Newbie to Eat More to Weigh Less

Lishia1283

Okay so I'm totally confused. I have been eating between 1200-1300 calories for about a couple months now (mainly because I have set my lifestyle as sedentary). My weight loss has been very slow or nonexistent at this point. I know I'm getting closer to my goal of 140 (I'm currently at 159.5, 5'3) but it's getting frustrating! One thing I have noticed is if there was a workout that I did that burned between 700-1000 calories and I just eat anything I want (all in moderation of course) I will actually lose weight lol. This is bizarre to me because I feel that if I'm counting calories I either don't lose weight or just maintain but if I'm eating more than I will lose weight. So I thought maybe there's something to this TDEE-20% method and I would give it a try. But this is where I'm confused. When I put in my stats (I work out 5-6 hours/week) on the caluclator it gave me these numbers:

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): 1635 calories Projected weight loss: 1.1 lbs per week
Daily calories to maintain weight (TDEE): 2825 calories 4.5 lbs per month
Daily calories based on goal in step 6: 2256 calories 58.7 lbs per year

Can someone please help me as to what numbers I should put in MFP? Also, my diary is open so let me know if what I ate would be considered "okay" to eat while on this program. I even recorded the exercise I did even though it's already factored into your TDEE Cut. I'm really hoping this method works because gaining, regaining and losing is really stressing me out.

heybales

Use this, just the Simple Setup tab, with your stats.

It will tell you exactly what to change on MFP.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/961054-spreadsheet-for-bodyfat-bmr-tdee-progress-tracker

So you discovered the truth behind a bigger deficit is not better then.

Where you using MFP correctly before, like it sounds like you were at least eating back exercise calories, so your net was 1200-1300, not gross eaten then?

Lishia1283

Finally! Someone helped me out lol. But before I was following the NET 1200 calorie diet. It would vary what I would eat depending on how much I was exercising. I was so busy focusing on netting 1200 or going a little bit over 1200 that I wouldn't pay attention to how many calories I was actually eating. I had it set up where I would eat back the calories that I was burning through exercise. I was losing weight but it just stalled I guess after I hit a "certain" weight. I was starting to feel like I was depriving my body especially in the late afternoon right before dinner. But even at dinner time, I would not eat that much unless I still had some calories to use for the day. I would also try to drink at least 8 cups of water but mostly it would be 10.