An easier way to setup goal calories - eating for who you wi

haybales, Can you help me make more sense of this? At my heaviest post pregnancy weight I was 225 lbs 5 years ago. Today I am 175 lbs. I am looking to get down to 140 as a first goal.

I do 3 days cardio/elliptical and burn approx 400-500 calories.
I do a little strength raining but not much. On the other days I do light to moderate walking for approx 30 minutes
I work part time 20hrs week in education and take care of my family and chores with whats left.

I rest/sleep for 8-9 hours a day ( and am very grumpy without it!!!)
I seem to be comfortable with a calorie count around 1250 but am finding it hard to shift any weight.

I sense the freedom of what you are suggesting but cannot wrap my head around it!! Can you help????

The basic problem is your metabolism, your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), is what your body would expend for energy on basic functions of life, it must be taken in.
If it doesn't get it, it will lower. That then effects how many calories you then burn on ALL other daily activity.

So eating below or at, or even slightly above, your BMR, and some good level of exercise going unfed, will use of those calories the body really does desire and need, so it will slow down to compensate.

Depending on how badly you have slowed it down, you can actually cause your daily eat to really be at maintenance level for a slowed metabolism. So little to no weight loss.

Eat too little with great exercise, you also push the chances of running out of glucose stores after several days of exercise, and now muscle will be broken down to convert to glucose - double whammy. That which burns more all day long is destroyed. Impossible to build it back up on a big bad deficit again.

So not sure if you got the spreadsheet reference on Part 2 of this topic to make figuring out avg weekly/daily activity easier, and show what settings to change. Tips there for how to look at activity levels.

This will help you protect your BMR for full burning, feed the workouts to improve (why else be doing them), and get maximum deficit from activities that don't need to be fed.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Amt7QBR9-c6MdGZlcmNCNmhJWFhtUGl0ZEk1RFd1c0E

Excel - http://home.everestkc.net/mbales/

Never heard it called freedom exactly, but it is easier for many not to eat back big exercise in just one day, or vary so much, ect. You eat at same amount every day, get good at planning, at the level you'll likely end up at anyway.
When adjustments are needed, you get good at how much you leave off a day if you miss a workout. How much you add if you add a workout. Adjust some days if a big dinner/party is coming up or exercise more, ect.
All the things that must be learned at maintenance anyway.