Worried...

When you only have a little weight (I assume you aren't trying to loose much) eating 1200 calls a day is a bad way to fail. Try upping your goal to loose 0.5-1 lbs per week this means upping your cals. As always drink that water.

well i dont know what your goal is...

but seems to me you need to be more consistant with the calories every day. you really cant make up or eat more one day because you ate less the previous. our bodies run on a minute to minute basis. meaning you can eat 800 calories one day fine..you may burn a little tiny bit of fat that day to fuel your body (not in lbs though)..so you over eat the next and your body already has plenty of cals to function that day, so it stores the rest as fat..so oh looky there you've gained a little bit of fat.


ya and i dont understand the 1200 cal failure thing. listen, as long as you've worked your activity level into your T.E.E. you shouldnt need to eat anything back. since all the exercise is accounted for as that activity level. My TEE is around 1750..i consider myself lightly active. I have never counted exercise into anything and i've never had any issues.

I took the failure thing to mean getting hungry then eating all the things! Which is what would happen to me if I did that. On days when I dont workout my cal goal is 1200 and always go over on those days.

When you eat that little, your hormones that control hunger are thrown out of sync and one of the main reasons people regain weight when they stop dieting is because there are much higher levels of the hormones that cause hunger in them than somebody that hasn't dieted. By gradually slowing down your weight loss by eating closer to your maintenance, you help your body to adjust over time so when you DO stop losing weight, the hormone levels are as close to normal as possible to allow you to maintain.

Although I am a healthy weight I have gained a little and have been trying to lose weight the past month. I have been eating around 1200 cals a day (apart from some days, a couple at 2000, a couple more at 1600-800ish) and exercising most days, either walking or at the gym or both. When I go to the gym I do weight training too. I don't eat back all exercise calories but may dip into them by 100 or 200. So far I have been eating 1200 (give or take) for 29 days and have lost 3lbs.

I am worried that when I get to my goal and I start eating at maintenance (which according to a TDEE calculator is 1800 if I am moderately active and 1579 if I am sedentary) that I will gain weight back...

Can anyone offer any insight? Thanks

Your concerns are warranted.
The reason MFP makes its recommendations are to prevent this cycle as best we can expect.
Losing weight slowly is the healthy route, so learn from this experience. Start fixing the problem now - not later.
Set your weight loss goals for half a pound per week, and just give your body time to adjust.
Progress might be stalled for a season, but don't worry about that.

You've lost 3lbs so that's good. I don't see what the issue is?

I can only tell you what happened to me. I started dieting October 2010 and had lost 19lb I then stopped in November 2010 because I had got a new job and personal circumstances. I didn't think about weight loss and just ate as I wanted I don't go on binges but made sure I had 3 meals a day whatever I wanted. I just ate normal. I maintained the same weight for over a year. This was by accident I didn't mean to do it but Something had obviously got into my head. Most of my weight was gained when I was a teenager and hit pubity. I find when I exercise and drink water the weight comes off I dip my cals abit but try to treat my self as and when I feel like it but when I stop I do not gain weight. For me its a case of getting rid of whats their and not worrying about it going back on.

Thanks for the advice everyone. So I should up my calories as I only have 8 more lbs to lose? My BMR is 1200ish, but set at losing 0.5lbs a week my intake has gone from 1200 to 1270.

Should I increase my calories but exercise more the closer I get to my goal?

Are you sure your BMR is 1200?
What's your age, height and weight....

Let's crunch those numbers....

Your BMR is 1322.2. - according to the calculator I like
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

I think you need to set your goals for 1/2 lb per week, eat back exercise calories and track weight weekly for 4 weeks.
Let's just see what happens.
I had to experiment a bit, but because I was a taller, fat male, I had more to work with.
Your numbers are tight.

And at 108, your weight falls within "normal" BMI - 19.8
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

I need to ask: what is it you seek to accomplish?
Maybe you should focus on other goals besides weight.

Calculating your BMR is tricky. I looked at the one above (http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/) and it gave me 1441 at the weight I'm at now. I looked at this one (http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html) and it gave me 1314. MFP gives me 1370. That's 3 different BMRs based on the exact same information.

If it were me personally, I would change it to lose .5 lbs a week and that should get you closer to a more accurate BMR. JMHO.