The maths of maintenance — the number most people never reach
You reached your goal weight. Now comes the hardest sum of the whole journey — finding the calories that hold your new weight flat, and practising that number every single day.
You stepped on the scale and saw your goal number. Smiles, hugs, maybe a few tears. You did it. But the hardest maths starts today. It is the maths of holding that weight.
Why maintenance is a skill you never trained
While losing weight, you practised one maths skill — eating less than you burn. Maintenance is the opposite skill, and you have almost never used it. You must eat exactly what you burn, week after week. Most people never learn this number. That is why most people regain. Only about 20% of overweight adults keep off at least 10% of their weight for a year. After a weight-loss programme ends, people keep only about half of their lost weight on average. The other half creeps back, little by little.
My maintenance calories are the same as before I lost weight.
mostly falseMostly false — explained simply. Your body is smaller now, so it burns less even at rest. Your new maintenance is lower than your old one. In one study, people's resting burn stayed about 704 kcal per day below their starting point, even six years later. Start your maths from your new, smaller body — not your old one.
How to find your number from your own Burnie data
Here is the good part. You do not need a guess or a formula. You already own the answer, in your own Burnie log. Burnie shows your daily deficit as food_total minus (bmr plus active). Burnie gets your active calories from your phone or Health Connect — not from heart rate, sleep, or blood pressure. When your weight trend goes flat for two to four weeks, your average food_total over those weeks is your maintenance number. This is not a guess. Scientists checked this idea against the best lab test, and the match was very close. Your own flat trend is your true maintenance number, better than any calculator. Burnie is free, with no paid tier, so you can watch this number for as long as you want.
Hold the flat trend
The bottom line
The number most people never reach is their own maintenance number — the calories that hold their new weight flat. You find it not from a formula, but from your own flat trend in Burnie. Then you practise it, day after day, like a new habit. That is the maths of maintenance, and now it is yours.