Really confused about BMR & TDEE

honeybadgegirl

Hi,

I'm new to these message boards and have already learned sooo much from you guys. Thank you. Seriously! I've literally read hundreds of posts/stories and discovered (after thousands of dollars wasted on personal trainers and one incredibly expensive doctor that had me on a 1000 calorie diet) that I have been starving myself for a long time which might explain why I have had an incredibly difficult time losing weight. And here I thought I was special.

I'm trying to lose 25-30 pounds. I went from a 3 month medically supervised 800-1000 calorie diet (wow... did I mention the useless doctor that put me on that diet) and working out 60 minutes a day (4-5 times a week as well as strength training about 25minutes 4 days a week) that I lost 10 pounds and then stalled for about 2 months with no movement. I quit the doctor and kept up with the same nonsense for another 3 months but didn't see any movement either. Besides the fact that I was miserable & hated paying someone money to starve me (his next suggestion was 600 calories and HCG) which sounded ridiculous to me. I also hurt my knee so I haven't been able to work out as intensely the last month and a half. I now do 20 minutes a day of Jillian Michaels 30 day shred which I've been doing for the last 3 weeks as well as walking. I plan on getting back to running in the next few weeks.

For about 2 weeks now, I took the advice I found on here and increased my calories to about 1400. I was really scared because I thought I would balloon up but actually, I haven't seen more than 1-2 pound increase and ... oh boy, I feel like a new person. (You know, not wanting to murder everyone). As I am still new to this eating adult foods lifestyle, I wanted to just have a second or third pair of eyes to make sure I am doing this all right. I tried to skim through dozens of these posts for similar questions to find the answers but it made me more and more confused because of the whole 'eating back the calories from working out'.

My details:
Body fat percentage is 26.7%.
I'm 5'2 and 155 pound, 29 year old woman.

On: http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr = it says my BMR is between 1484 calories to 1489
It recommends: Sedentary =1781 & Lightly Active = 2041
I took that to mean that if I subtracted around 300 calories, I should eat around 1400, right? That’s what I have been doing for the last 2 weeks. I'm working with sedentary because I only do the short workout right now and I have a desk job.

However, on: http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/
BMR is 1384
TDEE is 1661
And it recommends 1329 for my goal of losing 20% when I put desk job with little activity.

Therefore, I'm combining these two... since I don't know which one to go by and eating around 1350-1400. My confusion is what to do with the little bit of exercise I am doing. If for example, I burn 200 calories during a workout, it sounds like I should eat back those calories and eat a total 1600 calories. Right? (Wow.. I feel stupid even writing that question. But...I guess you can’t be too sure?). In regards to my diet, I am around 40 carbs, 40 protein, 20 fat which is another suggestion I found on here. Again, I have always been scared of carbs but.. I am really trying to re-educate myself so please correct me if my macros are off.

Again, I appreciate your reading what appears to be an essay. I know this stuff might be simple but like an idiot I have overanalyzed and driven myself crazy.