Please explain

i would go up to 1500 for now (before adding exercise calories) and see where that gets you for a month. nobody really knows exactly how many calories they burn in a day unless they have been meticulously counting calories for months. tdee is an estimate, you need to do some trial and error with it to find out how much you personally need to eat to lose weight.

exercise isnt necessary for weight loss, it just helps retain muscle, build higher endurance, and of course it allows you to eat a bit more since you burn more calories

Here is a great place to start:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

why does my thing keep telling me i am in starvation mode, i am only eating 700 to 800 calories a day , i walk alot at my second job.. should eating less calories not be good

no your goal should be to eat as much as you can and still lose weight not as little as you can and punish yourself with hunger.

You should be netting at least 1200 calories a day...

why does my thing keep telling me i am in starvation mode, i am only eating 700 to 800 calories a day , i walk alot at my second job.. should eating less calories not be good

Eating that much is terrible. You are not meeting your body's nutritional needs by any stretch of the imagination. This will interfere with your weight loss efforts. The goal is to eat less in order to lose weight while eating enough to be healthy and not be hangery (hungry and angry). You have to have a balance and not focus just on eating less.


Use the link I posted guidance above.

why does my thing keep telling me i am in starvation mode, i am only eating 700 to 800 calories a day

You answered your own question.

Goal means GOAL, something to reach for, achieve, not something to fall well short of. Food is fuel, and while slashing calories super low may seem like a good way to lose weight fast (which may happen at first, but say goodbye to good lean muscle along with any fat that might come off) , but it's a short cut to disaster - screwed up hormones & metabolism, hair loss, exhaustion, moodiness, and crashing and burning on the diet, resulting in yoyo dieting, losing and regaining even more. Suuuuucks.

As Stef posted above, your goal should be to eat as much as you can and still lose weight. MFP is very handy for doing this very thing. Enter your info accurately and set up reasonable goals. Log food and any activity as accurately as possible - a food scale and a good HRM are excellent tools to have.

Eat well, exercise, drink water, take rest days, get good sleep. Fuel your body with the proper amount of cals. Track your measurements, not just scale weight. And have patience.

Thanks for the feedback. I just need a ballpark to start with. 1350 calories to eat, but then I do some activity and burn 300 calories. It says I can eat more, but it seems like I shouldn't so my body will start shedding the pounds? I know that I have to keep the calories low because one I'm not consistently active enough (I hope I get there), and two because I'm short, and 3 because I'm over 40. UGH!

This post explains things pretty well:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf

Here's a quote from it that explains why you should eat back your calories from exercise (or at least some percentage of your estimate):

You tell MFP: I'd like to lose 1lb/week.

MFP says: Hey, you should eat X calories every day to lose 1lb/week.

You then decide to exercise and you burn 400 calories.

MFP says: Hey you [rude word], you said you wanted to lose 1lb/week. Now you need to eat X+400 because you told me you wanted to lose 1lb/week.

But really, read the whole thing. It doesn't take long.

why does my thing keep telling me i am in starvation mode, i am only eating 700 to 800 calories a day , i walk alot at my second job.. should eating less calories not be good