am i doing this wrong ?

the reason i do the dancing is because i have to do low impact activities because i have bad knees, i can't do a full workout as it starts a lot of pain , i actually think my calories will be higher as i don't weigh food apart from flour and i count sugar in home baking, but other than that i more or less know portion sizes from when i did weigh watchers.

The exercise is probably less but i am logging as mfp says and i am losing weight. I did come to a stop which was the purpose of this thread , but then i had a good feed up lol and never exercised all day and the next day lost the 3lb roughly which i had gained and an extra pound , so i have at the end of the day on my net 800-1000 calories which i am told is fine .

if you aren't measuring your food, THAT is the problem! Your tracked calories must be way off.

if you aren't measuring your food, THAT is the problem! Your tracked calories must be way off. Estimating portions will not work. Buy a food scale, and if you really want to succeed, weigh every single thing and track it before you eat it. That is how you lose weight.

You should probably exercise more moderately- there's no need to workout 4 hours a day. Do 1 hour of dance a day and do strength training- you can do basic push-ups, squats, lunges, and planks at home without any equipment (plus a million of other exercises too- check youtube for at-home strength circuits).

I have osteoarthritis in my knees and shoulders so i can't do push ups , squats, lunges. That is why i dance and walk . Thanks for the reply though

there is nothing wrong with way i am doing this, eating back all the calories is pointless .

You're going to overthink your strategy as soon as you eat more than 300kcals net and yoyo kicks in, as long as you're not planning to keep it like that the rest of your life. Not to mention your health.

there is nothing wrong with way i am doing this, eating back all the calories is pointless .

This is probably because you don't understand how myfitnesspal is designed to work.

You set up your profile, put in your information and told MFP that you want to lose, let's say, 2 pounds a week, which is considered the max end of weekly healthy weightloss. MFP is going to give you a deficit of 1000 calories a day from your maintenance level of calories.

Let's assume in your case, if you were to stay in bed all day and do nothing, your body will burn 2600 calories just functioning...breathing, heart pumping, etc. So, since 1 lb = 3500 calories, and 2 lbs = 7000 calories, then 1000 calories a day for one week = 7000 calories which = 2 lbs.

1000 calorie deficit for you is 1600.

NOW...when you add exercise, you increase your daily deficit from 1000 calories to 2300 calories (or whatever number it is depending on exercise). This is causing you to NET 300 calories a day.

While this may sound like it's a good idea, the fact of the matter is that your body needs a certain amount of calories to perform it's functions each day. The body will adjust how it works to protect itself. It will slow down your metabolism making it harder for you to lose the fat. You're body will keep hold of what it feels it needs to survive.

Food is fuel. Your body need fuel to function. Eating back exercise calories is just fueling your exercise. IF you don't feel hungry, don't eat more food, just eat food with a higher caloric count.