Over 50 and confused about daily calorie intake

I would try the scooby number, and eat back your exercise cals. make sure you're getting enough protein for all that hard work you're doing.

you may see the scale go up at first, but give your body time to adjust before giving up.

best of luck!!

This is a summary/comparison of the 2 calculators I just wrote in another post so I am copy/pasting here because I am lazy

MFP calculates your calories based off of your daily activity and subtracts calories from that to create a deficit based on you weight loss rate you selected in your profile (ie 1lb/week, 2lb/week, whatever your selected there). You then add your exercise in on the day your perform it and MFP gives you more calories.

Scooby takes your TDEE, the amount your burn daily plus whatever exercise you put in weekly, and averages that across the whole week. In the Scooby method you eat the same amount evey day reguardless of exercise. Scooby also creates your deficit as a % of your TDEE, to calculate out what this is per week take your TDEE - suggested intake X 7 = calorie deficit for the week. Divide that by 3500 to get the lbs you will lose in a week. Since the overall deficit is not necessarily the same (% of TDEE vs lbs/ week selected in MFP method) that will account for some of the variation.

Hopefully that made sense, if anything is not clear please let me know.

Now for your questions:

1200cals/week is MFPs default lowest suggestion. Most people who get this suggestion have too aggresive of a rate selected for their goal. Not sure what your goal weight is, maybe 30-40 lbs away? You should be trying to lose 1lb/week, so if you selected 2 then I would suggest backing that off. Slow and steady wins the race and keeps you from being hangry!

Following MFP methods you do eat back exercise calories. I will expand upon that by saying make sure you are estimating them well (MFP tends to wayyy over estimate burns). HRMs are most accurate for cardio.
As stated above using the scooby method you to not eat back exercise calories, they are already calculated into your goal.

It is generally not advised to eat significantly below your BRM for extended periods of time. With that being said, if you feel ok I would not be too concerned. Fatigue, irritability, lightheadedness, and constant hunger are signs your body is not getting enough.

For new members I usually suggest reading these posts:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1234699-logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide

they are informative and might head off questions/mistakes you didn't even know you had yet

hope that helped

I recommend the sexy pants & logging foods threads above.

I'm over 50.....used to do 1200 calorie diets without a second thought. No more.

When I lost weight with a large calorie deficit & zero exercise...I lost lean muscle + fat. When I regained that weight....I gained fat. As people age they lose lean muscle....unless they work to hang onto it. A higher body fat % is not healthy.

Now I diet with a moderate deficit & strength train. Hoping to keep muscle (this time). So, my point is try very hard to find what is right for you. 1200 is MFP's lowest minimum default. That number includes zero exercise. Scooby's number (TDEE) includes exercise, so you take a number (or percentage) from that and log no exercise.

Because my deficit is small, logging is very important and weight loss is slow. Another poster recommended a FitBit. These are great for figuring out your activity level. Moving more (exercise or not) burns more calories. FitBits are not foolproof, but much better than MFP generalizations.