Just looking for a little advice

Trying not to beat a dead horse here, guess looking for other guys who have been in a similar situation/similar height and weight as me and seeking advice..

Years ago (7-8 I don’t even know without looking at pictures’ dates) I was pushing 300 lbs. The highest weight I ever saw on a scale was 275 lbs but I had already been working out for a bit. It took me less than a year to drop down to around 210 lbs. Over the years I’ve bounced around between 185-220 lbs. I did lose the majority of my weight by tracking my calories – in a journal, oh my! and just cardio. I knew very little about what I was doing, I didn’t do much research back then but came up with a general rule of my body weight * 12 to get a rough estimate of the amount of calories I should eat.

Fast forward to now, I was 218 sometime in August (I hadn’t used MFP yet) and just cleaned up my eating – I was never a soda drinker, but I enjoyed my fast food and beer. After ~50 days of being on MFP I’m clocking in right now at 197.8 lbs as of 10/19/2012. I’ve been following the caloric guidelines MFP suggests and eat most or all of my exercise calories back usually. I see a lot of conflicting information out there, and while I have been losing steadily I’m worried that I’m doing it wrong and in the long term I will not sustain this pace of weight loss.

As far as exercise goes I was working out EVERY day but around day 42 took a spill down my stairs, took two rest days (to let my tailbone and aching head to recover) and ate “poorly”. I started working out again and the first run back I had was phenomenal – as in it was really easy and I didn’t feel like I was pushing hard mentally to get through the last mile or so. So now I’m running (3.1+ miles) 3 days a week, lifting 3 days a week and resting one day a week.

So now for where I’m seeking advice:

I’ve read a lot about TDEE and BMR and have an understanding of where MFP gets its own numbers from. I like the concept of “I workout, now I can eat more”. It’s not motivation, just seems like common sense. Now, for the days I lift I don’t log anything but my 10 minute treadmill warm-up. But I find sometimes on my lift days I’m hungry. Not unbearably but enough where it’s a thought in my mind. Fortunately I do have the funds to invest in a heart rate monitor and was wondering if it’s advisable to get the HRM and track my calories burned from lifting- in order to eat them back.

Also, my TDEE seems to be around ~3000 so the -20% TDEE is around 2400 and change. That seems like soooo much food to me, but is it? Guys who are of similar height and stature, how has TDEE under maintenance eating gone for you? I know the scale isn’t the only measure of success (hurray dropping 3 belt holes and a pants size) but I will admit I care about that number somewhat, even though I only weight myself every two weeks or longer.

Eating the MFP suggestions has been working for me, so I feel like if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but on the other hand – I don’t want to stall out to later because I’m not eating enough – or I could be losing at the same rate eating more. I don’t have massive bouts of guilt if I go over MFP calories because I already recognize I’m at a 1000 daily calorie deficit according to MFP and am just nipping into that a bit.

Also this is the lifting routine I’ve been doing with a few modifications because I work out at home with a barbell set and no dumbbells or machines: http://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/3day-beginners-workout.html I have gone from just the 45 lb bar to 85 lbs on the bench and 85 for squatting little less for overhead presses and what not so there is progress, but I feel like there should be more progress in 50 days than that? If that makes sense.

Anyway, thanks in advance for whoever responds with advice – and great work to all of you who provide inspiration to those who need it!