5"1 (short), questions about cal adjustments + adequate nutrition

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice. First I'll start with stats since I know that's important (sorry in advance if this is more info than needed for my questions, in bold, below):

Age: 34
Height: 5"1' (just barely; curvy, but petite frame)
SW: 150 pounds
CW: 131
GW: 125
Stretch goal: 115-120 (I'd be perfectly happy at 120)

I calculated my TDEE (Tdeecalculator.net) and it calculated my BMR at 1236 cals/day which is on par with what my FitBit One calculated. My "sedentary" calculation is 1483. Lightly active is 1700 cals/day. Sharing this info (I know these are "estimates") just for that reason and to reinforce the fact that I am a short person.

This is my second go on MFP. The first time (2 years ago) I started at 140 pounds trying to get to 120 and failed because I chose an aggressive rate of loss and then "plateaued" and gave up due to stress at work which lead to comfort eating and lots of dining out because it was convenient. I've never been an under eater, mostly a volume eater and through my life, weight gain has been attributed to stress/comfort eating + increased volumes/portions. Lessons have been learned re: too aggressive weight loss and eating habits/unhelpful coping mechanisms!

This time, I wanted to make changes that I could sustain for life. I started at 150 pounds in November and set a rate of loss at 0.5 pounds/week. At that time, I was pretty sedentary (I have a desk job and work from home ~8 hours/day). Back then I was getting maybe 3k-4.5k steps/day just from daily activity (no intentional exercise) according to my FitBit One so, when I input my info in MFP, I chose "Not Very Active/Sedentary." This gave me 1330 cals/day without exercise. Since November, I have been using a digital scale to measure everything and am mostly eating meals at home for a change. I began to lose weight at a rate a little faster than expected (around 0.75 pounds/week). In late December, I started walking more.

I track trends on Libra and I'm still trending downwards, though the weight is coming off very slowly (to be expected when I'm so close to my goal) so I'm not super worried about that. I'll get there when I get there. For reference, from November - April I lost 3.5, 3.6, 3.9, 2.5, 3.6,1.3 pounds respectively.Currently, I'm walking 8k-10k steps/day using walking as intentional exercise + whatever I get for my daily activity. At least once a week that number is more like 11k-15k, sometimes more. My plan is to start some resistance/weight training soon and potentially start indoor rock climbing (I hate high intensity exercise, if you can't tell already). I'm not sure how to track this kind of exercise, but I plan on eating more when that starts, seeing how the trends go after a month or so, and adjusting accordingly.

Although MFP set me at 1330 cals/day, over the past six months my net cals have been ~1227 per month. There are some days each month where I get less than 1100 net cals (I typically try to rectify this by eating more the next day to "catch up" or by banking them for a nice meal later in the week, but this does not always happen). Most days at around 1200-1250 net cals, I'm perfectly full/happy and can't eat more. In the beginning I wasn't always eating ALL my exercise calories back, but recently, I have been eating close to half back, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on how hungry I am. I understand now that the reason I was losing weight faster than expected has been because I wasn't eating my exercise cals back and thus netting closer to 1200. Whoops.

I've read all the sticky posts -- they're so helpful, but I still have some questions. This morning I read a post on here about under eating which concerned me, but it feels like most of those posts focus on women who are taller or average height or who workout more and therefore, they can eat more. I feel like an outlier in that I'm short and aside from walking, don't do much in the activity department. Anyway, after reading that post I went to my goals in MFP and played around with the settings to see what would change if I chose a different activity setting. I kept it at a 0.5lb/week rate of loss (I don't think it's appropriate to lose more and I'm not interested in quick fixes), but instead of "not active" I chose "lightly active" and this upped my calories to 1400/day. I thought, maybe 10k steps is now "lightly active" but I don't know how to confirm that. Is that an accurate assessment of my activity level? Is this the calorie goal that I should actually be trying to meet?

Then when I changed it back to "not active" it took my calories from 1330 -- what it has been for six months at this setting -- to 1290. Why did it do that? When I reset the goal back to what it was, did MFP take into account the fact that I've lost 18 pounds since last time I changed my settings? I'm not concerned that this is too little (hunger-wise) since I'm typically netting around 1227 cals/day/month and feel satisfied, but after reading that post on under eating, I was thinking maybe I should be eating more and was planning on making that happen. Now MFP is telling me different information. I want to be careful here because being this short means I pack on pounds fast with just the slightest increase in calories. Even despite the fact that I'm not super hungry at a net of 1200 calories (and that I'm short), I want to make sure I'm making nutritionally sound decisions and if that means eating more and being chubbier, so be it. It's more important to me to be healthy and chubby than sick and thin. On days where I have felt like I should eat for the sake of meeting all my calories (including those from walking), I'll have a high-cal protein shake even if I'm not actually hungry. So I'm basically asking, if all things stay the same (walking 10k steps/day + tracking food via scale), should my calorie goal really be 1290 + exercise for mild weight loss? And should I be eating all my walking/exercise calories back? Even when I'm not hungry? Once I reach my goal weight (125 pounds) and maintain at the "lightly active" level (if that is, in fact, inclusive of only 10k steps) that would put me at 1690 cals/day + any few cals I get from walking. Is that too little given my stats?

Please keep in mind that even a little weight looks like a lot on someone as short/petite as me so I'm trying to be mindful of even small changes.

Other info in case it matters: I have negative calorie adjustments enabled (it is motivating to me to see the negative adjustment for being "sedentary" and change it to a plus sign -- it makes me get up and walk). Before, when I would frequently go "in the red" it was de-motivating for me, but now, having a few calories left over at the end of the day or zero if I eat them all, feels motivating. I mostly walk to get extra calories and I don't record anything but food and weight in MFP. If I do non-step related activity, I record in MFP, but mostly Iet FitBit and MFP talk to each other on step-related activity. All things aside, I take an iron supplement every day due to an iron deficiency caused by a (now-removed) copper IUD -- on doctor's orders so I'm also intentional about getting enough iron in my diet; Vit D because I live in the northwest, and B12 because all vegans need it. I also ensure to get plenty of plant-based protein regularly.

Thanks in advance!