startup settings, calorie calculations, exercise goals, etc.

ur right.. mfp is only considering your normal daily rountine NOT any excercise you may do so if you workout and log your excercise mfp actually gives you those calories back so you will need to eat more to NET 1200 if u workout, you will be eating more than 1200!

when u go to log ur workouts, u will see they give those extra calories back to you.. its designed for you to eat them bc your burning more than what its assuming you do.. you would want to net 1200 some people swear by eating all your calories back, some say they dont and it works good that way for then, some say they eat some of them back i personally dont always eat them all back bc i dont kno how accurate the estimates are and i may not b 100 percent w my logging so i usually do eat around half of them and keep a lil left over just incase! whatever works best for u. hope this helped!!

Please read the first thread I posted - it should help explain

Edit to add: You do not have enough weight to lose to lose 2 lbs per week in a healthy manner. 2 lbs per week is for someone who is obese or morbidly obese. The less you have to lose, the more slowly you should lose it. The leaner you are, the higher your risk of losing more muscle mass in addition to fat mass, resulting in being "skinny fat."

Then you're slightly outside the curve and may need to tweak things a bit. Since you're smaller than average, the 1200 lower limit MAY not apply to you. MFP uses the 1200 lower limit as that is what experts recommend as the minimun for most women to receive adequate nutrition. But, if you're smaller than average, you may do ok with a little less.

MFP won't allow a guided goal of less than 1200, but you can set it lower if you use custom goals. However, I would be very careful with that. When on less than that, you need to be extra careful that your intake is very clean and meets the necessary macros (protein/fat/carbs) AND micros (vitamins/minerals). And I would not recommend going below 1000.

With the stats you provided, your BMR at about 1400, and (just guessing) an activity level of lightly active, puts your maintenance cals at about 1800. This means that for a 2 lb a week goal (1000 cal deficit), your daily cal goal would be 800 - not what I would recommend. Unfortunately, for smaller women it's often not healthy to attempt a 2 lb/week goal because your BMR is so low to begin with, that a large deficit would require a diet that wouldn't provide enough nutrients.

If you can eat very cleanly and get sufficient macros (ie are willing to be very precise in your diet), you may do ok on 1000, but I would strongly discourage going below that.

love it when ladyhawk answers, it means less typing for me.

Anyway, just an add on, give it more than 1 week, your body doesn't think in terms of weeks, give it a month, it takes a little while for your metabolism to become used to a new eating/workout routine.

:laugh: I've been wanting to get one of the voice dictation programs to save my fingers.

Good point, as well. Seen a bunch of people (especially leaner ones) this week being a bit too impatient for immediate, steady progress and freaking out when they see a 1/2 lb gain for one day. If I did that, I'd be in a nuthouse cause I have huge fluctuations. :noway:

too easy, I'll keep my mouth (fingers?) shut.