The "Olivia Method" - the cool new way to set up your MFP go

This looks great, I am keen to try it as I have plateau'd and need something new.... I need to get my head around it and have looked for clarity in the previous posts but haven't quite found the answers I need. i apologise therefore if I am doubling up on what has already been asked!!

My calcs are as follows

BMR is 1339
step 2 is 1606.8
Step 3 is 732.2

Firstly - I am a bit hesitant to start eating more food - in my calcs I will be eating 139 more calories a day? This is a lot, I have been tending to not use my exercise points anyway and in the current version of MFP that I am using my calories is 1200 however I am averaging net calories at around 900, this would therefore be increasing the amount of calories I am eating by 439 - is this right and if so it is an awful lot.

I would never imagine that I would exercise over 732.2 calories a day as I am a working mum and I usually have a window of about 30 - 45 minutes where I burn up to 400 calories but generally between 250 - 300.

Also even though my calorie goal will be set at 1606 I need to remember that I am actually on supposed to be eating 1339 minimum? Is that correct?

On days when I need the extra calories, such as work Christmas do what is the maximum calorie number I should be eating?

Sorry for the potential idiotic questions I am relatively new to the calorie counting world and just wondering how it all works

I look forward to your response and thanks for your time and your great advice Olivia its much appreciated

What's nice about setting things up this way, is that you can see how much you would actually have to eat to lose, maintain AND gain. You shouldn't be worried about eating an extra 100, 200 or even 400 calories. If you're eating below your bmr, and you're not losing - this should tell you something. Your body wants more calories

Ok, so yes, you're going to set up MFP calorie for maintenance. Aim to eat AT LEAST 1339. This means that if you don't workout, you'll be creating a deficit of 267 (if you ate like this all week and didn't exercise, you would lose half a pound that week). If you want to increase the amount you lose per week you have to increase the deficit. Since you can't go below 1339, you need to do that with exercise. The more you exercise, factoring in that you'll only be eating 1339, the larger the deficit will become. You don't have to have a 1000 calorie deficit - this is just the maximum deficit deemed safe by experts. For you to reach this deficit you would have to burn 732. Since you don't think it's likely that you'll burn that much, just aim to eat around 1339 and you'll be good. If, per chance, you burn above 732, make sure to eat the surplus calories). You never want your calories remaining to be more than 1000.

So that's it. If you set things up this way, you'll see that unless that green number turns red and has a minus sign in front of it, you won't gain. Try it for a week - I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.

A word of warning - since you've been eating below your BMR for some time now, you may notice you actually get hungrier when you start eating properly. This will be a good sign that your metabolism is kicking into gear. Good luck!
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thanks Olivia, will give it a go, appreciate your time.. I will let you know next monday how I have gotten on!!!]

Help, my weight it 158 and my BMR is 1340