Confused about BMR, please help!

You will hear a lot of dieters telling you not to eat below your BMR. I won't tell you one way or the other, BECAUSE:

Weight loss in general is simple math. If you sit on your butt all day long and eat 500 fewer calories than you burned sitting on your butt all day long, you will lose a pound a week, all other things being equal.

Now, people have lots and lots of opinions. Some people are going to say you won't lose weight if you eat below your BMR. I ate below my BMR for a month and lost 5 pounds doing it, so I know that's false. I didn't keep it up though because it was too aggressive for me. That said, I STILL eat a little below my BMR and the weight is STILL coming off exactly as the math suggests it would.

I plateau'd twice. I thought, maybe all these MFPers are right! Maybe it's not about math at all! Maybe I have to eat my BMR!

Nope. I was not logging weekends and booze, and imbibing almost as many calories doing that as I was losing on "good" days. I now log absolutely everything and the math adds up every single time.

Now that you know the secret, I will say there are better and worse ways to lose weight, healthier and not-so-healthy ways.

HOWEVER, I don't know what's best for you. If you enjoy being active, I suggest finding what you find fun and doing a lot of that and logging it. If you're more like me and you have a super active social life, an exam to study for, a boyfriend, and an apartment to clean, maybe find cardio or calisthenics, get a short workout in 3x a week, and restrict calories as much as you are comfortable with.

Clean up your diet. If you're going to do strength training, up your protein. Don't eat as much junk.

Above all, don't be too hard on yourself and don't do more at one time than you can handle. A longer journey is often a more reliable path to success.

Good luck!