How many calories should I be eating?

Are you using a food scale to weigh your foods? If not, you're eating more than you think. And you should be eating those calories back. MFP is set for you to lose without exercise, and so when you burn calories exercising you need more calories to fuel your body. Netting 600 calories (when accurately logging) can be dangerous to your health.

Your BMR is an irrelevant number.

Your deficit is the difference between what you actually eat and what you actually burn in total.

So if Misfit thinks you burn 2300 in a day, and you want a deficit of 750, eat 750 less than 2300. That would be 1550, not 1200!

If you don't feel well at 1200, and it is causing cravings, then that target will sabotage you in the end. You'll burn less because you have less energy to move around, you'll give in and overeat, etc. Many smaller people (people in a healthy weight range, especially as you approach the bottom end of the healthy weight range) cannot sustain a 1000 cal deficit with optimum wellness and performance.

Also, if you don't already have a food scale, I'd recommend getting one. It will help you ensure you're actually eating the number of calories you think you are -- eyeballing and even measuring cups are not as accurate. Choosing correct database entries (and verifying them when possible) is also very important, as any entry can have errors or could be an inappropriate choice if you're not careful.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10012907/logging-accuracy-consistency-and-youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think/p1

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101/p1

2 pounds a week is very aggressive for 34 total pounds to lose. Even at 1200 net (MFPs default minimum) - 2 pounds each week isn't very likely.

MFP gave you a deficit BEFORE exercise. So you should actually be eating more than 1200. Most people cut MFPs exercise calories in half (very generous). As others have said....weigh your food, log everything. The logging accurately thread is very helpful. There are a lot of erroneous entries in MFP.

kattbuckland wrote: »

So re: misfit, this is the screenshot from yesterday - it's saying 2709 calories burned - am I right in thinking then that if I ate 2000 calories I'd be losing 1.5lbs (ish) a week? And I can just adjust my calorie intake depending on how much exercise I do that day?

Yep. Adjust by 250 calories for every 0.5 lb.

If you want more consistency: Given enough Misfit data, you should be able to calculate an average that you typically burn, which would allow you to pick a calorie target that you could eat at consistently if you wanted to. Like if you burn 2500 on average (some days more, some less, but averages) then you could eat 2500 - 750 every day, and that should average out to 1.5 lbs a week.

Check accuracy: As long as you use a food scale and get your logging as accurate as you can, in 4-8 weeks, you should be able to judge your results to verify that your Misfit is giving you good info. If you lose slower than you would expect, then Misfit may be overestimating your burns a bit, and you can adjust your calorie target a bit accordingly. (But it is important then to be as accurate with your food as you can, or you won't know which log has the inaccuracies -- exercise or food.)