some questions from a newbie!

Your BMR is higher than 1400. Try 1650 and eating your exercise calories. That should let you drop at least a pound a week, depending on how much you are exercising.

Aloha,
I worked out your numbers with what info I had available.
Weight: 150
Height: 5’9”
Activity Level: 1.3 (I used 1.3, the lowest, as I didn’t know how much you work out)
Male or Female: F
Age: 28

Mifflin-St Jeor
(FOR WOMEN)
BMR 1,490
Maintenance 1,937
Cut (@ 15%) 1,646
Build (@ 15%) 2,227

If you would like send me a message and give me all your info, I would gladly run the numbers for you, or you can go to this google docs folder and download the spreadsheet and do it yourself. Anything in this folder is for the taking, so please use it and SHARE it!

https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B3kFzsaVmRjmd1k4YjA1SlVWaFU/edit

If you have any difficulty with the spreadsheets let me know and I will give you a hand!
My email is: mikeschratz@gmail.com

Aloha,
I worked out your numbers with what info I had available.
Weight: 150
Height: 5’9”
Activity Level: 1.3 (I used 1.3, the lowest, as I didn’t know how much you work out)
Male or Female: F
Age: 28

Mifflin-St Jeor
(FOR WOMEN)
BMR 1,490
Maintenance 1,937
Cut (@ 15%) 1,646
Build (@ 15%) 2,227

If you would like send me a message and give me all your info, I would gladly run the numbers for you, or you can go to this google docs folder and download the spreadsheet and do it yourself. Anything in this folder is for the taking, so please use it and SHARE it!

https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B3kFzsaVmRjmd1k4YjA1SlVWaFU/edit

If you have any difficulty with the spreadsheets let me know and I will give you a hand!
My email is: mikeschratz@gmail.com

Why did you multiply BMR by 1.3?

Ok, I'm 5'9 and I weigh 150 lb's, I would like to get down to 9 st 12 /138 lbs ish. I was always very slender, and weight seems to have just crept on without me even noticing. I know I'm not overweight now but I don't feel comfortable how I am and I'm getting married next December.

I think I have odd measurements too ! 34" bust 30" waist 36-37" hips??! My waist needs to be smaller for sure! Does anyone else have a similar amount of weight to lose ?

MFP has set my calories to 1200 a day to lose 2lbs a week, this seems so low! Should I eat back any calories I burn in exercise? Should I manually increase my calories goal to a little higher?

You are in your healthy weight range (5’9” 129 – 163 Lbs) and you could lose fat at still be healthy. A calorie deficit is really what will help you lose the fat. MFP is actually pretty accurate in your case for a calorie deficit, but it's only a place to start. All these calculators give you the average metabolic rate of people who share your age, gender, height and weight, but don't give you your EXACT calorie needs. It's a place to start.

Too many changes at once can be hard on some people. I've always eaten healthy so it easy for me to simply eat less. Eating at a calorie deficit is hard on people; even a small deficit puts your body in a state of flux with hormones and such. Everyone is different. Some people can handle a deeper calorie deficit than others, this is not right or wrong, it just is. Stress in your life affects your hunger hormones; lack of sleep, fatigue, job stress, family stress, financial stress, etc. Add in emotional eating issues and it gets even more complicated. Most people can only handle so much change/stress at once, they try to do too much and fail. Sometimes it might be a better strategy to eat at maintenance and make some small changes first, it really depends on how much stress you are taking in at the moment.

To find the exact calories needed for YOU to be in a healthy sustainable calorie deficit is the right answer. Wait, if you need to adjust by 100 do it, wait, adjust, wait, adjust, wait. The tortoise wins this race

According to the "Golden Ratio" your ideal waist would be: Your Ideal Waist is: 26.36 in
(more on this http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/womens-body-ideal-measurements/)

It's just a goal you can achieve if you really want it and you can decide when you get closer how far you really want to take it. What matters is finding the place that makes YOU happy with your body. Remember this is about what you want, no one else is in charge of what you want for yourself.

When it comes to calorie deficit and managing calories for weight loss I have found that it's mostly about MINDSET and believing you can do something, and also realizing that even though you are uncomfortable on a deficit you are not really hurting yourself (if ever in doubt your doctor can check your blood work). There are so many things I said I "can't do" when I started this weight loss journey, and even in maintenance now. It usually boils down to a point where something happens in my mind where I DECIDE I really want to reach a certain goal, the wanting it bad enough, the not going to settle for less, that I push through my fears and endure the uncomfortableness (with science backing up my procedure) that I finally do things I never thought I could to achieve my goals.

Some of the tools that helped me:

http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/ideal-metabolism/

http://johnbarban.com/whats-your-diet-and-exercise-plan-for-the-next-7-weeks/

Also you want to be careful that you don't go too deep on your calorie deficit because you are already lean enough. This last part of your weight loss will be slow going, VERY SLOW, be patient. But the MFP goal set for you is an accurate starting point. How far you take it is all about your mindset. You can overcome your fears with knowledge and tools.

