery out of state and staying at an AirBNB local to the hospital for 4 weeks with my dad and aunt while she recovers. I love my mom so much - Is there anything that I can do to help make her recovery easier (must have products, meals, etc.)? I have a toddler at home and won’t be able to join her in FL during recovery but want her to feel loved, supported, and comfortable. Thank you for any guidance!