increasing calories/a little nervous

I don't think you need to be nervous. You are working out, your body needs fuel for those workouts and, assuming you aren't planning to increase your calories by a thousand calories or something, you will still be eating below your maintenance amount. I recently increased mine from 1200 to 1400, and I kept losing the same amount of weight. Considering increasing by another couple hundred. 1200 calories is the bare minimum of what you should be eating...you'll be fine. You'll see. And you'll feel better.

Do you eat back exercise calories? or is that your total calories weather you exercise or not?

I always eat back most of my exercise calories.

I find increasing calories to be a scary thing as well. I tried going up from 1200 to 1380, the 2 pound per week loss to 1.5 pound loss that mfp assigned. The first week I not only had a hard time meeting the 1380 but I actually didn't lose anything for the first time in months. I dropped it back to 1200, then manually increased it to 1250, next weigh in day I will increase it manually again to 1300. I think when you do something for such a long period of time that it is better to slowly move up. At least for me it was. I also try to eat half of my exercise calories back.

I have upped my calories now on approx 1800/day (5"8 and 141lbs), and am now losing again, I had stopped losing for a few weeks. I work out most days but even if I don't I still take in between 1600-1800. My energy is better and I don't feel hungry. Good luck

Did you gain when you first upped your calorie intake?

I am 5'2" and lost around 20 pounds on a 1200 calorie allotment, but I stalled about 5 lbs from goal weight for the last few months. I upped my settings to 1330, then 1460 and kept maintaining. Recently, I went up to 1600 calories per day, and a pound came off finally! So, up your calories slowly and monitor how it affects your body, and adjust from there.

Also, I lost the 21.5 pounds eating back 50-100% of my exercise calories.

Edit: I eat 1600 calories on non-exercise days, but I don't count the copious amounts of walking I do living in a city as "exercise." I eat closer to 1800-2000 calories on days I go rock climbing or take hip-hop class.

First of all, CONGRATS on your success! That is no small task, so hats off to you! :happy: Secondly, if you've reached your goal weight you can opt for one (or a combination of) several solutions:

1. Reduce your workouts by time spent per day OR by number of days.
2. Good calories to add that do not promote much fat regain are avocados, walnuts/almonds, DEFINITELY "blue" foods (berries, red/purple grapes, pomegranate, cherries, watermelon, blood orange, beets), dark green veggies, coconut (does not get stored as fat but gets used for fuel), and FIBER.
3. Match your calorie intake by the amount of calories you burn in exercise in order to maintain your weight. If you want some wiggle room, get within 100 calories.
4. Try fruit water. It's spring water with real fruit (sliced strawberries, lime or orange, etc). You can drink the water and then eat the fruit!

Hope this helps!

i started out at 1200 calories and was eating maybe 1300-1400 with exercising and i wasn't loosing a thing!! i upped it to 1500 and eat anywhere from 1500-1700 during my exercise days and i started loosing weight....so dont be nervous!!