New to this - help me figure it out? :)

AlexK2013

Hey guys,

I have been working on reaching my goal and am only 7lbs away!! I've lost 22 lbs by eating 1200 calories a day, but I've stalled (for about 3 weeks) and am looking to break this mini plateau. I am 27 years old, 4'10" and currently 100.8 lbs - yes yes, I can imagine your eyes rolling but believe me when I say that I am covered in a layer of fat. I had sciatic nerve damage in one of my legs when I was 13 and due to this I use a small, manual wheelchair. I am able to stand on my "good" leg, but for the most part I have very little muscle in my lower body and this contributes to my lower weight. If I could walk I'm sure 100 lbs would be perfect for me, but the weight that would have been muscle in my legs is instead now fat in my midsection (ugh!). I am getting married in October and am extremely motivated to reaching my goal!

I used the My Fitness Pal calculator to find that my BMR is 1087, but on Fat 2 Fit ratio it comes out to be 1239 calories (this seems more reasonable to me...). I would say that I am moderately active - I work out 6 days a week for about an hour a day. Given my situation I have a really hard time finding cardio exercises. I was using an arm ergometer at a gym (which I LOVED), but have since then moved and none of the local gyms have that type of machine. Mostly I use 8 and 10 lb weights, lots of pushups, ab exercises I can do sitting or laying down, etc. My heart rate gets up and I am sweating, but I don't feel like I'd consider myself very active. Fat 2 Fit shows 1868 calories for moderately active people with my BMR - so I should subtract 15% (280 cals) to get a target of 1588 cals/day correct? Even when not watching my weight I have always read labels and I know that when I'm around 2500+ cals/day I tend to gain weight and that is what got me to being about 30lbs overweight.

Today is my second day trying to up my calories and let me tell you I am having a really hard time. I eat small meals all day long and always eat breakfast. So far today I have eaten:

1 Light & Fit yogurt
1 banana
1 honeycrisp apple
1 bag of mixed nuts (almonds, peanuts, pistachios) - 250 cals
10 steamed shrimp with old bay
1 baked, plain sweet potato
About half of a pineapple
3 eggs
And I still have about 500 cals left, ahh!!! I am STUFFED and I mean sickly full and cannot imagine eating anything else today. When I was eating 1200 calories I felt great - never sluggish or tired, always full and I had great workouts. For my last calories I was planning to make some quinoa with spinach, onion, garlic & a little parmesan, but the thought of eating it is not appetizing to me whatsoever. I try not to each much processed food and I don't want to get my extra added calories from junk. Looking at my diary probably won't be helpful at all because I have a habit of not logging dinners (I add calories on sticky notes and scraps of paper all the time, rather than entering them) and I manually add in a lot of calories instead of scanning or searching for the items. I intend on changing this so that I can better see the percentage of carbs, vs protein, etc.

Anyway, I'm just looking for someone to help me confirm that my caloric goal calculation is correct and possibly to give me some tips on some foods (preferably on the healthier side) that might be easy to up my calories quick!