I'm 42 years old. According to the scale and other tables, my BMR is around 1500 calories a day. That's if I sit all day, doing nothing.
It seems, however, based on my eating and activity level before leaving on vacation (Mid-April to Mid-July) that eating at 1500-ish with moderate activity - gardening, cleaning, taking leisurely walks means I maintain my weight or even slightly gain.
If I eat around 1450-1550 and workout every day (or 5-6 times a week for an hour) at either strength training or step aerobics or the like, I can lose about .75 to 1 pound a week. If I'm religious about my eating and exercise.
Twice now, I've gone off plan for holidays and vacation for a month. Both times I ate what I wanted. Over the holidays, I ate a LOT and I mean a lot and I know it and I wasn't very active - lots of parties, etc. But now on vacation we were swimming, hiking and such almost every day. We were not inactive. I ate more (especially more carbs), but not grossly over-eating. I gained 9 pounds over that month's time. I was probably eating 2000-2300 a day AND I was active (as mentioned).
How is it that I gain so easily? I remember being shocked at a 3FCer exercising for an hour every day and eating about 1500 a day just to maintain. We are about the same height and age too. I was like "that's barely eating!" And here I am, and that's about what it will be for me to maintain at my ideal weight, I figure. Yet, I see others who can eat 2000 or more a day and maintain at much shorter heights even.
How is it so different for people? I eat now - a protein bar in the morning, coffee with whole milk, a piece of fruit. For lunch I eat an apple with peanut butter. For a snack I either have an egg or cheese or a beef jerky serving. For dinner I eat tons of veggies or salad with olive oil and a good size serving of meat - fish/pork/beef. No eating after dinner. That's it - 1500 calories and none of it from grains/sugars - no juice or soda or alcohol.
I'm getting perplexed. Seems I'll have to be pretty rigid with everything to lose everything I want to lose and to KEEP it off I'll have to keep that super rigid diet/exercise habit too.