Also you do not have to eat the same amount of calories every day. You can think of it as a weekly calorie budget. You can eat low some days and high some days. You can be flexible. You can find what is sustainable for you.

While you don’t have to worry about starvation mode when you have significant fat on your body, as you get closer to your goal you do need to increase your calories slightly as you get leaner as here’s why:

The Theory of Fat Availability:
•There is a set amount of fat that can be released from a fat cell.
•The more fat you have, the more fat can be used as a fuel when dieting.
•The less fat you have, the less fat can be used as a fuel when dieting.
•Towards the end of a transformation, when body fat is extremely low you
may not have enough fat to handle a large caloric deficit anymore.

At the extreme low end, when your body fat cannot ‘keep up’ with the energy deficit
you've imposed on your body, the energy MUST come from SOMEWHERE. This is
when you are at risk of losing lean body mass during dieting (commonly referred to
as ‘starvation mode’). This happens at extremely low levels of body fat, under 6% in
men and 12% in women [Friedl K.E. J Appl Phsiol, 1994].

-Brad Pilon and John Barban (from The Reverse Taper Diet in The Adonis Index and Venus Index manuals)

You will need to lift weights to get your shoulders closer to your golden ideal. But there are other reasons you want to lift weights:

Exercise is for making your lean body mass pretty (especially lifting weights) for when the fat is gone. Losing fat with no muscle is ugly and cardio alone will not make you pretty. You cannot out exercise too many calories.

Everyone needs resistance training to improve their health and bone density and this will especially improve your quality of life when you get older. But you will not gain all that much lean body mass as fast as everyone thinks. Guys of course will gain more. A DXA scan will prove the point. There are lots of stories about changing size but no one REALLY knows unless they do a DXA scan. Here's more about that --> http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/intermittent-fasting-and-bulking/ this is true whether you IF or not. My DXA scans proved that I really didn't gain that much lean body mass yet I look very muscular for a female. I have very high bone density from over 30 years of lifting yet my lean body mass is still only 104 lbs and my RMR is still only 1380.

I recently had my DXA scan done and at 51.5 years of age I have the bone density of a super athletic 30 year old. That is a direct result of lifting for over 30 years. Now if that is not scientific proof that lifting weights keeps you younger I don't know what is! Also I believe it is why most people think I look much younger than I really am. Because of this I don't have to worry about osteoporosis. If you wait until you are older and your bones start to deteriorate it's a bit too late, you can't get back what you lost, and you can only start a resistance routine that will prevent further damage.

Cardio is good for you but it is optional. I love cardio, but you can't out exercise too many calories. Of course you burn calories, but not near what all the HRM's say. I learned the hard way, running marathon after marathon (yes even multiple runs during the day), as well as hitting the gym hard, martial arts, staying active all the time, not eating while watching TV, not binging, not mindlessly eating, not pigging out, not having emotional eating issues, yet I gained weight year after year, each decade putting on the pounds. I worked harder and harder, not able to figure out what was wrong. It didn't seem like I ate too much, but for my small size I did and didn't realize it until just a few years ago when I finally started losing weight by eating less.


Everyone is different, but it's very easy to do a lot of cardio and think you can eat more than you really need, especially when you need to lose weight. It is also easy to think that you are burning more fat than you really are. Just do cardio if you enjoy it and because it's good for you.
Wishing you the best! Bobbie

Aloha,
I worked out your numbers with what info I had available.
Weight: 150
Height: 5’9”
Activity Level: 1.3 (I used 1.3, the lowest, as I didn’t know how much you work out)
Male or Female: F
Age: 28

Mifflin-St Jeor
(FOR WOMEN)
BMR 1,490
Maintenance 1,937
Cut (@ 15%) 1,646
Build (@ 15%) 2,227

If you would like send me a message and give me all your info, I would gladly run the numbers for you, or you can go to this google docs folder and download the spreadsheet and do it yourself. Anything in this folder is for the taking, so please use it and SHARE it!

https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B3kFzsaVmRjmd1k4YjA1SlVWaFU/edit

If you have any difficulty with the spreadsheets let me know and I will give you a hand!
My email is: mikeschratz@gmail.com

This wouldn't include much exercise. Also, if you chose sedentary, that accepted TDEE multiplier is 1.2. And then you would eat back exercise calories. So maintenance TDEE would be 1788. Cutting 20% from there would give you a loss which would be essentially her BMR. If you exercise, your TDEE multiplier would increase. 3-4 days would make it 1.375, 5-6 days would make it 1.55. And from there you cut 20%.


OP Also, don't concentrate on weight loss. Work on body recomposition. Cutting fat and maintaining muscle is where you will see your greatest results. If you can, weight train 3 days a week, do 1-2 cardio days and day of yoga/pilates or flexibility training. Additionally, with WT, lift heavy so you fail at 6-10 reps. This will optimize strength gains. Fat loss will be the same whether its 6 or 15. And neither will bulk you as you are a deficit. If you exercise 5-6 days a week, eat 1900 calories. For good results, adjust macro's to 35% carbs, 40% protein and 25% fats.