MFP has me set at 1320, most days I'm under that at around 1260, sometimes a little less.

But there are some days that are a little higher, like 1400.

My BMR is 1909 and my TDEE is 2952.

Would 1400 be ok? Even 1500 some days? Would I still lose weight on those calories?

Hopefully someone with a little more knowledge will chime in and correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're going over by not much, as long as it's also on the days when you're really knocking out your exercise, it shouldn't be a big deal, right? But I would still limit those calorie overage days as much as possible. Because even if you still lose, you're not losing as much as fast.

It's been mostly days when I'm not cooking and I'm guestimating to the best of my ability what was used. I'm pretty good about portion sizes, but I can't tell my mom or my grandmother how to cook a family meal : /

There were raw veggies at the table, which I ate a lot of, but there were a couple things that if I didn't take, grandma would have been offended and at 85, she just wouldn't understand a diet.

Oh, I totally understand about the grandma thing.. My grandmother is the best cook and I swear Paula Dean took after her. Lard, pounds of butter, salt on everything..... And you can't turn it down because Nana won't have any of it (and it's seriously too good to pass up!) LOL And this is the worst time of year for any kind of dieting, so I'm anticipating a slowing down of my own weight loss. You should be fine, though. Just keep up the exercise! Even if the weight loss slows down, you'll still be losing!

That's quite a tdee, and you'll probably find that if it's accurate, an exta 200 calories one day isn't going to mean much for your loss.

Assuming all the numbers are accurate, on days when you're eating 1260, you're burning enough to lose 0.486 lbs that day. When you're eating even as high as 1560, you're still burning enough to lose 0.4lbs that day. So the diffence you're worried about is less tha 1/10 of one pound.

One way to tell if those numbers are accurate- do you lose an average of 14lbs per month? That is the loss suggested by the numbers you gave. At 250lbs, for me, a tdee of 3000 meant an extremely busy day- ie several hours of exercise plus lots of walking.

Either way, just keep in mind that every 350 calories you eat means 1/10 of a pound that you're not losing. Far from a tragedy for the occasional extra meal.

It is quite a TDEE! I'm not even sure if that's right! I did it on a couple different sites stating that I exercise 3-4 times a week.

I should probably not stress over it and just walk a little more and do a few extra situps during the holidays.

Of course you'll still lose, just at a (very) slightly slower pace.

F.

read up on 'calorie cycling" i do it and it makes a big difference

Unless you're completely sedentary, I can't see it doing much more than slowing your loss down slightly. It's not worth going crazy over.