Anyone else discovered low calories are their only option?

No as I've said time and time again I am not in a position to do that but I am not stupid and know my own body. I've been logging calories and macros on here for months, taking advice by increasing calories and after months of eating up to 2000 calories per day all that's happened is I gained back the 1% body fat I lose initially and gained back the 4lbs I had lost in the beginning too.

No more weight loss, no more fat loss and all when burning off approximately 2500-3000 calories per week (being conservative).

I have given it over 4 months of listening to what works for others which is not exactly no time at all and now have reached this conclusion through staying at the same weight for a while by averaging 1600 calories per day. I therefore have concluded that my true TDEE including exercise is 1600 which I don't think is unrealistic and is certainly not an eating disorder amount of food to maintain on!

My goal IS to lose fat more than scale weight and for my health I can't afford to gain any more fat so in order to lose as has been said on here over and over again I have to create a deficit large enough to lose this fat hence eating less for a while, hopefully not too long.

What's so wrong with that? Just because your buff and don't have these problems good for you, maybe one day when I've stripped off the fat I can work on increasing my calories and building muscle but my goals for now are different.

I can only lose when I consume about 1,066 calories. I found this number by reading a post about the Biggest Loser online somewhere. You take your weight and multiply it by 7 (they multiply it by 6 on the show for fast results). I tried the In Place Of a Roadmap thing for about a month and it didn't help at all, I thought I had been eating too little before hand but it turns out I've actually been eating way too much. So eating much fewer calories has done wonders for me!

I can only lose when I consume about 1,066 calories. I found this number by reading a post about the Biggest Loser online somewhere. You take your weight and multiply it by 7 (they multiply it by 6 on the show for fast results). I tried the In Place Of a Roadmap thing for about a month and it didn't help at all, I thought I had been eating too little before hand but it turns out I've actually been eating way too much. So eating much fewer calories has done wonders for me!

Do this to lose weight but remember weight = fat, water, muscle and bone mass) Use TDEE if you want to lose body fat as for every lb of body weight lost 25% of that will be muscle

Following the advice biggest loser has given you, I'm sorry but 1470 calories for someone of my height and lean mass i would just become non existant.

TDEE -20% deficit set at a level you know you are going to work out say 2 times a week then do not eat your exercise calories back.

Fortunately I've trained my body to lose on more--patience is key with this--I get peeved when I'm not losing after 2 weeks but really I shouldn't. I mean I eat ~2000 calories a day, burn a heap of calories working out, and still manage to lose weight. I'm only 4'11 and ~109-111 pounds so I don't have a high BMR or RMR. I've actually had the respiratory readout twice--my numbers come out to the 1100-1200 calorie range--that doesn't take into account the calories I burn walking to the restroom, cooking dinner, cleaning, or working out. I can easily burn about 1200 calories doing the aforementioned things. A lack of patience is usually the real culprit (or systematic underestimation of your caloric intake).

Wow all these medical anamolies on MFP. You guys need to go to your nearest University with a medical school because they would LOVE to study you. If in fact what you say is true, the study of your special metabolism would be of great interest and add knowledge to humanity's field of nutrition and exercise science. However, I suspect that if you participated in such a study, where your food was strictly controlled and exercise monitored, you would indeed lose weight without cutting your calories so low. Oh, and these studies are free.

I'm the same height as you and currently lighter but I bet if we stood side by side we'd look very different and I'd look a lot heavier. I'm also a UK 10-12 at the moment.

Ah, okay, now I've read through more of the thread. Perhaps you have some genetic reason why you specifically "can't" respond well to my suggestions, but I'll say it anyway. Here goes...The reason that the two of you are the same height and you have larger inches on arms, thighs, etc (basically more fat), is because you have always pursued very low calorie dieting, in which your body consumes it's own muscle. You became "smaller" and "lighter" by losing muscle (and some fat). Then, when you started eating normally WITHOUT musclebuilding exercises, you replaced the lost muscle with fat. Fat takes up more space than muscle, so you are now measuring bigger in the arms, thighs, etc because (as you yourself pointed out), you have more fat there. You simply need to get your muscle back. That means BUILDING muscle, NOT CONSUMING it. You will need to eat enough protein daily and work very hard to build up your muscle (but not so hard as to injure yourself). THIS TAKES TIME!!!!!. That new muscle, combined with the newly formed fat, will make you bigger. But at the end of adding muscle, you will be able to successfully "cut" that fat...but not before (not easily anyway, and not without continuing to perpetuate the circumstances of muscleloss followed by "filling in" with fat). Hope you can do some further research and perhaps get some good professional help on this journey. i do believe that you can become like your boyfriend who eats as much as he likes and doesn't gain weight. But you need muscle and to EAT healthy to do that.

good luck to you!