Calories on rest days

What works for me:
At 63, 3 years ago, it took me the better part of a year to figure out how to lose 30 lbs. I started by cutting back, and scale watching. I upped my exercise, then bought a scale that gave me weight body fat, skeletal, calorie needs. Still no loss. Must be portion control - started mfp. I used their suggested calories and added in extras when I exercised. I weighed food to stay honest. Still nothing. I then cut added exercise calories in half and dropped basic intake by 200 to 300. During all this time I might have lost 10 lbs. Finally, I dropped mfp calories to 1,000, added in 1/2 exercise calories and 1/4 for gardening calories (I can garden for hours). Took me 6-9 more months, but I got there.

Once at weight, I watch what I eat and use my scale every AM before breakfast and exercise 4 times a week (which I need for significant osteoarthritis). Now, because of the holidays, I need to lose about 10 lbs before a 3 week cruise - I'm back on mfp.

By nature, I'm very analytical and can be extremely detail oriented. What I learned:
-My scale tells me I need 1350 to 1400 calories to maintain weight. Since I seem to maintain weight at about 1400 calories it appears relatively accurate. While absolute fat and skeletal are way off (dr told my my current fat is about 25% - scale says 34%) up or down trends are helpful.
-At my age what mfp thinks I need to lose weight is just way to high. I have always used a Polar watch (now an A370) to count exercise calories. Those are always too high as well. I send info from my Polar to mfp. The other day I had 2 aerobics classes for a total of 600 calories, mfp added another 700. I adjust to 1000 calories as my base. I now subtract the mfp added calories and cut the exercise calories by 50%.
- In 2 weeks I've lost 3lbs, fat% has gone down, skeletal up. It will take me another several weeks to get me where I need to go.
- I'm 5'6", headed toward 135lbs. Dr says while I'll be slightly underweight, I'm healthy. Resting heart rate is mid 50's.

Daydreamangel wrote: »

I thought I had my setting on lightly active, which would include exercise in the calorie amount they give you, right?

I get an adjustment to my calories from my FitBit, and in my experience lightly active really doesn’t include much activity at all. An hour-long walk on top of normal, around-the-house activity usually brings me up to the “active” level, so I’ve recently reset to that.

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