I’ve been on a low calorie diet for a while now and have lost a fair bit of body fat. My aim is to maintain a very lean physique when the diet’s over. I’m keen to hear from anyone that has had any experience with losing a lot of weight, getting really lean and actually maintaining it.
Specifically I’d like to know how fast I can safely get back to maintenance calories without actually gaining any weight back.
According to various formulas on the net my maintenance calories are roughly 2500. I think it could possibly be less as I work in an office.
Some stats if you’d like them:
I’ve lost roughly 25lbs so my body is probably hypersensitive to excess calorie intake (ie, wants to gain back the lost fat)
Physical exercise: 3 sessions of intense weight training a week (about 40-50 mins each time) and 2 sessions of HIIT a week (5 minute warmup, 5 minutes of intervals, 5 minute cool down). Apart from that basically sitting on my ass in an office!
Caloric intake at the moment is 1700/day with a carb refeed once a week of about 3000. I may go a little lower in calories if I need to but I’m getting fairly close to my desired body fat level
Body weight at the moment is 165lbs
Body fat percentage I’d estimate to be around 10%. I’ve had caliper measurements done but wildly varying results make me very dubious about their reliability!
Due to vast variation in individual bio-makeup I realize there is no definitive answer to this question and it’s probably different for everyone but what are your ideas and what is you experience?
That question again: how fast can I get back to maintenance calories (back to 2500 from my current 1800) without actually gaining any fat back?
[quote]010001 wrote:
I’ve been on a low calorie diet for a while now and have lost a fair bit of body fat. My aim is to maintain a very lean physique when the diet’s over. I’m keen to hear from anyone that has had any experience with losing a lot of weight, getting really lean and actually maintaining it.
Specifically I’d like to know how fast I can safely get back to maintenance calories without actually gaining any weight back.
According to various formulas on the net my maintenance calories are roughly 2500. I think it could possibly be less as I work in an office.
Some stats if you’d like them:
I’ve lost roughly 25lbs so my body is probably hypersensitive to excess calorie intake (ie, wants to gain back the lost fat)
Physical exercise: 3 sessions of intense weight training a week (about 40-50 mins each time) and 2 sessions of HIIT a week (5 minute warmup, 5 minutes of intervals, 5 minute cool down). Apart from that basically sitting on my ass in an office!
Caloric intake at the moment is 1700/day with a carb refeed once a week of about 3000. I may go a little lower in calories if I need to but I’m getting fairly close to my desired body fat level
Body weight at the moment is 165lbs
Body fat percentage I’d estimate to be around 10%. I’ve had caliper measurements done but wildly varying results make me very dubious about their reliability!
Due to vast variation in individual bio-makeup I realize there is no definitive answer to this question and it’s probably different for everyone but what are your ideas and what is you experience?
That question again: how fast can I get back to maintenance calories (back to 2500 from my current 1800) without actually gaining any fat back? [/quote]
how bout you slowly start upping calories. maybe a couple hundred a week.
That question again: how fast can I get back to maintenance calories (back to 2500 from my current 1800) without actually gaining any fat back?
how bout you slowly start upping calories. maybe a couple hundred a week.[/quote]
I’d second that opinion, maybe up it 200 calories every 2 weeks, so you can have enough time to see if you are gaining any fat back.
Ideally, if you are eating maintenance calories, you won’t be gaining any fat. Those calculators are a good starting point, but you have to be honest with them when it comes to activity/lifestyle. And realize that they are ballpark figures, not everyone has an average metabolism, obviously some people’s are faster and some slower.