TDEE reduced by 20%...no way

If you work out that much you probably need more than 1929. Are you at your goal? Your stats tell me you are!

My TDEE - 20% is 1900. I'm 5'2", 170 lbs, and workout moderately 3 times a week. You're much smaller than I am but kick a lot of butt in your workouts, which burns tonnnsss of calories. I think that sounds about right.

With only 8 pounds to go until your GW, I would actually suggest doing TDEE-10%. Ease your way into the higher amount of calories so that when you're at maintenance you don't pack it all on again! And then enjoy all the food you get to eat!!!!

If after a month or two you notice yourself getting heavier, decrease it...but you do have to give it time to see how your body reacts. It's a very long, drawn out guessing game. Yay!

My TDEE - 20% is 1900. I'm 5'2", 170 lbs, and workout moderately 3 times a week. You're much smaller than I am but kick a lot of butt in your workouts, which burns tonnnsss of calories. I think that sounds about right.

With only 8 pounds to go until your GW, I would actually suggest doing TDEE-10%. Ease your way into the higher amount of calories so that when you're at maintenance you don't pack it all on again! And then enjoy all the food you get to eat!!!!

If after a month or two you notice yourself getting heavier, decrease it...but you do have to give it time to see how your body reacts. It's a very long, drawn out guessing game. Yay!

This is true too! The less you have to lose, the more you need to eat.

I can't believe that you reached 173 pounds by eating less than 1900 calories That's sounds fishy to me. Currently, I'm losing a pound at 2000 calories. My TDEE is 2500, but I'm a little larger than you.

why is this so shocking? She just ate in a deficit...

I think the person you quoted is remarking that the OPs starting weight was 173 (aka she had gained that much). Which I also question as to how it could have been a weight gain by eating so little unless there is a medical reason behind it.

5'1" here. I maintain my weight eating around 2000 calories (even a bit more). So, from my experience, it is possible... BUT, I also sort of believe in the set point theory, that your body has a weight it naturally "wants" to be so if you are under that particular weight, you will gain until reaching it at which point it'll even out.
not sure how much sense I've just made... need more sleep!

just calculated my TDEE- 20% and its 1929. That cannot be right...that is more than I have eaten ever! When I increased to 1400 calories I gained weight.
I am 5 ft, barley any inches but I work out almost every day, intensely. I am 129lbs currently, and a size 2, I have lots of muscles haa.
That seems like a HUGE amount of food. Does anyone (short ladies in particular) actually lose eating a number that high? I know everyone is different and I have always been more likely to gain than any of my friends/family members, so maybe my disbelief is purely a reflection of my experience.

Im just curious what people thing about this. Does anyone else think its way to high? Or am I stuck in 1200 mentality?

How much did you use to eat that got you in to trouble that you now have to lose weight, and how long did that take to gain weight, and were you exercising this much during that time?

What do you actually have to compare 1929 to besides the 1200 you've seen? Anything based on reality of you?

Yes I tried for a month to increase.

Before you tried and gained, how long did you eat at 1200 calories? It's very possible that you suppressed our RMR and your metabolism became more effective to burning calories. So naturally, you could have an RMR around 1400, but due to long term suppression, it could have adapted to 1200 or less. Additionally, when you increase calories, most people (especially women) increase carbs. When you increase carbs you increase water/glycogen storage which could account for a few lbs. This is why it's suggested to slowly increase. So if you were at 1200, I would suggest adding 100-200 calories a week until you hit your goal.

Also, with your guess about where you used to eat, most people under estimate calories by 400 calories, so it's quite easily that you were eating 2000+ calories in a day.

just calculated my TDEE- 20% and its 1929. That cannot be right...that is more than I have eaten ever! When I increased to 1400 calories I gained weight.
I am 5 ft, barley any inches but I work out almost every day, intensely. I am 129lbs currently, and a size 2, I have lots of muscles haa.
That seems like a HUGE amount of food. Does anyone (short ladies in particular) actually lose eating a number that high? I know everyone is different and I have always been more likely to gain than any of my friends/family members, so maybe my disbelief is purely a reflection of my experience.

