Coming from WW...anyone esel?

Yes! I lost 60+ pounds in the last 18 months. I gained back a few over Christmas, and I had a few more to go before that. So I need to lose about 20 to get to my goal. I got tired of paying for WW online, so I thought I'd try this as tracking does keep me honest. (Like right now, I want to eat a snack but I don't want to add it to my diary, so I won't!) I was successful with WW, but I feel I have a good handle on it now. I work out 5 days a week, so I have the exercise under control. I'm feeling great, off blood pressure and cholesterol meds with doctor's blessing. I'm pretty happy with how I look, but want to get those last few pounds off. I agree about the change from free fruits and veggies on WW. Although I'm not going to worry about it too much. If I'm hungry, and I eat fruit instead of junk, I don't think that's really a problem and it has worked for the last several months.

I started Weight Watchers almost 4 years ago and I have come from 318lbs down to 215lbs. I am very happy with my results but I had been down to 198 at my lowest. However, I have been hitting the gym pretty hard and believe I have gained some muscle...but certainly not 17lbs worth...don't I wish. So, here I am. Anyone else in the same boat as I am? Hoping this gets me to my goal but surprised at the low calories it said that I should be taking in. At being active every day but having a sit down job during the day it says I should only have 1680 cals/day....seems kinda low for a male thats 36 y/o. I am 5'11" but that's what it says to lose 1 lb/wk.

MFP is set up with the expectation that you will log your exercise, and then "eat those calories back" (or at least a portion of them). The 1680 calories is only for whatever basic activity level you selected (I'm assuming you selected sedentary since that is what MFP would tell you to do with a desk job.) When you log your exercise, MFP will increase your calorie goal for that day.

Also, remember that all the online calculators are working with averages for populations, and you may for any number of reasons not be right at the average number. Your own results give you the data to calculate your true individual TDEE (or TDEE before exercise, if you want to use the MFP method).

After you have a few weeks of data (I would suggest 3 or 4 weeks, since you're male and don't have monthly hormonal swings mucking up your results, and you apparently have already been restricting your calories and have a regular exercise schedule, so you probably won't have water weight losses or gains throwing off your first couple weeks of data), you can compare and see if you really are losing 1 lb a week on 1680 NET calories (calories consumed minus exercise calories logged). If you find you're actually losing more than a pound a week, you could decide to raise your calories to lose at the rate you've chosen.

For example, if it turns out you lose 2 lbs a week on 1680 net calories, you know that your maintenance level is actually 500 calories more than MFP thinks it is, and you could add another 500 calories to daily net calorie goal, and still lose 1 lb a week. (To arrive at an exact daily maintenance calorie number before exercise, add all your net calories for whatever time period you're tracking, say 4 weeks, plus 3500 calories for each pound you've lost in that time period. Divide by the number of days, for example, 28 days in 4 weeks, and the result is your net calorie maintenance level. Subtract 500 calories from that to get a daily net goal to lose 1 lb a week. Then change your goal in your settings to the number you have calculated, rather than the one that MFP gave you. (You can override pretty much all the MFP goal settings, for fat, protein, etc., as well as overall calories, by going to Home, then Goals, and clicking on Change Goals.)

I was doing ww for almost two years and was very successful (I lost over 150lbs), got to my goal weight and everything. But my leader changed we had a revolving door of leaders that were lackluster, at best. So in lieu of continuing there, I started MFP. I was pretty shocked about the calorie amounts as we'll, but then withy the ww points plus system, all fruits and vegetables, with some exceptions, were considered as "free." So my daily banana, which used to be "nothing" in point land now eats into my daily intake of calories. If anything, it has helped me to be more mindful of my eating. No more mindless eating of grapes, huh? Those suckers count.