? for those who have lost a significant amount of weight...

I'm still new to weight loss and i have been eating the calories i've burned from workouts. Its been coming off but very slowly, I'm thinking about not eating my burned cals. MFP has me at 1230 cals intake a day and honestly I believe it' too low. I was working on calculating my TDEE and my BMR but I don't know how to work with those numbers to ensure maximum weight loss.

I've been on MFP for 6 weeks. I've gone from 258 down to 241. Not too bad. When I originally started I only ate my daily calories which was 1500 but dropped to 1430 and didn't touch the exercise calories. Once I decided to eat the exercises calories, the loss greatly slowed. So I've decided to go back to what was working for me.

I haven't eaten any of the activity calories either and they have me at 1200 calories also. I have lost about 8 1/2 lbs. sine January 2013 and it is slow coming off. I usually do measurements because I feel that is a better judge than just the weight.

I used the calories as a recommended number. I never ate below 1200 a day but sometimes would net below before I understood exercise calories, net calories and so on. If I was to go over, I would make sure it stayed within my calorie range to maintain.

I began MFP sometime in June 2011, as a 32-year-old female, 5'5 and 204 pounds. I hit my goal of 145 pounds (lost 59) in April 2012, and have successfully maintained my weight since then. I've set a new goal of 140 pounds, but am working on it through maintaining caloric intake and increasing my exercise (when I began, I was practically sedentary; now I run 20-30 miles a week and am looking to add lifting, cycling, and swimming to the mix.) I consider myself a success story, and the weight loss and related changes in my diet and activity levels has absolutely changed my life, no exaggeration.

As far as calories, I soon realized I needed to eat more than the 1200 calories a day that MFP recommended. I also found that I needed different macro levels. I needed more carbs and more protein; otherwise I felt hungry and tired all the time. Macro needs will vary between people, sure, but I became a runner, and a diet of approximately 50% healthy carbs, 30% protein, and 20% healthy fats has worked very well at keeping me energetic and full. Also, MFP doesn't recommend nearly as much fiber as the 25g most adults should be getting every day!

In the beginning, I ate about 1400-1500 calories a day and lost the first 20-25 pounds VERY steadily at a rate of about 2-3 pounds a week. I also built in one "anything goes" meal a week. I refused to call these "cheat meals" or "bad meals" because I was also doing work on myself to stop associating emotion and judgment to food. Meals weren't "good" or "bad," but were "healthy" or "unhealthy" choices. It might seem like a silly, psychobabble distinction, but it really made a huge difference. By allowing myself to take one meal a week - and I'm no saint, sometimes it was two or three meals a week - to do whatever I wanted, whether it was ordering from a menu without thinking about calories or going nuts at a Chinese dinner, sodium intake be damned - I was able to show myself that one single meal, no matter how indulgent, will not "undo" an entire week's worth of work. I was also able to convince myself that I would not have to give up *anything* I liked to eat - I would just have to learn to make it fit into an overall healthy lifestyle. What I used to consider a normal day was now an "anything goes" meal, and I tried to make sure to keep it to a single meal and not a full day of ignoring whether my choices were healthy.

When I hit about 165-170, I seemed to plateau. Eating 1400 calories wasn't doing it for me anymore. I'd also bumped up my running, so I *needed* more calories. I always ate my exercise calories back, at least most of them - but being really active boosts your metabolism every day, not just on workout days. I bumped my calories up to about 1500-1600 and started losing again, at about 1.5-2 pounds a week. This took me all the way down to the mid-150s. Once again, I bumped my calories up, not down (again, I'd increased my mileage per week.)

I've been able to maintain a weight of 143-147 pounds for almost a full year by eating 1600 calories a day, more on the days I run. I track my meals less often now, so I would think the typical day for me falls between 1,500-1,900, but either way it's far more than MFP suggests I need.

Sorry for the long reply, but I wasn't sure how to answer this one without context!

Thanks everyone for your perspectives.

I try to keep my carbohydrates low - definitely less than 150, it's a good day when I don't have more than 100. I started out not drinking coffee because I liked it creamy and sweet. In the past 2-3 weeks I added it back in (2 mini moos and 5 splendas) but I may have to cut it out again. Also I started eating veggie chips and protein vanilla wafers. I'm going to look back over my initial food logs from when I first started and see if I can get some ideas of if I need to cut out some more foods.

I'll see where I am Monday and I might give it a try to at least eat the daily suggested calories, but not touch my exercise calories. Then in a couple of weeks evaluate whether I should eat the exercise calories.

Congrats on the weight loss. I have notice upon myself when I reach a certain weight loss. The scale just seem not to budge. I exercise 5 days a week if not more for about 30-45 minutes. I've changed my diet recently by eating less carbs. I agree to what you are saying about eating less carbs and notice a big difference in the scale now. Normally I eat 1200-1300 calories a day and eat less than 100 grams in carbs and stay low on sodium intake too. It looks like you are heading on the right path. Stay focus and keep up the great work.

I don't know if 34 pounds is a significant amount, but you haven't received very many responses from those who have, so I will jump in. I have many friends who have lost over 100 pounds on here, and they did it eating at a calorie deficit plus exercise, and didn't eat back many if any of their exercise calories.
It is very easy to overcalculate calorie burns, especially if you use the MFP database. For people who are very active and leaner, they seem to be more accurate, but for those who are considerably overweight, with high body fat %, they seem to really over calculate numbers, often up to twice the actual burns. Using a heart rate monitor helps, but even then, they can still be off.
Also, if you are very sedentary outside of exercise, then even 3-4 workouts a week can still put you in the sedentary category. People who are active thruout the day, tend to lose easier than those who only exercise at certain times and are a couch potato in between.

I know that there are many people who have lost a lot and claim to have eaten all their calories back, as well. I don't know any of them personally on here, but I have read a few posts. They are generally younger and a lot more active than I am, and they usually are lifting heavy weights as well.

It comes down to trial and error in the end. You just have to figure out what level works for you, that you can sustain over time.
Getting enough protein in, is one thing that really helps, no matter what level you are at.

i stick to 1200-1300 calories per day. I very seldom eat back exercise calories and if i do, I stick to 1/2 of them. I also rely on my Fitbit for calories burns rather than the MFP database, which I think grossly over-exaggerates the burn.

I have stuck with the recommended number, and I eat back most of my exercise calories. I'd rather lose weight slowly than make myself miserable by not eating enough, and I also want to make sure that I am getting enough nutrition to support my exercise regimen. It seems to be working very well as something like 80-90% of the weight I've lost has been fat.

Right now I'm at 172 lbs, 5'2" and netting 1450-1500 calories a day on average. I exercise 4 times a week and eat those calories back, but I usually spread out my exercise calories across the week. For example, Monday I eat 1800 calories, exercise and get 600 calories, for a net of 1200, but then Tuesday I eat 1800 calories and don't exercise, but my Monday and Tuesday average comes out to 1500 each. It sounds complicated but it's essentially eating based on my REAL TDEE (taking into account exercise) but worked out to fit into the MFP system that gives you back calories for exercise.