Giving this another try....
 

*sigh* Well, here I am again.

I lost my original 65 pounds using Weight Watchers. And that worked for me at the time. But once I got to maintenance...everything kind of...fell apart. After two years of eating at a deficit, it was really, *really* difficult. At first it was hard to *stop* losing, because it was hard to figure out how many points I could add on without gaining and I always ended up underestimating. And then when I finally got the hang of adding points back, it became easier and easier to think, "Oh, I can eat that extra three or four points, it won't matter!" and it seems like I just kept saying that and saying that until now, and I seem to have picked up 25 of those pounds, which sucks, because hello, I worked my *** off to lose it in the first place.

But I can't afford to go back to WW, because twenty bucks a week adds up when you only work part time, so I've decided to try calorie counting again, since it's free (yay!) I'm just having a bit of a hard time figuring out my calorie goal. I've decided not to eat back my exercise calories, because I am pretty active and I fear that would just lead to my overeating and putting on even more weight, you know?

So I'm going to do the TDEE method. Initially I would like to re-lose the 25 pounds I've gained back, and then I'll see where to go from there (technically, even after losing those 25, I'll still be at least 15 pounds overweight according to the BMI chart.)

Does anyone have any advice? I do have a Fitbit, so that helps with figuring out how many calories I burn during the run of a day. I usually average between 2200 (on my less active days) and 2600 (on my busy days.) I was thinking of 1700 calories as my daily goal, but that sounds so high, especially when I think about the number of points I was eating while I was on WW.

So....does anyone have any tips/advice for me? I'd really appreciate anything you could offer. :)

My tip/advice:

Make sure you eat enough protein, and do squats.

If your lean mass is nice and high, it will be easier to maintain. I'm not speaking from experience, mind you - but from the advice I'm been given by my DXA scan tech, who does see people every day as their body composition changes, and does nutrition counselling for everyone from weightlifters to sumo wrestelers to plain old fat people like me :P. He says if you lose weight more slowly, you will hold onto more of your lean mass. And lean mass is the stuff that keeps burning calories for you all day long even when you're not exercising.

Big muscle groups are the best to work out because you get the most results for your effort. That's why squats are great - you don't have to do as many to build lean mass and burn calories. But any kind of weights are great. Heavy weights will build lean mass faster, BUT as women we might want to stick to lighter weights since the end result will be a more toned appearance (not bulky). I think for arms I'll stick to light weights when/if I start working out (I have high lean mass already but I might still want to tone once I've lost some more weight).

If I'm under on calories some days, I just make sure I get a full quantity of protein in (chicken breasts are great, so is fish).

Cardio/running/walking/regular puttering is great and will burn calories, but it won't build your lean mass the way squats/lunges/weights/etc will.

I'll add: When I did WW, my eating habits got worse. I don't think that's true for everyone, but for me, it decreased my protein intake, and increased my fat and carbs. I ate more junk food just because I could, and I lost around 40-45 lbs as far as I remember. Then of course I gained it all back.

I'm using MyFitnessPal now and since I can see the ratios of macronutrients I'm eating, I think more about what types of foods I'm putting in my system. But I'm also eating more of a whole foods diet now, so I'm just generally eating better food. I don't feel hungry during the day most days. Well, I do right now but I just got back from a vacation full of eating out, so I need to get back into eating healthy food. It fixes me right up.

I got a DXA scan to find out my body composition and base metabolic rate, so I was basically told "here are how many calories you need to stay the same weight, and here are how many calories you need to lose weight." So far it's been dead-on (except a big loss the first week). So I'm happy.

It also gave me a good goal for my final weight, which is now based on my body fat percent instead of the number on the scale. I want to be in a healthy body fat range, which for me means I might even weigh 200 lbs on the scale, but it will be the right weight for me.