Diet Madness (Help!)

Hey guys. I've been shadowing the forums for a few weeks now, scouring information, reading and rereading the IPOARM links, stuff about TDEE, metabolisms, diets and exercises. Well now that I've done all that, I've worked myself into a frenzy about being unsure if I'm doing it right after all! I was hoping someone might give me some pointers. I'm terribly sorry in advance about the super long post but I could really use your help.

So, I guess I'll start with the basics.
I'm 26 years old, turning 27 in December.
I've been overweight most of my life.
About 6 years ago, I took up going for walks with my husband and dogs.
But through those 6 years, I never really logged what I ate or paid much mind to anything.
I guess I kind of hoped that if I walked enough, I'd lose weight regardless of what I put in my mouth.
Fast forward 6 years and I realized what a silly, stupid concept that was and really buckled down roughly 3 weeks ago when I got on the scale and saw the biggest number I've seen in my whole life, 267.8 lbs.

So on the 9th of October, I tried just "eating how a smaller person would eat," and dropped my calorie intake to 1,500. I wasn't really hungry but I ate whatever I wanted as long as the total at the end of my day was around 1,500. I felt great, I was enthused and I lost what I guess was a lot of water weight in the first week, which was roughly 8 lbs!

I was so happy and so I kept it up. I've steadily lost another 3 lbs for a total of 11 lbs since starting this on Oct. 9th. The scale goes up and down but I don't take it to heart as I've read enough of the threads here to realize weight loss isn't linear and it can go up and down but overall, it'll go down on the whole.

But then I started to really read stuff on the internet. (I think you could compare it to how when you have the sniffles and you ask Web MD what it could be and they tell you it might be a possible terminal illness and no matter how silly it is, you've decided you must be going to die lol.)

I read about metabolisms slowing down, I read about TDEEs, BMRs, stuff like that. I tried finding the information on a bunch of sites and a lot of them give me pretty different numbers so I started getting scared. (I've been on medication before for anxiety so a lot of the time I try to tell myself I'm being ridiculous but it doesn't always help or work.)

So then I was worried that I was slowing my metabolism down with too little food since some sites said my BMR was 1,700,1,900, 2,200, etc. and I was only eating 1,500! I also noticed my period was late. My husband and I use condoms and there's been no broken mishaps lately so I was just keeping an eye on it. I ended up having pretty bad cramps and I thought surely it was coming soon. Then about a week after, it was late but it showed up. Thing is, it showed up for like, 1-2 days, tops. And it was so very, very light. My usuals are pretty heavy so this whole event was new and different. (And therefore unsettling!)


My period's always been odd, in that it doesn't show up on time but it at least shows up monthly and also stays for the full week. So I was stunned at the 2 day period and then it vanishing without a trace. Then that propelled me even further in fear when I googled THAT and found people coming back with amenorrhea because of malnutrition and too-low calorie diets. I read things about bone density, lots of stuff.

So it was roughly 18 days of me on a 1,500 calorie diet.

So I tried finding my BMR and somehow stumbled around to it being near-ish to 2,200-2,300. So I tried a 20% deficit to that and ended up at 1,869 calories and have been sticking to that religiously. I feel good, no hunger pangs, no grumpy panda! But my period didn't come back or fix, and I'm not even sure it's supposed to! Or if I need to wait til later this month to see if it "fixes."

Then I started to read about losing muscle if you diet and don't strength train. (I know, I'm just batting a thousand, aren't I? Some people *like me!* should not be allowed to google things, lol.) So I tried to do a push up. That was awful and would have been humiliating if anyone had been there to see that! I hadn't really done any arm exercises since high school years ago so I found I could try planking and I tried that, crunches, squats and lunges and a few arm exercises with these resistance bands we had lying around from another failed weight loss attempt.

So I did these exercises for 30 mins, twice in one week. And oh boy, was I sore! I was hurting in places I didn't know existed. I'd waddle down the hallway whispering "Ow, ow, ow." Lol, but when I recovered, I felt great! The second time I did them, I felt like the reps were easier even! I'm not sure if muscle really works that way or if it's just all in my head so, yeah, there's that, haha.

I was now fitting into pants that had previously been off limits because stuffing myself in them felt like I was suffocating! So in one hand, I was thrilled something was working, but in the other, unsure if I was crash coursing and doing myself harm somehow because of the weird period.

But right after the first work out session was when I finally noticed my period had indeed up and left early. So then I was worried I was taxing my body too much. Now I'm considering trying to eat my maintenance calories or not, or if I'm even supposed to.

I'm also a housewife and I don't do too much so I always put sedentary in most of the calculators as I only do a little exercise and the usual house things, like cook, clean, vacuum.

Basically, I feel like I'm groping around in the dark in unexplored areas when I should really be looking to people who've gone through it who could illuminate my mistakes with advice.

So, here's the basics.

I'm 5'3''

I'm 26 years old.

Currently weigh 256.6, down from 267.8

I've been at this since Oct. 9th.

I go for 20 minute walks 7 times a week for 1 mile each night. I walk at a pace where I can hold conversation with my husband easily.

I eat 1,869 calories a day but I don't watch what I eat. Like I'll eat pudding, apples or icecream one day and then grilled chicken and peppers, peas and corn the next. It's really sporadic but still around the 1,869.

I do rather difficult strength training like squats, lunges, crunches for 30 minutes with roughly 5 minutes for warm up and cool down each. Each exercise is 12 reps, 3 sets. The strength training is rather new so I really can't even hold a conversation during it, it's pretty intense for me.

I intend to do the strength training 3 times a week, 30 minutes each. I haven't been eating my calories back as I'm not even sure how much it burns. Should I be eating them back? Should I just hold off on strength training until my period and stuff go back to normal? Is this all okay? Should I keep putting sedentary or light activity for my modifier?

Basically just need someone who knows more than me to give me any advice or point out anything I might be doing wrong. This is my first time being very serious about weight loss without doing fad diets or anything. So please, any help would be appreciated. And again, terribly sorry this is so long.

Thanks in advance!