Don't fall into the "nutrition trap"

I guess I don't understand. I eat less, a lot less than I should but whatever (don't try to change me it ain't gonna happen) and I have tons of energy. I exercise 5 or 6 days a week and most of those days I exercise twice a day. I'm not crabby at all, actually less so now that I'm almost 100 lbs down. I'm not hungry at all.

I read post after post about people who can't lose weight or are in a plateu eating 1300 calories or less per day. I know when I started this life style change I fell into the same "Malnutrition" trap. It wasn't until a few months into my journey after educating myself by reading books, listening to podcasts, and testing the theories that I realized I had it all wrong. I started this journey weighing 320 lbs. I restricted my calories to 1600 per day per MFP guidelines for losing 2 lbs per week. I was constantly tired, had no desire to exercise, had a difficult time sleeping, was irritable etc. I continued to eat at the 1600 calorie goal for a few months. I still ate the same foods that were mostly processed foods, meat, and very few vegetables but watched my portion size to stay under the calorie goal. I did have success in losing weight during this time, but it was pure determination and fighting through the way my body was feeling and pretty much miserable during the process. One day I was searching for nutrition info on youtube and found Sean Croxton. He has numerous videos about nutrition and hosts the Underground Wellness podcasts and videos. It was then that I started to realize for fat loss it is 85% about nutrition and about 15% about exercise. I started reading about eating more to lose weight and not eating back exercise calories. It all seemed backwards to me. I didn't believe it and fought the idea for quite a while. I didn't want to gain more weight back by increasing my calories. I took Sean's advice and bought "The Dark Side of Fat Loss" ebook and changes started to immediately happen to my body. I raised my calorie goal to 2000 per day. I began eating "real" food and I started feeling better, more energy, desire to be active, slept much better, basically felt like a million bucks. I began using the 80/20 rule where I ate "real" food 80% of the time and processed food 20% because I didn't want to give up the occasional beer, coffee creamer, salad dressing, etc. and didn't want to be miserable or be annoying around my family and friends. I have been doing this for about 5 months and am down to 239 lbs as of this morning. I feel great, I am still losing about 1.5 - 2 lbs per week and I find it difficult sometimes to stuff 2000 calories of meat, veggies, and fruit into my mouth every day. I can't tell you the difference it made when I stopped eating loads of processed food daily. The foods that turn straight to glucose in your blood stream and get stored as fat by your insulin. My hope is that if you are reading this and have your calories set too low, reconsider raising your calories, don't eat your exercise calories back and just eat "real" food.