Metabolic spiral vs. weight loss

Macs13

I've spent many years bouncing between working out 5 days a week and eating well and then months crunching fast food - back and forth. I was a semi-pro football player, so my base body type is fairly athletic. I'm 5'7, 29 yrs old, and currently on a trip down from what is by far my highest weight, 175. My playing weight was a somewhat muscular 150. I've been as low as 135 as an adult - I'm a small framed guy. So, I'm currently trying to just lose weight - numbers on the scale - to get down under 160 - and have my calories set at 1400 a day. I know that is pretty low, but here's my question. I'm almost to my first goal and I'll be starting up a new round of p90x. After my 90 days, I'm going straight into Insanity. I'm also running, when I can find the time. In the end, I will be participating in the Tough Mudder in the late spring 2013... that's what I'm "training" for. I am torn between bouncing my calories up closer to 2000 while the workouts get more intense, or just staying at a very high protein/green veggies 1400 cals and just allow myself to go over only for protein shakes, preworkout boosters, etc on days that I'm excercising.

Opinions? I'm thrilled to have knocked out nearly 15 pounds in 2 + months and I'm afraid that if I have more calories available I'll start seeing Taco Bell wrappers pile up in my truck trash again. :-/

Zomoniac

You just have to maintain your current discipline. I'd say just do it gradually whatever you do. If what you're doing now is working for you, keep doing it. If once you've upped your training you find your struggling for energy, up your intake a little bit. If you're still struggling, up it a bit more, just make sure you do it by adding more good stuff. It's impossible to give you a number as everyone's different, I'm a 5' 11.5", 174lb male but I maintain around 1,800 despite everyone insisting that's too low. I know my body, years of trial and error have told me that 2,500 calories will make my weight shoot through the roof regardless of what conventional guidelines say. Stick with good foods and find what works. Nobody on here can tell you what that will be, regardless of how some might like to think they can.