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Do my maintenance calories change over time?
Answered by Nikkiey Stott and her guests · Updated
The short answer
Yes. Nikkiey explains that your maintenance calories are not a fixed number. After a fat loss phase you start at the low end of your maintenance threshold, then slowly raise your macros weekly or biweekly while your weight and leanness hold. Over time, and as you build muscle, your body can handle much more food.
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Nikkiey on why calculators fail you in maintenance and how she eats 500+ calories more
Plays from 3:56 · Video: How to Find Your Real Maintenance Calories After a Cut
A client's maintenance rises from 2,150 to 2,800 calories while she holds her weight
Plays from 7:17 · Video: How to Find Your Real Maintenance Calories After a Cut
What a maintenance threshold is and how you push it higher week by week
Plays from 2:57 · Video: How to Find Your Real Maintenance Calories After a Cut
The full answer
Nikkiey talks about a maintenance threshold, not a single maintenance number. It's a range where you hold your weight, give or take a few pounds of daily fluctuation, and keep a decent level of leanness while eating much more than you did in a fat loss phase. Your numbers are unique to you, so someone else's 2,200-calorie maintenance may look nothing like yours. That's also why she says online calculators won't carry you through a maintenance phase. Your numbers are going to change.
Here's how she describes moving through it:
- Start at the lower end. Here you'll maintain your weight and leanness, and you might even keep losing.
- If you're still losing, work your numbers upward.
- While your weight and leanness hold steady, increase your macros slowly, weekly or biweekly, depending on how your body adapts to each increase.
- Repeat. Doing this consistently can push you well above the maintenance macros you started with.
The FAQ adds the reason behind it: as you go through fat loss and maintenance phases and build more muscle, your body needs more food. So your maintenance can, and should, rise over time.
Nikkiey shares two examples. She now eats 500-plus calories above her own starting maintenance, with more carbs and fats. One client leveled out at 141 pounds eating around 2,150 calories, the low end of her threshold. They have since pushed her to 2,800 calories, 650 more than that starting point and 950 more than she ate while cutting, and she's still maintaining well. If the number you found once feels like a ceiling, it doesn't have to be. Treat it as a starting point and raise it gradually.
From Nikkiey Stott and WarriorBabe's coaching. For education, not medical advice: talk to your doctor about your own health.
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Metabolism, Eating More & Reverse Dieting
Why is my weight going up during maintenance?
Your weight usually rises in maintenance because your daily calorie burn shifts with activity, sleep, stress and your cycle, and because you're likely building muscle. Nikkiey says your maintenance weight is your two-to-four-week average, not one morning's number, and a rise of around three pounds, up to about seven at most, isn't all fat.
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Metabolism, Eating More & Reverse Dieting
Will I gain weight when I start eating more?
Probably a little, and that's expected. Nikkiey explains that when you start eating more during a retrain or reverse diet, your weight will usually fluctuate about two to five pounds from water, glycogen, food volume and salt, not fat. If the gain keeps climbing or holds around five pounds, the increase was likely too fast.
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Metabolism, Eating More & Reverse Dieting
Can you lose weight by eating more?
Yes, according to The WarriorBabe Show. Nikkiey says almost every WarriorBabe success story involves eating more food, and members like Amy, Debbie, Lisa and Erin lost weight after raising their calories from chronic lows. The key, she explains, is eating enough to fuel strength training and build muscle, which is active tissue that burns calories even at rest.
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10 minHow to Find Your Real Maintenance Calories After a Cut
Video · Feb 8, 2022