Figuring out my maintenance calories

[CortieTat]

I decided to start counting calories in August last year. I was already eating well and exercising regularly for several years but I slowly started gaining weight - my downfall is huge meals, I’m a petite woman eating like a rugby player.

Losing weight has been easy for me, I’ve already had the good habits in place so it was just the matter of eating less.

My problem is that I am now on my maintenance calories (since December last year) and I am still, very slowly, losing weight. I don’t want this. I still log in everything I eat and I’m not overly obsessed with the calorie limit every day - there are days I eat less than the limit and days I eat more. Sometimes I eat my exercise calories back, sometimes I don’t. I wonder what I’m doing wrong.

I think of myself as moderately active: I exercise regularly and walk everywhere, but I also have a desk job so I sit or stand behind the computer quite a lot.
I used several tdee calculators and kind of the average figure for my age, height, weight and the activity level. It looks like it’s not working and I don’t understand why.

@CortieTat I work out x5 days a week, a proper weight training and fitness regime. I think I would need to be under 1550 calories a day to shred fat. I also walk about 6000 to 10000 steps a day on top. I'm a size 10.

I've come to this thread to update. I've lost 2 more kilos trying to stick to my suggested maintenance, so I decided to add quite a bit and this seems to be working, I've been now at 48.5-49 for three months and the weight stopped dropping, it's also very stable day to day. So it either works or my scales are broken!

I eat on average 2100 a day, sometimes 1600, sometimes 2400, depending on how I feel. When I stopped trying frantically to stick to the limit and started to listen to my body and the hunger cues it kind of clicked in place, but it is still hard to relax completely and just trust myself.

I still wonder how comes that I am able to burn so much. Yes, I move quite a lot but I also found out by accident (and to my greatest shock as an avid soy eater, soI have zero symptoms) that I am perimenopausal. I think it must be my martial arts classes that are slowly turning me into Mr. Miyagi. Hopefully a black belt before retirement :-D

I count calories in the week and eat what I want at weekends.

This works for me to maintain, although I have to tweak a little both ways at times!

You've found your maintenance level then, it sounds you are bang on in terms of average calorie intake @CortieTat.

I am the same as you, maintenance of around 2150 based on my usual activity levels. It sounds like a lot of calories when your brain is stuck in diet culture but you've proved it's the right level. It's why I can lose weight, albeit fairly slowly, on 1850.

Enjoy it! And go for that black belt! Mid life sports pursuits are so life affirming, especially when you are going into peri and then menopause. I am so over my earlier decades of under fueling myself and now I am building a strong body for the future!