Maintenance Calorie Trajectory ---> Week 14 ---> Hanging Steady - New Year's Eve Edition
Merry Christmas Eve, everyone! As shown in the trajectory - I'm hangin' steady this week at 1670/day. This will be the third week at these cals. So, we may be sitting here for a while. They're really not much below the maintenance cals targeted for 140 lbs. I'm 138 right now and feeling pretty good at this weight, so if I remain steady between 138- 141 we'll call these maintenance cals.
We can also see I've subtracted 100 cals from about 5 days. I'm just banking those for a New Year's Eve Dinner at a French restaurant that my Mom and I have reservations for next Monday. Next week's trajectory will have around 2448 cals allocated for that day. I also switched my highest cal day to tomorrow so I can enjoy some of the goodies my Mother made for Christmas Brunch. I've already pre-tracked in MFP
My focus still remains on fitness and increasing strides regarding resistance training and reps for weights. To that end, I lost an inch in these hips! What's pretty awesome is my last weigh in has me at 138.8. This is not a new low, which basically means I am indeed increasing muscle mass and losing fat! It may be at a snails pace, but an inch less in these hips is fine with me!
Protein intake has been stellar as well with most days hitting the 90-100 plus grams mark. That's not too shabby considering 70-80 plus grams was about as much as I was able to get in when I first started maintenance. These muscles are getting fed :-)
Tomorrow will be around 88 grams, because frankly I'll be ingesting some carbs. But, so far staying within these calorie allotments has been feasible.
I'm feeling very thankful this year. Last year, I was knee deep in this weight loss journey and Healthy lifestyle practice. And, this year - here I am at goal in a body I never dreamed possible just 2 years ago. It just goes to show how much can be accomplished when I let go of the stories I told myself about what "I thought" I could not do and dared to become what I longed to be.
I wish all of you a very Happy Holiday and a wonderful New Year. Take care and I'll talk to y'all on New Year's Eve!
And, if anyone is reading this for the first time - I want to re-iterate. I lost 71 lbs over a 22 month period. This included a 60 day plateau with an average 3.2 lb loss per/month. I used a CICO approach, absolutely no restrictions on what I could eat with the caveat that protein had to be a priority. I kept 2 maintenance calorie days per/week for 16 out those 22 months so I didn't binge eat and impede progress. Every 10 weeks, I took a 7 day maintenance break in order to practice maintaining a weight range so that I didn't end up freaking out, and not knowing what to do once I hit goal. I have also pre-tracked my food and worked out 4-5 days since the very beginning.
And, that's the nuts and bolts of it...Apparently, I wasn't just spinning these wheels after-all :-)
