Anyone else confused about MFP and the 'Roadmap'/Fat2Fit??

[Erebus]

Someone else here mentioned that they'd done their chart on 'MFP's Roadmap' so I looked it up, and blimey.

According to what I found after a lot of trawling, it reckons I should be eating 2100 cal a day to lose weight!!... albeit very slowly.

I had to calculate my body fat percentage 3 ways and find the average (ranged from 28- 38%), my basal metabolic rate (1400-ish on 2 calculators) and my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), based on activity, with their caveat that a lot of people underestimate their daily activity.

On this basis to maintain a healthy weight I'd need to be eating between 1900 and 2200 cal a day, or to 'speed up weight loss' I could cut by 'about 300 cals a day'... well, I've been doing 1300 a day, more or less! Not 1600-1700! And 1300 is below my BMR!

I completely 'get' that it'd be hugely useful to do a tailored weight-loss program and am surprised that no one seems to, outside of hospital Nutritional Facilities (where all the TV persons go, like Giles Coren and Michael Mosley), complete with BMR chambers, MRI body-fat scanners etc- when it would seem so obvious, and we're left with a set of scales that may be reasonably accurate for BF, and a pair of callipers!; and I also 'get' how one's weight loss can more or less stall if you're eating too little, but that that emphatically isn't 'starvation mode'.

I so want someone to tell me exactly how many cals I should be eating per day, for me to lose weight as permanently and quickly as possible. I know that 1300 is a handy sum but it just could be slowing my weight-loss down as opposed to me eating say 1700 a day, couldn't it?

But I need it without the science! How soon I got bogged down on ghrelin and leptin....

[Erebus]

I just wanted to add that I've spent the last 20 minutes listening to the Fat2Fit Philosophy (top audio clips on F2f radio) and I am beginning to understand it a bit more!

I guess the calculators are there to tell you the Magic Figure based on one's own dimensions- though I must say, I'd still like to know exactly what my BF ratio is, my TDEE and BMR! I like hard, fast figures to work with!

[Cryptonomicon]

I am just starting to find out about this stuff and find it very confusing. Have you tried eating at 1700 to see what happens?

Anecdotally, I know a couple of people who got past a long plateau by increasing calorie intake (healthily).