Still confused on calories and exercise

It's a personal decision on eating exercise calories or not. But you will find a STRONG opinion on MFP that eating 1200 calories a day is not sufficient. You can search the forums for a ton of information on the fact. "Eat more to lose more" I understand why people believe that restricting calories is the way to lose weight and I did that in the beginning, but it only got rid of the first 5 pounds. I bumped myself up to 1700 cals a day and lost 5 more pounds. Now I'm about to bump up again. Eating 1200 calories a day was not enough food to energize my body, I was exhausted, hungry. I am soo much happier now and losing the weight I want to lose.

Kimdoak, its pretty simple actually. You body operates on a BMR--this is the calories that are required for your body to maintain itself. You on the other hand exercise. BMR only calculates your caloric needs if you are a potato that sits in one spot and does nothing all day. What you need is a TDEE. This is the calculation that factors in the extra calories needed for those, like you, who actually do exercise.

Here's is the problem of not eating enough calories and trying to exercise.

1. Exhaustion

For a jogger like yourself, you should be aware that carbs are your friend. With low calorie intake, your energy level is low and you 'll find yourself more exhausted then usual.

2. Loss of lean body (which you should always try to maintain)

The goal of weight loss should accurately be classified as "fat loss" as we are trying to maintain current lean mass. What this mean is that if your intake is too low, the body does not have the correct amount of proteins to maintain your current lean mass. Quite simply when you are low in lbs you'll look like a stick figure (anorexic) rather than a healthy looking person since you loss your lean mass as well.

3. Slower metabolism

You body is a machine that understands how much you intake. If your intake is too low for too long, you metabolism will drop. As you know your metabolism is a key factor in burning off calories from your body. This is done to prevent you from losing energy too fast so that you don't die of starvation. Which is also why when some folks eat more they actually lose more fat rather then when they were eating super low calories. Sometimes when the higher calories come into the body, the body understands that it must burn extra unneeded energy from the body as oppose to the body trying to desperately cling to whatever energy is left in your body since you aren't getting enough energy as it is daily.

Last tip for you kimdaok, is that you should try your best to target a 20% deficit in your TDEE calculations. Yes its slower at losing only 1-2lbs a week or so but it is better for you and a healthy way to lose weight without repercussions and unwanted effects.

Base Metabolic Rate.

This is based on:
Sex, Height, weight, activity level.

Medical studies show that 1200 calories is the bare minimum to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Make sure that you have your activity level set correctly.