In Place of a Road Map: Short N' Sweet

would you mind giving your opinion?
after my first baby i found your threads and followed bmr/tdee method and was losing 1 lb a week. i got pg again, after having my second healthy baby boy this past december, i had to take it easy for 6 wks so i was eating around 13-1400 cals a day because i wasnt moving too much. some nights a little less just because of how the day went by.
also i am pumping my breast milk 3-4 times per 24hr period. (but i dont want to add cals for this because with first baby i did and gained weight)
so after i left hosp i lost 13 pounds eating avg 13-1400 cals a day in about 5 weeks.
the last 2 weeks i have been stuck at 174-175
last week i started T25 at home

so, last night i did my numbers according to this post. i found out my bmr according to katch on fat 2 fit is 1509 harris 1553

do you think the weight loss stall is due to not eating my bmr for 8 weeks?

also do you prefer to use the tdee numbers from fat 2 fit or the manual calculations you provide (bmr x 1.3 etc etc) to find calorie deficit because there is a large discrepancy between the two by 100 calories give or take.

do i follow katch bmr or harris provided on fat2fit? i did do an avg bf% as you suggested.

any help would be appreciated!

First, and you may be commenting on noticing this - the fat2fit site TDEE eating levels is based on Harris BMR, despite the fact they are showing Katch. So yes that table is inflated from what it should be.

Second, your body is expending extra energy making milk, it does count. As such, you create too big a deficit your body will fight you.

Are you close to 5" for that low of TDEE?

You might get a best estimate of BF%, and BMR, and activity level, and TDEE, from the Simple Setup tab in my spreadsheet on my profile page.

I'm betting you are undercutting too much, body is stressed out, and it's slowed down your spontaneous activity and lowered your metabolism some to adapt.

Since it sounds like you've been on a diet for 6-8 weeks while body was trying to recovery, probably time to work your way slowly up to estimated TDEE to get a diet break, which is always useful anyway.

thank you for responding. yes i am bout 5'3"-5'4". ok i will take a look at your profile page.

Nope, short is 5'1" or less to probably have a TDEE that includes everything that low. Now, perhaps with Katch BMR you are that low because you've lost some muscle mass compared to others your age, weight, height.
That would be a bummer of course, but can work within that constraint by eating less than others.
But you don't want to go too low and risk more loss if that's the case.

bmr on your google file is 1475. it may be that i have a lot of belly still from pregnancy and i have to be careful when i am pregnant first one i was on bedrest and this one pretty much no walking, lifting etc. not bedrest but had to be very careful. so i am sure i have lost a ton of muscle mass??

If your Katch BMR based on decent estimate of BF% is 1475, and by age, weight, height is 1553, then not that bad at all, good job. Katch is usually within 5-7%.

Now though, you say you are eating 1300-1400 and not losing weight.

So either your logging is sloppy and you are eating much more than that, and whatever that true higher figure is is really your true TDEE and you have no deficit in place.
or ....
Your logging is decent enough, and you have suppressed your body down so bad the 1300-1400 is your TDEE now, and your real BMR is a tad lower.

If it is the former, then you would just take out some calories from your incorrect 1300-1400 knowing you are actually eating more.
But if you are not sure you are logging decently, and you do that - you'll just be chasing a falling metabolism right on in to the ground.

Now, eventually, you can only suppress it so much, couple studies have said 20% max they saw, and eventually if you cut enough you will start losing.

So up to you to answer - how accurate is your logging?

You feel confident enough it's accurate enough to eat less and not be crashing your daily burn even more?
One study showed improvement eating at maintenance after only 3 months, though it was still lower than it could have been if it had not been adapted.
Another study showed it took upwards of 6 years to recover, in which case finish the weight loss and accept that maintenance eating is going to suck big time for potentially a long time, as any extra eaten is easily going to end up as fat.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/heybales?month=201401

You think I destroyed my metabolism/bmr in the 5 weeks I ate 13-1400 cals post partum?

Hate to jump on the end of a long (and super helpful) thread, but figured it's the same topic and no need to start new! I need some opinions on the activity level to choose, as I am a recovering "need to eat little calories to be little" and the TDEE I come up with is terrifying!

Stats:
29 yr old female
5'2

Each of the BF calc (respective to the OP):
26.4%
24.8%
36%
Avg: 29%

Avg BMR from the calcs: 1586 (but I am thinking I should stick with the Mifflin total of 1501 due to stated over-inflation of the figures)

Now to the activity level; yep, desk job..yada yada. However, I do pole fitness 6 days a week, totaling 6-7 hours per week. No need to insert gifs here, I've seen them Pole is not easy, but it is hard to identify my "level" as I'm not lifting weights (aside from my entire body!) or running/cardio in a traditional sense. Also, the activity level hangup I'm certain is in my head, as when I put in 1.7 for the active level (working out 6-7 days), my TDEE is crazy high at 2552.

Essentially, if someone can confirm the activity level, I would feel better eating so much as it seems crazy that I should be eating 2042 calories a day and would lose weight. Preaching to the choir as you hear this often...but that is a lot of food!

Sorry for the book, but while the inches are coming off from muscle gains, lbs coming off would be nice as it's a lot of work to lift all that body weight off the ground! Thank you!