Can you give me advice on maintaining weight?

Congratulations on hitting your goal weight! The good news is, you can now start to increase the number of calories you are eating – but it is advisable to do this gradually, and make sure you keep weighing in regularly.

The recommended daily number of calories recommended for an 'average' female is 1,950 per day and 2,500 for a male. Of course 'average' varies a lot – and your age, height, activity levels and lifestyle will all have a bearing. Nutracheck will set a guideline maintenance figure for you based on your personal details.

Go back to your Profile and select the option for 'Maintain Weight'. If it feels like a big jump up from your weight loss target, then increase your calorie allowance slowly – adding say 150 extra calories each week. Keep weighing in and recording your weight in your 'Progress' chart. Finding the right number of calories to not gain and not lose takes a little trial and error. It's quite normal that your weight will fluctuate from week to week, so we recommend setting yourself an upper limit of 3lbs – 5lbs above your goal weight that you will not allow yourself to exceed. If you hit this upper limit, immediately switch back to weight loss until you've lost the extra pounds. There's a saying – "watch the pounds, the stones will take care of themselves".

At this point it might be tempting to think you don't need the App or website any more, but we suggest you keep using it – especially during the initial stages of maintenance. It can be tough to go it alone straight away – many people find they miss the 'high' of losing weight and other people commenting on their loss, so getting support from the forum community can really help too. So we'd encourage you to keep using Nutracheck until you feel confident that you are comfortably maintaining.