Maintenance Calorie Trajectory ----> Week 10 ---> Calorie Increase
Sorry, for the delay in getting this out. Here is this week's calorie trajectory. I will say, it may be difficult to hit calorie targets today. I can't taste anything, because of this darned cold. It makes it a bit hard to eat much. Tomorrow may be less challenging. I'll be at work and get a burrito from chronic taco. Maybe, I'll choose the hot instead of medium salsa to help clear out these sinuses.
I want to take a moment to address anyone that may have concerns about the goal weight stated and/or this approach to transition into maintenance. I have absolutely no intentions of changing the goal weight stated, even if this body lands at maintenance cals at a weight range that is less than the one stated on this profile.
Why?
Because, folks - life is what happens when we're making other plans. In fact, the people that actually succeed in losing and keeping their weight off, understand this inherently. I may settle into a low range and something happens where this body is thrust into the mid to high 140's again. Considering I am attempting to take strength training and lifting weights to another level - I may gain in muscle. By keeping that goal weight there, I give this girl some cushion for life's fluctuations. I hate to break it to y'all, but weight is not lost, gained, or kept off in a vacuum. Providing oneself a cushion is good for both mind and body, especially with weight regain stats.
However, I will say this - 140 lbs is the dream weight and 147 lbs, I will consider the scream weight. The scream weight represents that point where I might need to re-evaluate my daily habits and start paying some due diligence to tracking and calorie counts. This is something we learn in the "half size me" community and a part of "losing with maintenance in mind"
As for transitioning or increasing cals slowly. If folks have confusion about this, PLEASE use google on your computers and look up approaches to "reverse dieting". This is absolutely a wonderful way for this body to find its true maintenance cals. In fact, this girl's maintenance cals may very well be higher than 1700, but this genuinely gives both the body and mind a chance to find out what those are.
The other thing that needs to be taken into consideration is metabolic adaptation. I was in a deficit for 20 months. Technically, I still am but not nearly as severe as 1394/day. By no means did I lose quickly, but that is still a long time for a metabolism to process cals significantly less than what it can maintain at. Doing it this way has been so wonderful for this body. I still can't imagine how bloated and plain awful I might have felt if I just threw myself into 1700/day. I understand there are others that may do well with that, but I like slow, gentle transitions.
Also, I'm only losing .6 lbs/week on average. I'm 5'2 and at least 5 lbs above the top part of my BMI. In short, no one's starving here much less underweight, even if I'm under goal.
Last, but not least - Heather Robertson, the health and weight loss coach I use is well aware of this approach, caloric intake, and the one who suggested doing a 2% increase when I hit goal and let her know I wanted to transition slowly. There are others in the HSM community, like me, who continue to lose as they transition into maintenance cals. There are some who even decide they're too thin and make the choice to gain back a little more.
I have about 60 more cals to go before I hang steady. However, If I continue to lose - I will continue to increase until this body finds a point it likes to maintain at. This is what it means to take the body where it's at, rather than try to force square pegs into circles. It may not work for everyone, and that's okay. It's working well for this girl's body so we're going with it.
I post these, because it's become clear how little focus there is put towards approaches to weight maintenance when folks reach a goal weight. I want this info to be out there so folks doing CICO have a reference point. They don't have to do it this way, but at least there's info to pull from and from a girl whose coach is literally the only out there right now cornering the market on approaches to keeping weight off not just losing it, and has kept her 170 lb loss off for 7 years.
Okay, rant over :-) Have a blessed day, everyone!
