1000 calorie deficit NOT for people with healthy BMI

it's a general guideline, something to be generally aware of and a tool to use to help you assess your overall health. It really depends on if you think you can be honest about your body. If you think you are to harsh in your critisism of your body, then you should rely more on tools and less on your perception. I.E. tape measurements, body fat percentages, BMI, heart rate, and of course the scale.
The idea is to get where you need to be without going to extremes. Expect things to not go as smoothly as the math says they should. Expect that you WILL become healthier, but that doesn't mean you will lose the weight you think you should (although in most cases that is also the reality). Expect to have weeks that you feel like you haven't budged an inch. It's all part of the process. But after everything is said and done, if you do it slowly, it will be SOOO much easier to maintain and be happy with your new body!

Banks,

What if you don't have a healthy BMI? What if your BMI is in the obese range? I'm assuming that you can afford a greater calorie deficit than 1000, but is there any research on what is actually safe?

I ask because my BMI is still in the "obese" range. (I can't tell you how much it hurt to say that). Up until the last two weeks I' ve been losing weight steadily eating approximately 1500 to 1600 calories a day and doing at least one hour of exercise daily. Over the last two weeks, for various reasons, I've increased my calorie intake to 1700 to 1800 and I've gained 1 pound. All weight loss seems to have stopped dead cold.

I usually burn at least 500-800 calories in exercise daily. I've set MFP for a 2lb a week loss and I usually end up with about 300 or so calories left over for the day. Now, I only estimate portion sizes but I'm pretty honest and I recognize that the calories burned are probably inflated since machines are notoriosly inaccurate.

That said, I'm a little frustrated and trying to find out if the problem is too few calories or too many.

Actually, there is research on that. I'd have to do some digging to find the article by Lyle McDonald, but he's written a lot of them about a lot of stuff, and one of my favorite is on the acceptable caloric deficit based on body fat %. The general consensus is that one lb of fat will supply 31cal of energy per day. So, if you have 10 lbs of body fat, it can supply 310 cals a day, meaning that doesn't have to come from your muscle. If you have 30 lbs of body fat, it can supply 930 cals of energy per day. I'll use my measurements as an example.

I weigh around 132 normally, and my BF is about 20%. 132*.20=26.4. I have 26.4 lbs of body fat, so I can support of a deficit of 818 cals per day, maximum. That's not 2lbs per week, but it's still a large deficit. However, when you pair that against what I burn in a day (~2400 cals), I still have to eat at least 1600 calories a day (2400-800=1600).

If I were to eat in a 1000 calorie deficit, 200cal a day would have to come from somewhere else--muscle mass. At the end of the week I'd be losing about 1.5 lbs of fat and 1/2 lb of muscle, which is really awful progress actually. After dropping just 6lbs of fat, I'd be down almost half a year's worth of muscle built! (Yes, it does take that long to build a couple pounds of muscle as a trained, natural female hehe....none of this 'bulking up and looking like a man' nonsense.)

Banks,

What if you don't have a healthy BMI? What if your BMI is in the obese range? I'm assuming that you can afford a greater calorie deficit than 1000, but is there any research on what is actually safe?

I ask because my BMI is still in the "obese" range. (I can't tell you how much it hurt to say that). Up until the last two weeks I' ve been losing weight steadily eating approximately 1500 to 1600 calories a day and doing at least one hour of exercise daily. Over the last two weeks, for various reasons, I've increased my calorie intake to 1700 to 1800 and I've gained 1 pound. All weight loss seems to have stopped dead cold.

I usually burn at least 500-800 calories in exercise daily. I've set MFP for a 2lb a week loss and I usually end up with about 300 or so calories left over for the day. Now, I only estimate portion sizes but I'm pretty honest and I recognize that the calories burned are probably inflated since machines are notoriosly inaccurate.

That said, I'm a little frustrated and trying to find out if the problem is too few calories or too many.

Actually, there is research on that. I'd have to do some digging to find the article by Lyle McDonald, but he's written a lot of them about a lot of stuff, and one of my favorite is on the acceptable caloric deficit based on body fat %. The general consensus is that one lb of fat will supply 31cal of energy per day. So, if you have 10 lbs of body fat, it can supply 310 cals a day, meaning that doesn't have to come from your muscle. If you have 30 lbs of body fat, it can supply 930 cals of energy per day. I'll use my measurements as an example.

I weigh around 132 normally, and my BF is about 20%. 132*.20=26.4. I have 26.4 lbs of body fat, so I can support of a deficit of 818 cals per day, maximum. That's not 2lbs per week, but it's still a large deficit. However, when you pair that against what I burn in a day (~2400 cals), I still have to eat at least 1600 calories a day (2400-800=1600).

If I were to eat in a 1000 calorie deficit, 200cal a day would have to come from somewhere else--muscle mass. At the end of the week I'd be losing about 1.5 lbs of fat and 1/2 lb of muscle, which is really awful progress actually. After dropping just 6lbs of fat, I'd be down almost half a year's worth of muscle built! (Yes, it does take that long to build a couple pounds of muscle as a trained, natural female hehe....none of this 'bulking up and looking like a man' nonsense.)

Forgot to note that some "smaller" people actually have higher fat to muscle ratios than "bigger" folk!

(like me, all packed around my belly, thankee hormones!!)