Any sensible suggestions only please

I am swimming a mile, I am using correct technique,as researched it. I can spend all that time exercising as I am away at the moment with nothing else to do except sunbathe.Mfp says that if you do general breast stroke for an hour I will burn over 700 cals, is this not correct.

Yeah i did think that, was i wrong. Here is my thinking of it- if my bmr is 1400 and i eat 1400 my weight would stay the same, if i eat more than 1400 i gain, if i eat less i lose, bearing in mind that its recommended not to go below 1200 cals/day. This is all without doing any exercise extra. Am i completely wrong?

Yeah i did think that, was i wrong. Here is my thinking of it- if my bmr is 1400 and i eat 1400 my weight would stay the same, if i eat more than 1400 i gain, if i eat less i lose, bearing in mind that its recommended not to go below 1200 cals/day. This is all without doing any exercise extra. Am i completely wrong?

Maybe the word wrong was not the correct word, we are constantly told if you want to lose weight you need to eat less and exercise more.

There's a happy medium for fat loss. Undereating and overexercising is very bad for the body, just as being sedentary and overeating is. What tends to happen is that people go from overeating and being sedentary, to undereating and overexercising, i.e. the pendulum swings too far in the other direction. that's when you will hear people saying "you need to eat more and exercise less", because they're trying to advise you to get to the happy medium, rather than going from one extreme to the other.

Find that happy medium, and fat loss will be a lot easier than most people think, because you'll be enjoying all the foods you love, just maybe not in such big portions as someone who overeats but not depriving yourself either, and you'll be doing exercise you enjoy and not killing yourself day in day out with excessive exercise.

Also i am now unsure about calories i need to burn and eat to lose weight. My BMR is only 1400, so i have to exercise to be able to lose weight. I allow 1000 a day plus some or calories burnt during exercise. But if i never exercised, with my BMR rate it would take weeks to lose even one pound.
I am limited to use of gym equipment, we are only allowed to use a piece for 30 mins. I cant go out running, so very limited.

Try to add weights or other strength training to your exercise plan, you can achieve a lot more changes in your body in much less time than doing endless cardio. I currently lift weights for about 45 minutes three times a week and that's it, I'm seeing improvements in strength, fitness and also the shape of my body's improving. I also did weight lifting the whole time I was losing fat (I'm currently at my goal weight and maintaining it while doing weight lifting for strength and health). I've never done much cardio at all. You actually don't need to. I take the stairs to my apartment instead of the lift, and I run up and down the stairs, that's about all the cardio I'm doing presently, I'm not even walking that much because where I live in Bahrain, this time of year it's way too hot and humid (although I'm planning to hike around the malls here, which are huge, including walking or running up and down all the stairs, which would be quite a distance, mostly because I like walking and miss it a lot).

the fact is in order to lose weight, you don't need to do as much exercise as you'd think, and you don't need to eat as little as you'd think.

Also, if your BMR is 1400, your weight will not stay the same from eating 1400 cals, BMR is how many calories you need to keep all the cells in your body alive and your organs working, i.e. what you'd need to be fed if you were in a coma. Every time you move, even if you just walk across your living room or get something out of a kitchen cupboard or something, you are burning calories over and above your BMR. So if your BMR is 1400 and you eat 1400 cals, you will lose weight, even if you're just milling around your house and doing no "formal" activity. You need to multiply your BMR by an activity factor to find out how many calories you burn in an average day. For a sedentary person, if their BMR is 1400, the activity factor is 1.2, which gives 1400 x 1.2 = 1680 cals/day.... if you're exercising your activity factor is going to be higher. 2+ hrs cardio a day would probably push you into the moderately active category, which would be an activity factor of around 1.55, which means you'd be burning around 2170 cals/day

so you see, you're actually burning a lot more calories than you think you are. Hence the need to eat more or exercise less. I'd go with whatever's more sustainable in the long term, so if you really enjoy doing 2+ hours of cardio a day, then carry on with the exercise and eat enough to sustain that level of exercise.... if you'd prefer to exercise less, e.g. just 30 mins 3-5 days a week (cardio or strength training), then do that and eat the right amount of calories for it.

There's a thread called "in place of a road map" that explains all this much more clearly, and includes step by step instructions for how to calculate how much you need to eat for sustainable fat loss while still feeding your body enough, i.e. how to find the happy medium number of calories for the level of activity you know you'll be able to stick to long term.

Thank you for your advice, it makes sense now, will definitely use it,and will look at the sites you recommended. I have the same problem with the weather here, I am in Saudi Arabia for ten weeks.but restricted as not allowed to leave compound without my husband and have to wear the Abaya. I can go cycling in national parks apparently but still have to wear the abaya, so giving that a miss.Thanks again