Im just curious what people thing about this. Does anyone else think its way to high? Or am I stuck in 1200 mentality?

I'm 5'1" and workout 3-4 times a week (heavy lifting to failure, takes a total of around 1 hr each workout, including all the resting between sets) and I don't do any cardio, apart from walking, and going up and down the stairs to my apartment. So really, I'm not doing that much exercise, and I'm not someone who does like 2hrs cardio a day.

I maintain on around 1900 calories and recently switched back to cutting, and was starving and "hangry" on 1580 calories (never used to be when cutting at a moderate deficit, and a moderate deficit in the past was 1500 cals/day, but I am possibly more active now than in the past), to the point that I've gone back to square one to see if my maintenance really is 1900 calories, or in fact more than that. It's actually possible that I was maintaining on more than 1900 cals/day, just that when I track to see now many cals/day I'm eating, I eat less (because I'm "being good" when tracking...) so think that I'm maintaining on less than I am... so currently I'm aiming for around this number of calories to see if my weight really is stable at this number.

You're about the same height as me, and you're a lot more active than me, so you are very likely to have a higher TDEE than me. I have a large frame, but that seems to only give me an extra 50 calories a day (i.e. the difference between Harris Benedict formula which is based on weight and height and assumes an average frame size, and Katch-McArdle, which is based on lean body mass, so would account for frame size). You being more active than me counts for a lot more than frame size or one inch difference in height would do.

And yes this method has worked for me in the past, I went from obese to a healthy body fat percentage using the TDEE - 20% method. I'm currently maintaining my weight but want to improve my body fat percentage (from approx 22% currently, to maybe 18-20%, although I have a look in mind, more than getting fussed about the exact numbers) so I'm going to be doing TDEE - 10 or 15% for a phase to cut fat, then TDEE + don't know what exactly, I'll see when I get there, to gain some more lean body mass. My numbers may be a little off, i.e. I think maybe my maintenance calories is a bit more than 1900 cals/day, but they're not that far off, and this method works.

Yes I tried for a month to increase.

Before you tried and gained, how long did you eat at 1200 calories? It's very possible that you suppressed our RMR and your metabolism became more effective to burning calories. So naturally, you could have an RMR around 1400, but due to long term suppression, it could have adapted to 1200 or less. Additionally, when you increase calories, most people (especially women) increase carbs. When you increase carbs you increase water/glycogen storage which could account for a few lbs. This is why it's suggested to slowly increase. So if you were at 1200, I would suggest adding 100-200 calories a week until you hit your goal.

Also, with your guess about where you used to eat, most people under estimate calories by 400 calories, so it's quite easily that you were eating 2000+ calories in a day.

Yes, my metabolism has had alot of poor eating to deal with. I regularly starved myself in Highschool and this past summer in Haiti I was incredibly sick and ate way below 1200.

This is very interesting. I like the idea of slowly increasing.

Then it's quite possible you will fall out of the realm of being in the standard deviation. It's not to say you can never fix it.. but it may take 6months + to get your RMR to align to your true BMR. The issue you will deal with is the average person your size will generally have more lean body mass.. The more LBM you have, the more calories you burn at rest. So quite possibly, you can do a bulk phase, add 10 lbs of muscle or so and then fit back into the standard deviation. Unfortunately, when you starve yourself or suppress calories a lot, your body then converts the amino acids in your muscle to energy which will cause your body to lose muscle mass... thence the slowing of your metabolic rate.

Basically, from what I've read, your metabolism is damaged from your poor eating. Slowly increase until you reach
TDEE. Eat at TDEE for a long time. This is called a Refeed. If you want more info, I think it would be very beneficial for you to look up the group Eat More 2 Weigh Less.