How many calories a day do you eat?

Everybody's caloric intake seems so high! I freak out if I go over 1200 because I get the message that says "if every day were like today, you'd be _____ pounds in 5 weeks." If I go over 1200, it usually tells me I'll only lose 3-4 pounds in 5 weeks.

Chronic undereating will make it much harder to maintain your weight and more likely to stall out along the way. Be patient. You didn't gain weight overnight so don't expect to take it off that fast.

Very true. I'm just unsure how to calculate how many calories I should be eating according to my weight and height. All the BMR, TDEE, etc... confuse the heck out of me!

Use MFP as directed. Go to your goals, and set your weight loss to 1 lbs per week (You've only got about 30 lbs to go, so 1 lb per week is a good rate for you. It will slow down the closer you get to your goal weight). Eat what it gives you to eat. It's worked very well for me and many others. Just be patient and work on being consistent (weigh and measure all your food and try to hit your numbers every day). I, and many others here, started out trying to undereat to lose faster, and it was a disaster for me. I failed miserably. Eating enough but not too much and being consistent with my intake were the keys for success for me.

I try to stick to what MFP assigned - 1220...

I manually set mine at 2,050. (That way I can eat an even 2k cals without that red 0 popping up.) This is over what MFP suggests for me by about 250 cals, but I feel like crap eating 1900 or less-- for now, anyway. After I lose a few more pounds I'll recalibrate.

If you haven't already, try calculating your BMR and TDEE. This will give you a better idea of what you burn vs what you net daily. With my active job, I'm burning approximately 2800 cals a day, and that's before my workouts. So even though my BMR is down at 1440 or something, I need a lot more than that to prevent headaches and hunger pangs.

1500 on exercise days and 1300 on my off day

Use MFP as directed. Go to your goals, and set your weight loss to 1 lbs per week (You've only got about 30 lbs to go, so 1 lb per week is a good rate for you. It will slow down the closer you get to your goal weight). Eat what it gives you to eat. It's worked very well for me and many others. Just be patient and work on being consistent (weigh and measure all your food and try to hit your numbers every day). I, and many others here, started out trying to undereat to lose faster, and it was a disaster for me. I failed miserably. Eating enough but not too much and being consistent with my intake were the keys for success for me.

Thanks! I had the mindset that eating less would make me lose weight faster. Should I be eating back my exercise calories? I've heard mixed things about this. I normally don't eat back all of them, but some days I do.

I eat mine back. The way MFP is setup, you're supposed to eat them back. However, MFP tends to overestimate calorie burns, so sometimes people eat 50-75% back instead of all of them to avoid accidentally overeating. It will take a while to figure out what is going to work for you. Anything you try, give it a solid 2-4 weeks of consistent effort before trying something different. Once you find what works, it'll be a lot easier.

When I log my exercise, I go with what the elliptical says for amount of calories burnt. I don't own a HRM. I usually have no more than two cheat days during the week. My average weight loss is 0.6-1 pound a week (so far).

Use MFP as directed. Go to your goals, and set your weight loss to 1 lbs per week (You've only got about 30 lbs to go, so 1 lb per week is a good rate for you. It will slow down the closer you get to your goal weight). Eat what it gives you to eat. It's worked very well for me and many others. Just be patient and work on being consistent (weigh and measure all your food and try to hit your numbers every day). I, and many others here, started out trying to undereat to lose faster, and it was a disaster for me. I failed miserably. Eating enough but not too much and being consistent with my intake were the keys for success for me.

Thanks! I had the mindset that eating less would make me lose weight faster. Should I be eating back my exercise calories? I've heard mixed things about this. I normally don't eat back all of them, but some days I do.

I eat mine back. The way MFP is setup, you're supposed to eat them back. However, MFP tends to overestimate calorie burns, so sometimes people eat 50-75% back instead of all of them to avoid accidentally overeating. It will take a while to figure out what is going to work for you. Anything you try, give it a solid 2-4 weeks of consistent effort before trying something different. Once you find what works, it'll be a lot easier.

When I log my exercise, I go with what the elliptical says for amount of calories burnt. I don't own a HRM. I usually have no more than two cheat days during the week. My average weight loss is 0.6-1 pound a week (so far).

Machines are pretty bad at estimating calorie burns also, so I'd be wary that those are accurate also. Try eating back about half your exercise calories for now and try to net (total calories eaten minus workout calories >= 1200) at least 1200 calories per day for a few weeks. Just a forewarning, you probably will gain a little weight at first doing this, but be patient and give it a solid month anyway. I gained about 10 lbs when I went back to eating more initially, but that came off really quickly once my body adapted to more food again, and i consistently lost about 1 lb per week afterward and felt amazing.

Good luck to you!

MFP has me at 1730, the In Place of a Road Map thread with the TDEE info puts me at 1904, so I'm trying to get some extra calories in and see what happens.

I have mine set to about 1600, I was on 1450 but I always felt really deprived, and most days I work out and dont eat the calories back which puts me at about 1450 anyways....that is my theory, at least. I want to get back to 1450 though without feeling like im losing my friggin mind.

1800 cal. set by my doc