Not losing but following plan and exercising

definitely check out the TDEE - 15 or 20% and play around with that. 1200 may be too low for you...

Find a calculator for your TDEE that works, don't use MFP's calculator.

I have been doing this for about 2-3 weeks.

I wouldn't worry so early on if you haven't seen weight loss. These things do take time and with a relatively small amount to lose (8lbs) you can afford a less aggressive goal and shoot for 0.5lb a week weight loss.

Hi, I have been doing this for about 2-3 weeks. I did weight watchers (the old plan) for years and it worked great but I'm tired of figuring out points and like that I can do this plan on the go.

I have a kitchen scale, measuring spoons and measuring cups to ensure that I am calculating more calories properly. I'm also scanning items to ensure that it is accurate.

I think my daily caloric intake might have been even lower on the old weight watchers program. I'm just looking to lose about 6-8 pounds.

I tried the TDEE calculators on-line and they all gave me different numbers which were much higher than 1200 calories. Would you only go higher on your activity days? I do take 1-2 days off from exercising per week.

Yeah... I'll echo the above. Expand your time frame for monitoring progress. I like to operate in 4 week blocks of time... especially for my lighter clients. At low starting weights, the scale simply isn't precise enough to track fat loss. My suggestion would be to track measurements, weight, and pictures every month and use these metrics at this interval to paint your picture of success or not.

Now you mentioned something about coming off WW where you think you were likely eating even less calories than you are right now. That's problematic. Your body is adaptive, right. This is why muscles grow in response to progressive overload with weights, fat cells shrink in response to calorie deficits, the body shivers when it's temperature starts falling, etc.

Similarly, when we slash calories, it defends itself by trying to close the gap between the low calorie intake and your energy output. It does this by slowing things down... things like metabolic rate, fidgeting, etc.

And there's a lot we don't know - especially in relation to relatively small women who are trying to get leaner. It happens to be a population I've worked with extensively over the years and I've found one thing to be certain: the jackhammer, beat your body into submission mentality almost always backfires. The body reaches a point where it seemingly refuses to give up weight.

The mechanisms behind this are many... some of it certainly has to do with metabolic slowdown. Other parts of it have to do with water retention in response to buggered up stress response... meaning your hormones are all out of whack as your body tries to fend off the jackhammer approach.

And telltale signs of the jackhammer approach are very low calorie intakes and lots of cardio. Nine out of ten small women who come to be trying to get leaner present these same behaviors.

Going back to WW and your potentially lower calorie intake there... I'm wondering if you took any sort of break from dieting before transitioning from WW to this new 1200 calorie plan. If not, you need to take a step back and reassess what you're doing. You need to give your body a break. Rather than trying to beat it into submission... you need to adopt a system that's rooted in coaxing the fat off your body.

The first step, in my opinion, would be to systematically ramp calories up to maintenance over a week or two. You can putz around with all the calculators out there, but my approach is simple... maintenance for most active people is 14-16 cals/lb. If you think your metabolism is sluggish due to all the intense dieting you've done, maybe drop that assumption down to 13 cals/lb. At 130 lbs, this would put you at 1700ish calories.

Once you're there, relax a bit... maybe a week or so. Don't fret about weight. Don't stress. If anything, find things that unwind you... go to a spa, get a massage, eat some carbs. Let your body regroup.

Then, once you've given your body some relief, start dieting again using sane tactics. The sweet spot, calorically speaking, for most of my clients is 10-12 calories per pound. This would put your range at 1300-1600. Now I know how minds like you operate. Assuming you're actually listening to me, you've immediately jumped to 1300 and thought to yourself, "That's where I'll start."

Try again.

You need to take a systems based approach here. Remember, it's a matter of coaxing... not beating the fat off. Your body is a finicky, complex system. More so for your population (relatively small, dieting females) than any other. Once you dropped back into a deficit, I'd focus on eating as much food as possible while still allowing for a reasonable rate of weight loss from month to month. Maybe start at 1500 or thereabouts.

From there, stay very consistent. Be precise. And stay patient. If after a number of weeks (2 at a minimum, 4 at most) nothing has changed... now you have the wiggle room to adjust calories downward. This is the very reason why we don't jump immediately to the lowest calorie intake possible. The idea is to keep your body happy so it works for you rather than against you.

Of course there are many other details such as your training. As someone mentioned above... assuming you're in this to look better naked rather than weigh a certain number... I'd prioritize progressive weight training WAY ahead of cardio.

And of course on the nutrition front there's more to the story than simply calorie intake. The nutrient profile of the diet is also important. Without going nuts... my personal baseline approach is to shoot for .8-1.5 gram of protein per pound of goal body weight, 25-35% of cals from fat, 1-3 servings of fruit per day, 3-5 servings of fibrous veggies, and whatever caloric allotment that's remaining can be filled with whatever your heart desires.

Thoughts? Questions? Hate that I'm telling you to step away from dieting for a brief stint and risk adding a pound or two on the scale?

If so, all that I'll say is I've seen it time and time again... at times it's necessary to take a couple of steps back in order to blaze a new trail to your goal.

Sorry for the length and rambling... I haven't been on the forum for a while and am feeling talkative, haha!