A transfer with a question
 

Hi maintainers!
My name is Sarah and I'm a transfer from the Featherweights forum. I've surpassed my original goal, so now I have a question for you all.
I've been eating between 1600-1800 calories per day. I got this range by taking my BMR (1400 or so) and adding my exercise, plus 100-200 calories that I imagine I burn in daily living activities.
So that brings me to my question. I didn't mind being under my estimate while losing, but now that I want to maintain, how do I get a good idea of how many calories my body burns in an average day beyond my BMR? I've seen a number of different calculators give me very different answers. I also don't know what level of activity to punch in. I don't lie comatose all day, but I'm not very athletic and much of my time is spent reading or writing or sitting in class during the school year.
So how much do I need, would you estimate, for maintenance? I just want to make sure I don't go over.
Thanks!:)

It was all trial and error for me. Once I hit my original goal of 135, I tried maintaining that, but lost another 6 lbs. So I cut back on my exercise, and added about 200 more calories a day. I consume approx 1400 for my weight, and do some cardio 3-4 times a week. So far, I'm 8 months in with maintaining, and it's worked for me. Good luck! Sorry I couldn't be more help! Our bodies are so different, it really just depends on what it wants and needs from you to hold that weight!

Trial and error for me, too. I am at 1900-2000 on average now, and exercise pretty heavily. All of the calculators gave me something different, too.

Are you still losing on the 1600-1800? If so, I would suggest moving it up slowly to see where it settles down. Maybe 100 cals per day, try that out for a week or two and then move up more as you need to.

Thanks for your input!
I'm so happy with the calorie level I'm at right now (1700-1800 or so, with a few high 1900-2000 days a month), so I'm planning to just keep doing what I'm doing and see where my body settles. I'm pretty sure keeping up what I've been doing won't send me underweight, plus I won't be able to measure calories as accurately or exercise as perfectly consistently (though I'm going to try very hard) at school--I'm taking 20 credit hours next semester, so if I only remember to skip the ice cream and walk that day, I'll count it as a good day. :)

I'm kinda taking the see where my body settles route too. I was losing at 1600-1800 with one higher day and I'm was really comfortable at that level. I'm managing to maintain by keeping my weekdays at 1600-1800 and then, well I'll be honest, slacking off on the weekends. By slacking off I mean losely counting but allowing for WAY more endulgences than I should. I'm not sure I like this method of maintenance, and I'm not that thrilled with my weight at the moment so I think I'm going to pull it back in on the weekends and see where my weight settles on it's own.