Greentext

My maintenance intake as a woman was somewhere on the low end between 1700 and 2000 calories. With the meals that I was used to having, this was easily exceeded just by eating more than one meal per day. So I switched to an OMAD diet and hit a plateau around 170lbs while I was dancing. I was happy with that weight so I loosened up, eventually stopped dancing, and now I use the time saved to eat healthier (or at least less processed) food instead of less food in general and maintain at that weight.

As for exercise; I tried biking and while I enjoyed it, it just wasn't something I was going to keep up with consistently. The hassle alone of getting a bike down from my 3rd floor apartment (and across a major intersection) was enough to end that, plus I can't do it in all seasons, and the stationary bike just isn't engaging enough. Again, any progress I make from that is gone with just one bad eating choice, which is going to happen if you change your activity level without any consideration for nutrition. This isn't a magical frictionless world of simple numbers, the psychology and physiology involved here is not negligible.

I do think the dancing boosted my metabolism a bit, or maybe something changed in my lifestyle like returning to office instead of WFH. I'm more consistently maintaining if not slightly losing at just over 2000 calories now. I really wouldn't be able to maintain if I didn't read nutrition labels and limit my snacking though.

edited for clarity