What weight training are you doing?

Starting to doubt my calorie goal....keep wanting to lower it.

Losing very slowly, like .5lbs/week!

I'm 215lbs 5'8" and do 3-4 days of cardio 25-50 min!

I see so many people losing so much faster and I am getting discouraged.

Calories are set for 1700/day but a few days a week it's about 1900.

Did you base the BMR estimate, the foundation to everything, on Harris BMR calc, Mifflin (5% more accurate and especially when overweight), or best Katch BMR using bodyfat% estimate?

The Harris BMR when overweight easily inflates by 200-300 calories compared to Mifflin, which still could be 400 more than best Katch BMR.

Use this site and the bodyfat% tool if you don't have an estimate, take the avg.

Then use the BMR tool to compare the Katch and Harris BMR's. MFP will show you the Mifflin estimate.

http://www.gymgoal.com/dtools.html

How much spread between them, like what you originally used to set your goals, to the best Katch?

Because 200 cal inflated there means 310 inflated on TDEE, and still 248 inflated after deficit. There's another 1/2 lb a week that could be realistically lost.

Ok this site says my BMR is 1615. Hmm!

What do you suggest I do? Currently set at 1700.

MFP says 1721
Other one is 1759

So see, you based the TDEE on the worst inflated BMR. The better one, based on bodyfat%, is lower.

Use the Katch at 1615. Scooby has this one also, just have to select it and enter a BF%.

Don't use the fat2fit site, as it ONLY uses the worst Harris BMR estimate. it asks for your BF%, but doesn't actually use it in table of goals.

So with BMR of 1615.
TDEE of 90 min of Moderate walking and 120 min of Heavy cardio weekly is 2214.

So this is a case of 4 days of workouts, but obviously walking is no where near the level of the classes and shouldn't be counted the same. Besides which, not even reaching 3 hrs of exercise a week anyway.

20% deficit is appropriate now with amount to lose, so daily gross goal stops at 1613 so as not to go below BMR.

Just don't go over those time limits for walking or the classes. Oh, keep the walking below 4mph.

So you have 3 days a week of recovery you might say.

And I really don't see the reason to start the math with an already known inflated figure when you have a better one available. If that was the case, shoot, just make up a TDEE of 3000 and eat at 2400 to keep the math simple.

So haybales, correct me if I am wrong...20% of 2214 is approximately 1750! I should set my cals to that and if I burn under 1615 to eat back up to that?

Within 24 hrs after the workout if the normal diet doesn't take care of it.

Usually that is only a factor if you workout hard 6 days a week, you'd never get a recovery day.

Your schedule though, hard work one day, almost rest the next. So bigger deficit from workout one day, much less the next.
Net affect is between the 2 days, you didn't go below your BMR.

I work at a fast food restaurant and I stand on my feet taking cash and sometimes getting people their orders for a 6-8 hr shift. I do this two times a week on average. What would you consider this?

Just wanted to add a couple of things. First, yes, it does work for obese people. If you want to lose the weight quickly, this isn't for you, but if you want to look better and feel better longterm, then definitely stick around. I've been doing EM2WL for almost six months, and I've lost a total of 23 pounds -- a little less than a pound a week. But I look better and feel better, have lost a lot of belly fat and am wearing smaller clothes.

The second thing is to listen to heybales. I really believe he knows what he is talking about, and he was a huge help to me recently when I was trying to figure out some things based on some sort of heinous information I was given by a dietitian.