HELP ME!!!

You'll get tons of responses about the science and BMR and TDEE and all sorts of confusing stuff I'm sure works.

But, MFP can be really simple. Just net the 1200 and you'll lose 1 lb a week. I've got the same guidelines. Net 1200, so if I burn 500 I get 1700 total to consume. I usually "eat back" all my calories. I hit 1200 net most days and have lost 14 lbs since March 20.

There is a lot to learn but you don't have to dig that deep. Track every calorie, exercise and I swear the pounds just start coming off.

ok... breathe





if you use MFP as your calorie guide, then it sets your target with your daily deficit in it... then if you work out, you would need to eat those calories to KEEP your deficit THE SAME... so you will still lose... if you dont eat the calories back, you run the risk of not giving your body the energy it needs to run - and aside from feeling like crap, it will get the energy from someplace and one of those places is converting muscle... so working out is GREAT form retaining muscle, but don't let it generate too high a daily deficit.

don't mistake the difference between BMR and what is called TDEE...

BMR is essentially the number of calories your body burns keeping you alive... Respiration, heart beating, etc etc etc. think of it being the number of calories you would burn if you were asleep all day. Then we add to that an approximation of the number of calories we burn moving our bodies around in our daily lives to determine your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. (TDEE).. to make it simple your target, generally, should sit between your BMR and your TDEE.

MFP can be used as your guide, but it will not let anyone eat at less than 1200 calories. If you said 1 Lb a week MFP takes what it estimates your TDEE to be - IGNORING focused EXERCISE (this is different from most of the calculators you see on the 'net)... and takes 500 daily calories from it for each pound you tell it you want to lose, but will not go below 1200 for anyone.

So if you use MFP, eat at your 1200 target, but eat back exercise calories. (but be cautious of some of the estimates MFP gives - it seems to overestimate the burn for many exercises - your absolute best option is to get a Heart Rate Monitor to better estimate your calorie burn, but if that isn't an option, you may want to eat back 60-70% of the estimates MFP gives you...)

Breathe and take it easy - for most people this is a life change about finding balance and you'll find it.

Feel free to add me if I can be helpful.

The calories MFP gives you are almost always too low in my opinion. I would trust the BMR calculator. No one is really sedentary, unless you sit on your butt all day long.
So if your TDEE is 2200, you should lose about a pound a week eating 1700 calories a day. Try that for a month, see how it goes and adjust accordingly.

Thanks for the advice; that's MUCH nicer to hear than 1200 lol One last question though, that I'm still not 100% sure of: does the TDEE include whatever calories you burn from working out, or is the TDEE just the BMR x daily activity level? If the latter, do I also need to add to the 2200 whatever calories I've burned? For example, if the TDEE was 2200 and I burned 333 calories from working out, would that make it 2533? And if so, do I subtract 500 from THAT new number, or still from the original 2200?

SO sorry if this is redundant (me not getting it lol)

You are basically right. I don't know what calculator you've used, but I would go here:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/952996-level-obstacles-lose-weight-target-fat-easy
He does a way better job at explaining things than I would haha.
There's also a link in there where you can go to calculate your TDEE. If you pick the Little to no exercise option, you will need to eat those calories back. I actually took the liberty to calculate that for you. I entered your stats and got 1709 calories. That is what your body burns if you don't exercise, and just sit on your butt all day.

So, since you have very little weight to lose(less than 15 pounds) I would do this slowly. I would set my goal for 0.5 pounds a week. One of the reasons you want to do this is to retain as much muscle mass as possible while losing weight(i also reccomend strength training to help with that).
Your daily goal for a 0.5 pounds loss a week would be 1709-250, so 1459 plus exercise calories. If you burn 300 calories you would need to eat 1759 calories that day. Hope this is not too confusing.

Please note that these are low estimates, as I really doubt you are sedentary aside for that exercise you get. Everything counts, walking around, dancing, running after the bus etc.