I see a few things, so forgive me if I seem all over the place.
Calorie needs can be very individual. Height, age, weight-loss history, activity levels, etc. all factor into how many calories a day we need to maintain or lose weight. The ladies who weigh less but eat more may have a lot of different things going on their routines. So while it can be a decent way to gauge calories for starting to see how much others in similar positions are eating, we're always going to have to adjust to fit our individual needs. That can mean a couple of weeks of experimenting.
Online calorie estimators tend to vary widely and sometimes overestimate. Again, they can be a good place to start if we have no idea, but adjusting is going to be needed to fit us individually.
The only real problem I see is this mentality:
Quote:
This is what I did when I lost the 40lbs, but I somehow feel the fat isn't melting off as fast as it should?
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Firstly, the weight is going to come off at its own pace. We get to determine how much effort we'd like to put into our weight loss, so that can certainly affect the rate at which we lose, but we still don't get to decide what the scale says.
Secondly, who says how fast weight "should" be lost? There's no expert saying you "should" lose weight at a certain rate. As long as the scale is showing a downward trend then you're doing things right.
Lastly, you went off your plan for about 6 months. Your body re-adjusted to that, and it's
possible that it's just going to be a little harder to take off weight this time around.
Trying to determine how fast you "should be" losing weight, and then not meeting those baseless expectations could lead to huge frustrations which may lead to more "breaks". Don't let it. Nip it in the bud. There's no "should".
Down to your actual calories. Are you content with about 1500 calories a day? Are you hungry or weak? Or are you too full? Do you exercise regularly? These things all matter when it comes to your caloric needs.
If you're satisfied on your 1500 average amount of calories, there's not really a need to change anything. You could certainly always try to up them by a hundred calories for two weeks and keep track of the results. But, again this all comes down to experimenting. You're the only expert here on your own body.