New and looking for support (petite women). Please help

Just a few thoughts:

1) Stop weighing often. You'll fluctuate in water weight 1-2 pounds just on a regular basis and it's common to gain water after a workout. You're in this for the long haul, so the point is to see a downward trend over time. Daily or 2-3 weekly weigh ins can go up or down.

2) 2000 sounds about right. If it feels like too much, go to 1900. You have to learn to listen to your body, and it will tell you if it's not getting enough (like it did before). If that's less than you've been eating (doesn't sound like it ) or more, your body will have to get used to the calorie intake. I dont' know how long you've been at that weight but it can take weeks for your body to "catch on" that something's different.

3) Get out a tape measure and measure everything - hips, legs, thighs, neck, arms, waist, etc. As you continue working out you'll see change. That change may show up when the scale's not budging. It's still progress, and sometimes it's the most important kind. You need more than just the scale to let you know how you're doing.

4) Open your diary; folks will be able to help by taking a look at what you're eating.

5) You haven't messed up anything. You're learning! Good luck.

Bingo...

remember that all of these... BMR, TDEE, and even the calories listed on packaging and your measurements (if you are like most people) are estimates...

Because of this, my suggestion is to find a starting point using the information that these estimates provide and modify it as you learn what your experience is.

The basic idea is that if you burn off 500 calories in a day more than you take in, over 7 days that is 3500 calories and you will lose approximately a pound. (Your body gets approximately 3500 calories when it burns a pound of fat.) You can lose more than a pound a week depending on the amount you need to lose, but as you get closer to a goal weight (aside from the fact that your TDEE and BMR will decrease and therefore reduce your daily deficit if you eat at the same level) you may want to decrease the pace a bit to help to ensure muscle retention.

Don't try to lose too much in a week - Sounds like you experienced the energy shortfall that arises from having too few calories to fuel your body, but also know that too high a deficit will cause your body to work to find energy resources that are readily available - and one of those is actually your body breaking down muscle for energy - obviously a bad thing since muscle is the metabolically active tissue/weight that we want to keep. 2000 cals seems like a pretty safe level - particularly since your BMR is around 1625-ish. you could probably sustain a few less if you are comfortable eating at that level.

Weigh at the most one a week - and perhaps doing so on a week where your eating the 24-48 hours before is most likely to be consistent may help with fluctuations. If I were to weigh on Sunday morning, I'd probably see more fluctuations because if I'm going to have a higher salt day (salt/sodium intake will often cause water retention and thus show temporary weigh on a scale as your body retains the water - water is very heavy) - it would likely be a Friday night or Saturday event where I had salty foods or snacks... so I typically weigh Friday mornings since my Wednesdays and Thursday are typically more consistent.

Measurements are a GREAT idea - take them... ALSO take a "before" photo now... you may not like how it looks, but following your success (and you will be successful right?) you'll want to be able to see the success and my experience on MFP is that sooo many people look back and wish they had one...

Feel free to send me a "friend request" or send me a message if I can be helpful...