1200 calories

mfp has you as a girl, if you're a man and not a woman, I suggest re-doing your profile so it's accurate.

Are you eating your exercise calories? If you are hungry, just exercise, earn some calories, and eat them. That should help.

Make sure your eating foods that has lots of protein and that has lots of fiber in them. Fiber fills you up. Drinks TONS of water..that helps too. Drink 8oz of water before each meal..which will give you a full feeling. Also...if you find yourself hungry between meals..find low cal SNACKS to eat inbetween..and you might need to eat about every 2hrs or so..that'll help get your metabolism going also. When you work out..log it and eat back your exercise cal's..that'll help a lot too! Good Luck! Hang in there and you can do it!

Put in your wt now and what you want to be and mfp will give you the proper calorie intake. God bless you.

Yikes! sorry I just looked at your profile pic.

LMFAO

2 lbs a week is unreasonable weight loss. Aim for a lb a week. I am happy if I manage 1/2 a lb. Sustainable weight loss isn't fast.

let's take a look at a few factors and go from there ... Fact: approximately 500 calorie deficit every day for seven days equals approximately 1 pound of weight loss. (3500 calories)
So, how do you determine your calorie deficit? First go to your goals page and look at the right hand box on the top, it says "calories burned from normal daily activity" If you have it set to sedentary, it will say something near the 1800 - 2000 range.
Mine is 1830 at 5'6" and 171 pounds.... Then think about how many calories you are burning that day. (Example 300 for swimming a half hour (made up figure)) Add that to your daily burn: (1830 + 300 = 2130). So I need to eat NO MORE than 1630 calories for that day to keep the 500 calorie deficit and lose at the one pound per week pace. (If I wanted to lose 1.5 pounds per week, I would subtract 750) and if I wanted to lose about two pounds per week (then I would subtract 1000 calories) BUT that would put me below 1200 calories for the day, which I try to avoid because I want to feel better at the end of the day. So I give myself the window of 1200 to 1630 calories for that day ... and generally try to err on the side of the 750 deficit area (around 1380 calories). Since you have such an aggressive goal (2 pounds per week) the computer has you set up with the lowest amount of calories you can eat and still fuel your body properly. (Your profile shows you are female)

A lot of people will say don't eat back your calories, but I am already sitting at the low end of calorie intake so this method helps me to figure out where I should be eating. And since I don't exercise every day and work at a desk job, I use sedentary and just do the calculations when I need to.

Hope this helps!
~Namaste

I see that you only want to lose 21 lbs. If that's the case, you should be aiming for 1lb per week of weight loss. That will bump your calories up a bit.

this is really good information thanks!

I am a female attempting to lose about 1 pound a week. Maybe if you try for 1 pound not 2, that will help.
I am only allowed 1200 as well and it is HARD. It makes me workout, because I eat back what I earn. I'm losing 1 pound a week no problem if I just eat my 1200 plus what I earn.
If I don't workout I agree it is hard to stick to it. But I just have 40 pounds to lose (20 would make me quite happy)
So I would say add exercise and eat that back. Maybe just lose 1 or 1.5 pounds a week.... it could help.

2 lbs a week is unreasonable weight loss. Aim for a lb a week. I am happy if I manage 1/2 a lb. Sustainable weight loss isn't fast.

I so agree. I Have the MFP set for 1 lb per week...if I get more great but I want real weight loss not just fast weight loss. I want it to be something I can stick with.

such great advice from everyone.. good to know that 1200 is really low for women as well.. I was thinking it was..

Yikes! sorry I just looked at your profile pic.

LMFAO

thats not nice!

I think she meant that she had assumed it was a male poster because the profile pic is of a man. But when you go to the profile, you see that the OP is female. I don't think there was any intention of criticizing the OP.

thank you, that is what I meant. I didn't click in her profile, I saw the picture and just assumed she was a male and based my advice on that...hence, the yikes!

Ok so when I put an aim of 1lb a week that gives me calories of 1600, I could definitely stick to that. It may be slower but it's better than being even fatter in 6 months time because I couldn't stick to the diet and binged out of starvation!

It may not be as slow to lose weight as you are thinking. MFP is estimating 1 lb a week, but everyone is different. You don't know how your body will react to the change in food and exercise. Some people can lose weight very quickly and others are slow, don't worry about how many lbs MFP says, just focus on the day and your food consumption and exercise.