STOP THE INSANITY!!

MFP is an awesome resource for anyone seeking to live healthier by improving their fitness and eating habits. However, it is also an awesome source of misinformation. It is important to remember that everyone offering input on the forums is offering opinion. Sure, there are some professionals using these boards, ie. personal trainers, nutritionists, and healthcare professionals, but the numbers of them are relatively few in relationship to the millions that use this website.

The following is a list of misinformation that gets tossed around so freely on these boards:

1. If you lose too fast, then you will gain it back. (This is only true if you choose to return to your old eating habits. I think everyone is intelligent enough to know that their old eating habits are what made them fat in the first place. How quickly they lost the weight had absolutely nothing to do with how fast they gained it back.)
2. The whole muscle/fat debate. (The same volume of muscle is heavier than the same volume of fat. Everyone understands that. No further explanation is required.)
3. HRM's are the most accurate way to determine calories burned. (No! Simply put, this is what the companies that make the HRM's want you to think. HRM's track heart rate. Calorie burn is achieved by your metabolism and everyone's metabolism is different. Calculating calories burned from heart rate is still only an assumed calculation.)
4. You have to eat back your exercise calories because that is how MFP is set up, therefore, it must be right to do that. (MFP is only a guide, a tool, to help each individual structure their own diet/fitness program. There is no right or wrong about eating back exercise calories. MFP is not set up for you to eat back your exercise calories either. The "starvation mode" warning only appears when calories consumed are below 1200. Not when net calories are below 1200.)

Just needed to rant. I'm sure there are some that will argue and some that might take offense, but if one person reads this and has a better understanding of what they are doing and how to use the site for their maximum benefit, then my job is done here.

No, I am not a personal trainer, nutritionist or healthcare professional. I am someone basing my fitness journey on hundreds, if not thousands of hours of my own research and experience. You can read the following and choose to accept it or ignore it. It will not affect my results either way.

First of all, I do want to congratulate you, as others have, on your tremendous achievements so far! You have done a fantastic job!

Now my take on your post...

1. If you lose weight too fast you are more likely to gain it back because you are likely to have lost muscle mass also. When you lose muscle mass your metabolism slows making it harder to continue or maintain your weight loss. This is part of the reason most reputable health care professionals, and this site, recommend a 1 pound per week rate of weight loss.
2. Unfortunately there are those that really do not understand that. There are those that believe that muscle is literally heavier than fat. You may say who cares but with the right information it is likely to help them figure out what is going on when their weight on the scale plateaus. If they truly understand that a pound of muscle is more compact than a pound of fat than they can check their progress through other methods such as measurements or clothing fit and realize that they are in fact making progress even if the scale is not changing.
3. Heart rate monitors are the most accurate way to track calorie burn for most of us. There are other, more accurate methods available but are not practical for the masses. You are correct, this is "still only an assumed calculation" but it is more accurate than an assumption without a heart rate. For that matter most of the information put into MFP is a "best guess". calories burned, calories consumed, daily activity setting...
4. If you set up MFP right to start with then the daily calorie goal that MFP gives you already has a calorie deficit built in to lose weight. That said, you should eat close to the calorie goal MFP gives you each day including eating back most of your exercise calories. Depending on how far under the daily calorie goal you are, you are very likely to cause your body to hang onto the fat it has by either slowing down or even stopping fat loss. It may not happen right away but eventually you will most likely plateau. If you have a lot of weight to lose you can probably get away with it longer but as you have less to lose your body will plateau easier. May sound counter-intuitive but that's just the way it is.

If one person reads this and has a better understanding of what they are doing and how to use the site for their maximum benefit, then my job is done here.

Professionals all have different opinions...geez just google something and you will see that. So with anything do your homework. Nothing is concrete...trial and error to figure out what works for you.